Podcasts about Gee

Could be the Catholics or the Jews, take a wild guess, I have little to say about what is happening. Gee what a bummer the gas prices are.

Patrick De Haan from Gas Buddy on the dramatic rise in gas prices // Paul Holden with a weekend planner // Jeff McCausland with an update on the war in Iran // Charlie Commentary on the arrival of Spring // Gee Scott with a new segment: Gee does things that white people do // Herb Weisbaum on the ending of CBS Radio and buying a new car

What do you do when you have a bad reading or have bad dreams? You can change them! Find out the easy fix in this episode of Breathe Love & Magic Maybe someone told you something that felt off in a reading that stuck in your head for years. The reader might have said, “You'll never meet the right partner,” or “You'll always struggle with money.” Gee, thanks for that notion. Argghhhh! Feeling lost in midlife? Register for the Free Midlife Magic Masterclass 3/20 @2pm ET or 3/21 @11am ET Let me know you choice of day in the message! Like a Pebble in Your Shoe Statements like that can lodge in the subconscious like a pebble in your shoe – so bothersome until you can remove it.  I recommend that’s what you do with a bad reading – replace it with something that’s supportive or positive. Years ago, this is one reason why I stopped getting casual readings, the kind where you're just curious and want to hear what an intuitive person has to say. For me, that started to feel like giving my power away. I still ask a trusted friend for intuitive insight from time to time, but only about a specific situation where I truly want another perspective. Or I feel stuck and aren’t sure which way to go. Recent Reading Recently, I was interviewing a woman who does an interesting style of readings. I allowed her to use me as a guinea pig during the podcast recording so she could demonstrate her method. That was not my best idea. I asked what I thought was a simple question that wouldn't get me into any trouble. How wrong I was. The experience inspired me to share this story because I want you to know how to handle something like this if it happens to you. I'm going to explain how to reset your energy and take your power back. And this same method can also help with bad dreams or even uncomfortable past life memories. Back in the 1990s I used to attend psychic fairs with friends. I was curious about metaphysical practices and fascinated by the people who lived and breathed this work. Plus, it was fun browsing books, crystals, and spiritual tools that were much harder to find back then. At One Psychic Fair At one fair I sat down for a reading and asked about my near future. The reader started describing a situation that immediately made me nervous. Before I knew it she was predicting that I would become ill in the coming months. I was currently healthy and had not asked anything about my health. I remember feeling furious that someone would say something like that so casually. My reaction wasn't exactly graceful. I stood up, slammed my hands on the table, looked her in the eye, and said, “That was not helpful!” Then I walked away in a huff. Admittedly, not my finest moment. Thankfully I never became ill that spring, but the reading lingered in my mind for a while. At that time I didn't know how to clear something like that out of my energy field. Fast forward to last week during that podcast interview. The woman I was speaking with seemed nice and good-hearted, but at one point she said something that made my jaw drop. She said you always need a bad element in a reading. That is definitely not true in my world. Helpful & Uplifting Readings When I do readings for clients, the goal is always clarity, compassion, and support. Even when something challenging appears, I talk about the lessons involved and what options or perspectives might help. A reading should leave someone feeling more empowered, not discouraged. As the recording continued, the direction of the reading she was giving me started to feel increasingly dismal. She tried to soften it when she noticed my facial expression, but the cat was already out of the bag so to speak. When we finished recording, I suddenly felt exhausted and strangely sad. I went to lie down on the couch and took a short nap. When I woke up I realized what had happened. That reading had left a heavy feeling hanging over me. First, Clear Your Energy The first thing to do after an encounter like that is clear your energy. I did a quick Reiki clearing and there are many ways to do this. You can smudge yourself, take a shower, wash your hands, or simply step outside for fresh air and sunshine. Then I remembered something incredibly helpful I learned years ago from Hawaiian shaman Serge Kahili King, and later encountered again in a book by Denise Linn. It's a simple idea that changes the way you see situations like this. You are not stuck with someone else's predictions. You have the power to change the outcome energetically. This same approach works in three situations: bad readings, disturbing dreams, and troubling past life memories. Here's what I did. Change the Outcome I spent time imagining the outcome I actually wanted. For example, I pictured the perfect summer. Lots of sunshine. Temperatures in the low 80s and low humidity. Walking along the shoreline or sitting with my feet in the sand. In my mind I was reading a book, meditating, writing in my journal, laughing with friends, and soaking up the ocean air. It felt peaceful and joyful. That was the energy I wanted to create. If you've had a discouraging or bad reading, you can do something similar at home. Take out your deck of cards. Don't perform a new reading. Instead, look through the deck and choose the cards that represent the outcome you truly want. Next arrange them as your ideal spread. This isn't wishful thinking. This is directing energy. Magic isn't about waving a wand and hoping for the best. It’s intention combined with focus and action. When you select the outcome you want and imagine it clearly, you begin aligning your thoughts and energy with that direction. Once you arrange the cards, you can take a picture of them, leave them out on your table, or revisit them whenever you want to reinforce the feeling. You've intentionally shifted the energy toward the outcome you desire. You are never stuck with someone else's reading. My future is up to me. It's in my hands. And so is yours! Change Bad Dreams This approach works with dreams as well. I once had a dream where a lion was staring at me in a threatening way. I woke up with my heart pounding and no idea what it meant. Later that day I thought about the dream and realized I had been feeling threatened in some area of my life. So I decided to revisit the dream in my imagination. I got on the couch, pictured the lion again in my mind, and waited to see what response came naturally. To my surprise, I roared at the lion. I became fierce and confronted it head-on. And in the vision, the lion backed away. It sounds funny now, but it completely shifted the energy of that dream. After all, it's your dream. You can change it any way you like. You can do something similar with past life memories. in Denise Linn’s book Past Lives, Present Miracles,  describes guiding large groups of people to recall past lives and then helping them rewrite the ending of a troubling experience. The lessons have already been learned. But changing the ending can shift the emotional imprint you carry. In one memory I recalled being part of a group practicing magic in Venice during the 1400s. Someone tipped off the authorities and they burst in and executed everyone. I did a visualization about this ending to change it. What came to me was to invite the guards to join us in the magic rather than kill us. In the vision they laid down their weapons and participated in the magic! The energy of the experience changed completely. The Magic of Neuroscience Why does this work? Neuroscience offers an interesting explanation. When you vividly imagine something, your brain activates many of the same neural pathways it would if the event actually happened. And your brain cannot tell the difference between a created memory or a real one. Focusing on a new outcome creates and strengthens new neural pathways. You aren't changing the historical event, but you are changing the emotional imprint it leaves in your system. And that shifts your energy. So if you ever receive a discouraging reading, had dreams or recalled an uncomfortable past life memory, remember this: No reader, no dream, and no memory has more authority over your life than your own consciousness. You have the power to choose the energy you want to create. Set your intention. Focus your thoughts on the outcome you prefer. Then take whatever actions support that direction. That's magic. The post Bad Readings, Bad Dreams, And Bad Past Life Memories appeared first on Intuitive Edge.

Gee talks about the reaction to the Iran War from our leadership // Will Gen Z save the movie theater? // SCENARIOS! 

This was a fine Monday crossword, straightforward but with a wry theme and clues that spanned a wide gamut of years. For instance, 3D, Bobby, Peter or Greg, to Carol Brady, STEPSON (circa 1969); 46D, Beats by ___ (headphone brand), DRE (est. 2006); and 67A, "___ gratia artis" (classic MGM motto), ARS (roared into life in 1924). So, regardless of what your generation is, there are at least some clues in today's puzzle that you'll read and say, GEE, I know that one.In honor of Monday we have another JAMCOTWA™️ (Jean And Mike Crossword Of The Week Award) to bestow, and bestow we did

What happens when success, hustle, and constant work stop bringing fulfillment? In this episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I talk with marketing strategist and entrepreneur Carlos Hidalgo about business growth, faith, burnout, and the hidden cost of hustle culture. Carlos shares his journey from corporate marketing leader to founder of Digital Exhaust, along with lessons from his book The UnAmerican Dream about work addiction, burnout, and redefining success. Their conversation explores why growth does not need to be complicated, why storytelling builds trust in business, and why boundaries matter more than work life balance. Carlos also opens up about faith, failure, relationships, and the power of honest conversations. You will hear practical insights on leadership, personal growth, community, and building a life that is both successful and meaningful. Highlights: ·  06:04 – Carlos explains how his faith became a personal relationship. ·  17:32 – Why he left corporate work to start his own business. ·  25:40 – His approach to making business growth simple. ·  30:17 – How hustle culture often leads to burnout. ·  42:29 – Why boundaries matter more than work life balance. ·  54:33 – Why real community helps solve loneliness. Top of Form Bottom of Form About the Guest: Carlos Hidalgo is the co-founder and CEO of Digital Exhaust, a growth partner that helps clients make growth simple. Carlos serves his clients as an advisor, consultant, and teacher to ensure they have meaningful engagement with their customers at every stage of the journey and are able to mature and create sustainable growth. Carlos has 30 years of experience working with organizations of all sizes as an advisor, consultant, innovator, and growth expert. He is widely recognized for his expertise in demand generation, marketing, sales, and customer experience and for coaching executives in the areas of leadership and managing change. In addition to his work with his clients, Carlos has won numerous marketing awards and been named to several prestigious industry lists as a marketing leader. Carlos is also the author of Driving Demand, which is ranked as a top 5 marketing book of all time by Book Authority, and The UnAmerican Dream, which was released in 2019. In addition to books, Carlos is a well-known international keynote and TEDx speaker. You can follow Carlos on LinkedIn or on Twitter @cahidalgo Ways to connect with Scott**:** LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosahidalgo/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CHidalgoJr Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cahidalgo_ Twitter/X: https://x.com/cahidalgo About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Well, hi and welcome once again to an episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, our guest is Carlos Hidalgo. Carlos has many facets about him. He's a speaker. He deals with growth and growth management and with his company. He tries to make growth simple for the people who are his clients. I'm interested in learning about that, but he does other things as well. He is also involved with his wife and marriage counseling, which is a little bit different than the one I think I find a lot of people to do. So I think we got lots to talk about. So, Carlos, I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here. Carlos Hidalgo  01:59 Thank you for having me. Michael, it's an absolute pleasure. Well, let's Michael Hingson  02:03 start with the early Carlos, why don't you tell us about you growing up and all that sort of thing, and where you came from, where you're headed, or whatever. Carlos Hidalgo  02:14 Sure, I was born one of six children. I was the youngest for about four years, and then my my parents had two more. So I am smack dab in the middle of middle six siblings. Was born in New Jersey, but call where I'm at now home, which is a little town in the Adirondack Mountains. And the reason I call it home, I started coming to camp here when I was five years old. Fell in love with the area, and then my father, in 1983 moved us up here when I was 12, and fell more in love with it. And that lasted for four years. And then my junior of high school, or right after my sophomore year, was told, Hey, we're we're moving I was 16, I was pretty pissed off at the prospect of leaving a place I loved, so I had engineered a plan to stay through my junior and senior high school, which in my mind, made perfect sense in my parents' mind, and for reasons now I understand, because I'm a parent, did not make so much sense, but I came back as often as I could, and then my wife and I moved here back full time in 2021 we also lived here in the 90s for two years, had our first son here so but grew up really charmed childhood was my dad was in advertising, so we got tickets to Great sporting events. We had horses that I took care of, along with some of my siblings, developed a love of the outdoors, which I still hold, which is one of the many benefits of living up here again. And so, yeah, pretty, pretty much, early childhood was, you know, be outside as much as I can run around school work wasn't my strong suit, but I muddled through and I Michael Hingson  04:04 made it. Where in New Jersey were you born? Carlos Hidalgo  04:07 Was born in a little town called Randolph in northern jersey. Spent most of our time in a place called blairis town. Their claim to fame as a prep school called Blair Academy, which I believe is still there. And then, I believe it was the original Friday the 13th was filmed. Part of it was filmed in Blairstown. Yeah, yeah. So I'm dating myself just a little bit. Michael Hingson  04:32 Well, we lived in Westfield for six years, so kind of know, New Jersey, but yeah, while we were back there, my wife always wanted to move back to California. She's a native. I was born in Chicago. She wouldn't let me call myself a native, even though we moved to California when I was five. But yeah, it's okay. Carlos Hidalgo  04:50 Sure, yeah, people get a little touchy about the term native or local and how it's defined, right? Michael Hingson  04:55 Oh, yeah, it varies all around the country, but there's. Nothing. You can't say anything bad about Chicago. They have Garrett Popcorn there. If you've never had it, next time we go through O'Hare Airport, you should get some Garrett Popcorn. Carlos Hidalgo  05:09 Okay, I will do that absolutely. Michael Hingson  05:12 Take a memo. Get Garrett Popcorn. It's it's really good stuff. Well, so what did you do for college? Or did you? Carlos Hidalgo  05:21 Yeah, I went to my first year, I went to a school called Word of Life Bible Institute. So it's a one year intensive program, study of the Bible actually here, not far from, literally eight miles down the road here, from where I live now. And at that point, it was really just an excuse to get back to the Adirondacks for a year, but I learned a whole lot. Met some incredible people, some of who I'm still very, very close with today. And then from there, I transferred to Cedarville University in Ohio. At the time I went there, we were about 2500 students. I think today they're closer to 7500 but I met my wife there, which was that, in and of itself, the three years of tuition that I paid as I transferred in, but study Business Communication, again, I wasn't a great student. What I realized is, if it was the things that I really loved to participate in, it was awesome. I had a really great time studying communication and language and how we speak. I was two years on the debate team, which was such a great education in and of itself. But everything else I didn't really love. I just the general ed stuff. I kind of thought, well, if I can skate by and, you know, get that, get the passing the credits. So that's really how I want about it. And the reality is, the way things are taught today, I'm a very visual and hands on learner, and so to sit in a classroom and try to take notes and go through theory and things like that just makes my brain hurt a little bit. So I but I but I finished. I got the degree and made some great friendships in the process. Michael Hingson  07:04 Well and clearly, based on what you did for your first year, you have a Christian orientation, or definitely a god orientation as well. Carlos Hidalgo  07:15 Yeah, that's that's really my operating system. Michael, I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God. I base my life on it. I spend time in it each and every day. And so what's interesting in that regard is, yes, I went to the Bible Institute. So while I had a lot of head knowledge about the Bible and God and Jesus and all these things, it's really been in the last 10 years that I would say I had a deep, meaningful relationship with them, and that came as from a lot of experience in my life, a lot of dark, dark moments in my life that were self induced, unfortunately. But really, what it's done for me is it's just radicalized who I am, changed my heart. And so it's gone from a having a head knowledge of it to a real experience and an engagement with Christ through His Word and through prayer. Michael Hingson  08:11 Yeah, head knowledge is is a fine thing as far as it goes, but there's nothing like personally experience coming closer to whatever it is, including dealing with believing in God and really recognizing what what God brings. And my last book that I wrote that was published last year, called Live like a guide dog, true stories from a blind man and his dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity and moving forward in faith very much deals with with a lot of that, the whole concept of the value and the power of personal knowledge, as opposed to just head knowledge. I talk about the World Trade Center a lot in that book, specifically in terms of what I learned and how I developed a mindset to be able to control fear, rather than letting it be the thing that overwhelmed me or overwhelms anyone and and I've had a couple people on this podcast who talk about it, and they say the same sort of thing that you did. It's not about knowledge that you sort of intellectually know. It's what you really know. So people, for example, in evacuating the World Trade Center, would look at signs, and they would follow those and a lot of people were able to do that, but that's still not knowing that is really relying on something else that you may or may not really have access to. So True Knowledge is the only way to go Carlos Hidalgo  09:38 100% and I find that I gather that through experience, yeah. And so the example I use is, if you ask me about my wife, you know, do you know Suzanne? I would say, Oh, yeah. You know, blonde hair, blue eyes, about five, five. Funny, smart. I could tell you all the different facts, but there's a big difference when you sit and you get to experience being with her, seeing. Her, how she interacts with people, how she treats others, all of those things. Take that knowledge and actually make an experience an experience, yeah. And so that's been the difference for me, as it regard, in my relationship with Jesus Christ, yeah, well, Michael Hingson  10:14 and Suzanne, so that's good. Carlos Hidalgo  10:17 Well, so absolutely, 31 years and we're still going. There you go. Michael Hingson  10:21 Well, keep going. That's that's cool. That's great to have that kind of a relationship. It's all too often we don't see a lot of that in marriage, and just people get married without knowing and that leads to all sorts of potential challenges. So it's good to really get to know someone Carlos Hidalgo  10:41 absolutely, yeah, I'm still, still learning, still studying her and learning all I can, after 31 Michael Hingson  10:46 years, and she is too Yes, she is. Carlos Hidalgo  10:49 She does a phenomenal job. Michael Hingson  10:52 So what did you do after college? Carlos Hidalgo  10:56 After college, I actually moved back up here, where I'm at now. Worked for two years for Word of Life, the same group that ran the Bible Institute. So then, actually, unbeknownst to me, i My heart was really at that point, I wanted to go into law enforcement. My father in law was an FBI agent for 30 years. I'd always been intrigued by law enforcement, so I thought going into and getting a job for a few years, cutting my teeth while I filled out a resume. So started working in the office of donor development or advancement, and that was the first time I really started to get any exposure to anything formal, marketing wise. In the meantime, applied to the FBI, never went anywhere. Ended up applying again, never went anywhere at that point. Then we moved to we left here after two years of marriage and having one child. We moved to Michigan for a brief time, and then we went back to down to from Michigan. We went to Dallas, where we lived for 13 years, and I worked while I was still trying to get into law enforcement. I kept getting marketing jobs and companies. So eventually I gave up the dream of law enforcement and just followed what's unfolding and had a pretty good career in two software companies as a director of marketing to cut my teeth and learn what global business was all about do a lot of travel, which helped me career wise wasn't so great home wise or parent wise when you're away from your kids, but it's been my career for 30 plus years. I've had a heck of a career doing it and very grateful for it, but I still still get intrigued at the whole concept of law enforcement, but I'm afraid I'm a little too old at this point to start down that path. Michael Hingson  12:47 How come you kept not getting anywhere with it? Carlos Hidalgo  12:51 Well, I did get to a point where the FBI I took a test when we lived in Dallas, and just they called after said I had scored well, which made me chuckle, thinking back to my college days of test taking, but and then they said, Hey, do you speak Spanish, which I do not, despite my name, which is very Spanish, Carlo. And they said, Okay, well, we'll keep your we'll keep your application on file. Let you know if anything changes. And that was the last I heard. So at that point, I just thought, okay, I can keep pushing this and trying. But again, as things started to unfold in the software world, the jobs that I had took care of my family. They provided well for us. They gave me opportunities to learn new things, try new things, opportunity to, like I said, international business, which I never done before. So at that point, I just thought, you know, I'm kind of seven, eight years into this thing. What does this look like going forward? And then are we going to have to just hit reset in all facets of our lives, financially, where our kids are settled, for me to go into law enforcement. So I abandoned it, and I'm okay with that. I think it would have been a phenomenal career. I would have loved it, like I said. I'm still intrigued by it, I still have great respect for it, but it just wasn't in the cards for me, and I'm okay with that. I think sometimes the way we grow is through the death of a dream. Michael Hingson  14:21 Yeah, I know I've always been intrigued by law and law enforcement, and I know that they're never going to hire me, and now they won't, right, but, but they wouldn't hire me, but I took, actually, some courses in college dealing with police and other things like that, because I was, and still am fascinated by it, and I have a great respect for the law. And I I admire good lawyers who are knowledgeable, who really are in it to deal with the law. And you can tell those from the typical ambulance type chaser who manipulates, but, but. I really appreciate the law. I in my life have had the opportunity to be involved with some efforts of the National Federation of the Blind, where we've gone several times to Washington to meet with congressional types. And so I've met some interesting people, met Ted Kennedy, met Tip O'Neill when he was still speaker, Senator Saugus from Massachusetts and others, and found and through them, got to meet some people who were truly committed to what they were doing. They weren't in it for the power. They were in it to try to really help the country and help their individual constituencies in their states and so on. It's a lot of fun. Carlos Hidalgo  15:47 Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure it was, I that's quite a roster of people you've been able to engage with, and I'm sure, no doubt, influence well. Michael Hingson  15:57 And we were there to talk about legislation that we needed. But I'll never forget first time we went in and we met Paul Tsongas. We talked about what we wanted to talk about, and he said, Well, it's the end of the day. What are you guys doing now? And we said, well, we're just going to go back to the hotel. And he said, You got a few minutes talk to you about Massachusetts. Well, we ended up staying for two hours. It was a lot of fun. Carlos Hidalgo  16:19 Wow, yeah, that is a lot of fun. I had an opportunity a number of years ago to do a tour of the West Wing, which was just phenomenal. So when you get, when you get those opportunities, I don't care what side of the aisle you may sit on or are partial to, the answer is yes, take it, because you learn a whole lot, and it's it gives you a whole new appreciation for our country. Michael Hingson  16:40 Well, 20 years ago, I was invited to come back and meet George W Bush because a congressman I had met was fascinated by my story and the story of my guide dog, Roselle, and he arranged for us to meet George W and we went back. It was supposed to be a brief, like two minute just photo op. This ended up being like a 15 minute conversation, and then it was a lot of fun. And I hope that we inspired him some, and we made a difference. And, you know, that's always a good thing. Carlos Hidalgo  17:13 Yeah, at the end of the day, right there people just like us. They are, I think the and I've heard that a lot about George W is his investment in people where he knew his you know, everybody in the staff that he knew their names, he knew about their families. So it doesn't surprise me that a two minute Meet and Greet was extended a little bit. Michael Hingson  17:34 We kept the Italian Prime Minister waiting while we finished our conversation, as it turns out, that's fine, Carlos Hidalgo  17:42 but it was good. There you go. There's your there, there's your the two truth and the lie icebreaker that they have. You do sometimes. There's, you can work that in, Michael Hingson  17:49 I could work that in, yeah, that would be, yeah, I should do that. Well, it was, but it was, it was, it was very enjoyable to be able to do that. Well. So now, so when did you start your own company? That's been a little while, at least. Carlos Hidalgo  18:04 Yeah, I started my first company that I started, I co founded with my brother. In 2005 I was working at the software company, and I just, I started to just have an edge of, you know, I should start something. I don't know what that looks like. And I remember one time just talking to my wife, and I said, I don't want to be 7580 years old. And think, what if, yeah, and my wife is very practical. And she said, Okay, so go for it, and if it doesn't work, just go get another job. And when she broke it down like that, I just thought, wow. Okay, she, I think she believes in me more than I do. So in 2005 I left the software company and we started a agency. And really, at that point for me, the Yes, I wanted to start my own company and see if I could do it. But the the big driving factor was my at that point, I we had four children, so we have four, and they were all pretty small, and I was traveling all over the country, and I didn't want to miss their childhood. And I remember coming home from trips and hearing conversations or seeing things that that I wasn't a part of, and I thought this, this isn't right. I need to be here. I need to be home. So I went to the software company, asked them what they thought they became my first client, and I did that for from 2005 to just early 2017 when I resigned my position as CEO there just to get my life back and kind of hit the reset button again, but this time, I meant it, so I left, and they're still going. But that was my first foray into entrepreneurship, and I just kept doing it since I started another consultancy, and now this is my third one, and also been part of about two to three other companies that. We launched, but never made it. So I enjoy the whole process. I love it, but, yeah, it's, I don't know. I mean, I will never say never, but the idea of not working for myself seems rather foreign to me. Michael Hingson  20:16 So the first company you had for 12 years, what did that do? Carlos Hidalgo  20:21 We were a mark. Marketing Yeah, we were a marketing services company. So we worked with business to business companies to help them in their demand generation, acquiring new customers and also customer growth. So that's really where a lot of my career has been sent, centered right, helping companies design them strategies, everything from content to technology to developing personas and putting together strategies on how to reach them when they're looking for something to buy that that client offers. Michael Hingson  20:52 Okay, well, that makes sense and certainly a worthy thing to do. So, when did you form your current company, digital exhaust, which is a very clever name, you'll have to tell me about that. Carlos Hidalgo  21:04 Oh yeah, there's a little bit of a story behind that. So I was working in 2022 early 2022 I had an offer to go be the Chief Revenue Officer of another agency, which I my wife and I talked about it, we prayed about it, and I had a really, really close friend of mine who was their chief strategy officer at the time, so the ability to work with him, stay in the industry and work with some really good clients, I jumped at, so I took that role over that role lasted eight months. I won't get into all those details of why? Never, never, really did get a clear answer. The answer I was given, not exactly. The numbers didn't the number. I'll just say the numbers proved otherwise. All that said that came to an end in 2023 I believe. Yeah, yeah, 2023 and so February, 23 so at that point, I was like, Okay, well, what do I do? I can try to go get a job, which I did. Nobody was really interested in, you know, early 50s, guy coming in. So, you know, did the interview thing. And then I just thought, Well, why don't, why don't I just bet on myself again and go for it. So at that point, the my friend who was the chief strategy officer, he had also left, so he and I started talking and thought, why don't we just do this together? You know, services he loves to implement, I love to sell. Let's just see if we can make a run at this. So here we are now. It'll be four years in or three years, I guess, in February or April of 26 and we're still alive to talk about it. And so that's how it came to be. It was really just, I've done this before. There's no security, no more security. I believe in working for somebody else than working for yourself. So bet on yourself and put out your shingle and see what you can make happen. Michael Hingson  23:06 Where did the name digital exhaust come from? That's a clever name. Carlos Hidalgo  23:10 Oh, thank you. We were, we were batting around so many different names, and we just had a thing, I think we had a running Google Sheet, like, let's just throw names up there. And then I was listening to a recording of a vendor that we had done work with in our early days, and he was talking about how you can track the digital movements of someone. And he said, You know, so basically, you know, they're leaving behind their digital exhaust. And he used the term twice. So I called my then partner, Tracy, and I said, Hey, what do you think about the name digital exhaust as a company? And he was like, Oh, I love it. So I said, Well, before we that, we have to call Dan and see if he would be okay. So I did some looking, you know, the whole trademark search, and when I told our partner about it. He said, Oh my word, I love it. He said, Never, never even thought that that could be a name, but if you guys want it, go for it. So we took it and it is, it's, it's, we think it's pretty unique, and it also describes a lot of what we do with customer data to get an understanding of how do you engage with them, where are they, and how are they going to interact with you and your brand? How so well. Again, he was right. I can look at your digital footprint or your digital behavior. I can see what sites you've visited, what web pages you visited, how much time you spend on a product piece, how much content you engage so I can look at all of that behind the scenes. Start to score that if you're an account that I want to go after, or if I'm a lead based sale, that gives me a lot of intelligence on what you're interested in. And then there's ways to kind of, from a insight perspective, determine where you are in that journey, whether it's your four. First time as a purchase, you're a current customer and you're interested in purchasing something else. So it gives us a lot of insight into that, so that I can message you or I also know when should sales place a phone call to you and start that conversation. So that's why we use the term digital exhaust, because, again, it's a lot of what we do and how we use our customer data. Michael Hingson  25:20 Several years ago, I watched a 60 Minutes program, gosh, I don't know it's actually a number of years ago. And one of the segments there was a guy who was on he was a private detective, and what he said was, I can tell more about you than most anyone else can simply by looking at your trash. And in fact, I can't remember if it was Mike Wallace or not. Who was the interviewer, but they went on investigated some trash cans and and this guy could just tell you so much about your entire life just by looking at what was in the trash can. It was really pretty amazing and and I don't mean that in any way as a negative thing, but it's very clever that people have that insight. So I appreciate what you're saying about digital exhaust. It makes perfect sense. Carlos Hidalgo  26:17 Well, good. I'm glad it does. It means we've hit the mark. I'm not I will say this. I'm not going to go through my customers trash, but I am not surprised that if you did how much you could learn about somebody, 100% but Michael Hingson  26:30 you do look at their their digital footprint and so again, and it makes perfect sense that you can learn so much that can help you, help them grow. Yes, absolutely gives incredible insight. You talk about making growth simple, tell me more about what that means. Carlos Hidalgo  26:51 Yeah, you know, I've been in the space a long time, and that really came a couple years ago. We started seeing different models that would come up different frameworks that would come out from different vendors. Started talking, you know, I talked to a lot of chief marketing officers in my role, and over and over, what we saw was just complexity of taking terms that everybody would know and applying a new term or creating a new term to replace the old term, because you wanted to stay edgy. And I finally had a CMO who said to me, this is all so complex. Is there any any organization out there, or any way to just make this simple? And I thought, Gee, I kind of been thinking the same thing, because I see all these talking heads out there on LinkedIn and at these conferences showing these overly complex, overly engineered models, and I'm like, You got to be a PhD to implement that thing. And again, I'm also a pretty simple guy. I don't think growth needs to be all that hard if you know your customer, what they need, when they need it, and why it's important to them. I'm going to be able to sell you quite a bit. I'm also going to be able to be a better marketing, better partner to you, because I'll be the first one to be able to tell you you don't need that, or you need that, but you shouldn't get it from us, and here's why. And so we just started saying, You know what? Let's create with our models. And we have models and we have frameworks, but we want them to be kind of what Apple is, right, really innovative, where you can use it. You don't necessarily have to have someone to guide you through it. And so let's just make it as simple as possible for our clients to grow their companies without these over engineered models, which mostly a lot of them are created to sell stuff. And while we want to sell stuff more, so we want to help customers be better at what they do. And so that's why we say is we want to help you make growth simple, cut through the clutter, get to what matters and move forward. Michael Hingson  28:58 Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. By by any standard, how do you find storytelling comes into what you do and how you interact with customers? Carlos Hidalgo  29:11 Yeah, it's really important in the beginning, right in the beginning stages. Anytime I'm engaging with you, if I'm a consumer and you're a brand, I want to your brand should tell a story about who you are, the value that the customer gets when they're going to interact with you, they're going to use your product, what you stand for. Can they trust you? Trust is huge. Right now. We live in a trust economy. I want to know that if you say something, I can you're going to stand behind it. So all of those things are come through in terms of story. Now, what I've always said is I think that story is important. But when it comes to now, especially in the world I live in business to business, once I get into maybe I want to purchase something for you or purchase your product. Now I. Moves from a story to a dialog because I started, I start need, needing to know, what are you interested in? What are your challenges? What are your needs, what are your pain points? And as you're telling me that I can respond more in a conversation, I can still use parts of the story, but now it's a two way dialog, even in a digital world. So if I can create that, that's fantastic, then you become my customer. And now I still want to keep telling you stories. I want to tell you a story about why you can trust us. I tell you a story about how I interact with you. I tell you a story about how I deliver service and how I help you onboard. So all that bleeds into what we call, you know, what I call the big customer experience, from brand engagement to what I'm buying to now that I become a customer, all of those are experiential factors that we have to consider. Michael Hingson  30:49 Well, yeah, and I think that storytelling is a very significant part of selling and sales, because it's part of what really helps create the trust, because people can see through it, if you're just blowing smoke or playing games. Carlos Hidalgo  31:05 Yes, they can absolutely. And you only get one shot if that's what you're gonna do only, yeah, once I realized that forget it, I'm not coming back, that brand loyalty is away real quick. Michael Hingson  31:16 Yeah. So do you encounter in the interactions that you have with people with a lot of burnout or who are going that way. Carlos Hidalgo  31:25 Oh yeah. It's, it's something that I went through in 2016 it's, it's a, I mean, the World Health Organization, whatever you think about them, they definitely have listed it as a illness or as a condition. So it's something that I've seen. It's something that I've written against quite a bit. I don't think we need to get there, but I also think it is part of the consequence, or the outcome of when we make work center of our universe, and we make work our God, when that's going to happen then, yeah, you're going to experience burnout. And I think burnout comes in different flavors, but I see a lot of people who are going through it, trying to work through it, trudge through it. I heard the term the other day, manage burnout. I don't know why you would want to manage burnout. I think you need to take steps to avoid burnout, to avoid it. Michael Hingson  32:17 Yeah, why is it so many people face it, and are experiencing burnout is because they just deal with work, they don't relax, or what. Carlos Hidalgo  32:27 Well, I think there's a lot, lot in that. I've done a lot of study, and that was the topic of some of the topic of my book that I released in 2019 the UN American dream is, I think we, especially in our Western culture, we have adopted this idea that the busier I am, the more important, the more valuable I am, and so and the reality is, none of us are well wired to go, go, go, go, go. Rest is actually a gift from the Lord. And you know, I think very few of us. But you know, think about the last time you talked to anybody. How are you? Oh, I'm so busy. We love to be busy. We love to have jam packed calendars, because it makes us feel good. The other part of it is when you think about workaholism, you know, that is an addiction. And the only time in my experience, we engage with or become addicted to something, it's when we're trying to avoid something else. And so think our workaholism, which leads to burnout, is right up there with our rising rates of anxiety, of depression, of loneliness, because we have bought a false narrative that if we go, go go, we jam pack our calendars, we work like and work like crazy until we hit some imaginary number or we can call it quits. That's what life is all about. And I just sit there and you know, my number one question to people who are running that race is, how's it working for you? You don't seem really happy right now, you don't seem fulfilled, and you're living on the promise of some day and some days, not a day in the week, right? Michael Hingson  34:03 I People ask me, How are you all the time? And my response is something actually that I borrowed from somebody else. I just say, I'm lovely. Yeah, I get lots of reactions from that. It's kind of cute, but it's great. You know, I I agree with you, there is a there's a need and a time, and it's appropriate to not work all the time. Yes, we we don't ever take time even just to sit and think about what we did today. We don't take time at the end of the day to go in our own brains. How did this work out? How did that work out? Why didn't this work? Why did this work? What could I do to make it better and then listen for answers? It's like praying. So many people, when they pray to God, they pray to Jesus and so on. They spend all their time praying and saying what they want, never realizing God all. And he knows that, yeah, when are you going to start listening for answers and really listening? And that's, that's the challenge that I see so often people don't listen, and the answers are always there. They're in their inner the the inner voice that they can hear if they but practice well. Carlos Hidalgo  35:17 And I think to part of that is you need to be still, right? And we see that in scripture where we're told be still and know that I am God, if I mean there, there. We have so much noise and so much input with our phones and constant, you know, interaction and constant noise. We don't give ourselves the ability to sit and think and process, to just to be still. And that is something that I would say, really, for me, over the last decade, has come into focus of I enjoy my downtime. I enjoy the silence that I it's one of the reasons when I run, I don't run with headphones. In my own little world, in my head, praying, thinking about things. There are times I'll drive in the car without the radio on, just in silence, and I tell people, then they look at me like, I have three heads. Yeah, I'm like, oh, it's I am so much better for it, because I'm no longer living life reactively. I'm able to live life in a way that brings me a lot of peace, a lot of joy, a lot of happiness. And when I work, I work really, really hard, but it's definitely not the center of my universe. Michael Hingson  36:27 I know people think I'm crazy, but I can go days without looking well, not days. I'll go a day. I do it volitionally, but I can go quite a while without looking at text messages, and when I do, their message is there sometimes, but I know that I could actually go for a considerable length of time without needing to carry my phone around. Now, the only reason I do carry it around, I mean, clearly some phone calls can come in and so on, but I use other tools on it that you have access to in other ways. So I use it for those things. But the bottom line is, is that I don't need to have this phone with me to stay in touch with people all the time. So if I carry my phone more often than not, I will be in a hotel room listening to something on the phone and, sure, relaxing, rather than all the other things that one could do with it well. Carlos Hidalgo  37:25 And the number of people that I talked to and research shows this that, you know, the last I saw was over 60% it's the first thing people do when they wake up is they reach over and look at their phone and I say, sit there and say, What is so important that you can't even wait 15 minutes from the time your eyes open. But we've become addicted. We've come addicted to the noise, to the constant, go, go, go. And then, you know, we have a friend of ours last year was just, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. Told my wife, over the next three months, I only have this one day I can do lunch. And then you start realizing, like, Well, really, that's, that's how you want to live your life over the next 90 days, you only have one day. Now, I didn't believe it when I heard that. I don't think they were trying to make excuse, and I don't think lying. I think in their heads, they really had this belief of, oh, I can. I've only got one day out of the next 90, but we've weed ourselves into believing that this is how we should be living life. Yeah, and it's not how I want to live life. I'll work hard, I'll put everything I've got into my clients and my business and things like that, but I don't want to be that strapped. I was that strapped one time, time wise and work wise, and it made me absolutely miserable. Mm, hmm. Michael Hingson  38:45 I know when I wake up in the morning I do reach for my phone right at the beginning. One of the very first things that I do is reach for it to see what the temperature is outside, to see what the temperature is your house, to see whether I want to turn the heater on, you know, but I don't look at messages. I don't need to do that. I'll do it eventually, but, you know, I So, as I say, I use it for other tools, but I use the phone, because that's the tool that's available to me that gives me that information, and it'll help me decide, do I want to turn the heater on, or do I want to turn the air conditioner off? And that's what I do. And then I put the phone down, and I start visiting with the dog and the cat, and we have conversations which is, which is kind of fun, Carlos Hidalgo  39:29 but yeah, you get to enjoy life. Michael Hingson  39:32 I remember, remember the old technology town? Now it's old Blackberry. Oh yeah, the black and Research In Motion. There was one night when Research In Motion lost communications with all of the blackberries, and every BlackBerry went dead, I think, for about 12 hours. But I heard that even during the time when that occurred, people committed suicide because they had no way to look at their blackberries. And. Get information. And I always thought you're that dependent, that you can't cope for a while, especially at night without that information. Carlos Hidalgo  40:09 Come on. Yeah, it's staggering. The number of, again, over 50% of people said that they would be panicked if they want an app without their phones and so and again, I used to, I used to live that way. So I understand it to a degree, but, well, I understand it. Yeah, I also tell people you don't have to live that way, because people i The people I know who live that way, don't seem very content or fulfilled, right, right? Which is really the issue, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely, because we only go, we only get one shot at this life, and I want to make the most of it. Michael Hingson  40:43 Make growth simple. Carlos Hidalgo  40:46 That's right, personal, personal and business wise, right? Michael Hingson  40:49 Personal and business wise. So what is hustle culture? Carlos Hidalgo  40:54 Well, hustle culture has been promoted by a lot of folks, a whole lot more well known that I am, you know, where Kevin O'Leary for Shark Tank, Shark Tank talks about, you got to be willing to work eight days a week, you know, and give everything you've got, you know. Gary Vaynerchuk talks about, you know, go, go, go, go. And, you know, we just see it out there of this, you've got to be willing to go above and beyond. If you want to have success, if you want to make this money, you've got to just make sure you're willing to hustle at all costs, which to me, there's a place for that. As I said, when I'm working I hustle. I work hard. I get in a zone. I kind of block everything out and and there are some weeks where we require over and above it. You know, 16 or a week is is not something that has never been done. But the difference is, there's a couple of differences. Is I'm going to work hard because that's what I'm told to do. In Scripture, it says that with everything you do, do it with all your might and do it to the glory of glory of the Lord. So I'm going to do that. Plus work was one of the first things that God ever created. He told Adam in the garden, I want you to work now, what we also see is that it was cursed when man sinned, and it was part of the curse in the garden. But I do believe work is noble. I believe it's valuable, I believe it has so many things that can teach us. So I'm working. I'm hustling hard when I'm working, but this idea that I need to give everything I have to my business so that I'm successful. Well, what about our relationships? What about our own our last word, too, right? Our own physical health? What about my marriage? All of these things that require work yet, you know, you got a guy like Grant Cardone talking about 95 hour work weeks. That's insanity. Yeah, at what point, you know, so to me, I really believe, and I've had some people who've argued with me over this. If you want to know what the object of your affection is, show me where you're spending the most time and attention. And it's not time or attention, time and attention, right? I cannot. I cannot be, quote, unquote, working, but I can be with my wife, but my brain is working. My brain is thinking about my work, thinking about my business, thinking about my career. So what good is it to her if I'm there or not? Yeah, I'm not investing in that relationship, and that is just as much work as anything else. And I would I would say the rewards are better and the gratification that much deeper. So can work life balance actually be attained? I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in boundaries, and maybe I'm splitting hairs, but when I see that, over 70% of people say that work life balance is unachievable. It tells me it doesn't exist. It's also the only place in our lives where we talk we try to separate work from life. Nobody talks about finance life, business, kids life, business, marriage life, business. But we talk about work life balance. Now I understand we spend a lot of time at work in our modern day culture, but if I can decide that I'm going to put boundaries around the things that matter most to me, so like work, like my relationships, like my physical, mental and emotional health, my spiritual health, and that's how I've started to live life. Is instead of trying to balance everything, I'm going to set boundaries. So what does that look like? Well, the first thing I do in the morning is not check the phone. I get up, I pray. I have coffee with my wife. Sometimes we have really deep conversations. Sometimes we look just let the caffeine kick in and let it wake up, and then we set time in prayer. So every day, pretty much between 815 and 830 I'm at my desk ready to work, but I've put a boundary around that morning time, which allows me to start the time with with my Bible and with my wife from 830 To about 1230 I'm locked in. I am working. There's a boundary around there's a boundary. And then about 1230 to one, about two o'clock, that's my workout. Either go to the gym or I go for a run, come home, make my protein stuff, and then I'm back working again. And so and then when I'm done work, between 530 and six, I shut it down. Work is over, and now it's my personal life again, and whatever that looks like, and some of that is seasonal, because of where I live, in the summer, it'll get stay light till 930 and the winter, it gets dark by 430 there's quite a disparity. But because I have those boundaries, I know that I'm able to bring the best of myself to each of those areas of my life, and that is far easier than balance. And when one of those boundaries needs to move, I get to have a conversation. Hey, I've got a call tonight overseas. Or do we have anything? Are we good if I take this call at 730 at night? So I take the call at 730 at night, but I have that discussion, and it's it takes more effort to move a boundary, takes very little effort to get knocked off balance. Michael Hingson  46:05 Yeah, and I think that makes perfect sense. I know for me, when Karen was here, we we enjoyed breakfast and we enjoyed dinner, and I think there's a lot of value in that. Now, I was always the earlier riser, but partly because I worked for companies that kind of required that. That is to say I worked, for example, when I lived in the east for California companies. So I ended up being there later. But when I worked in the West, calling the east, I had to be in work by six, because that's what I needed to do. But we agreed on that, and I hear exactly what you're saying. The fact of the matter is that you've got to really make some decisions, but if you're in a relationship, then you both have to agree and make the decisions together, which is what really should happen 100% Carlos Hidalgo  46:58 and those boundaries will change. I mean my boundaries now that I'm an empty nester, you know, had I lived this way 15 years ago, would have looked far different because I still had children at home. And so the boundaries can shift and change. But to your point, you have to talk about that. And what I have come to believe is that if I'm making those decisions in regards to my business, my job, my career, and I'm not having the conversation with my significant other, then I'm not I'm not sacrificing anything. I'm just selfish. And yet, what we see is, Oh, you got to sacrifice for your business. I've said to couples before, if you and your wife believe and want to say, hey, we want to go build this thing and we want to go sell it so we know the next five years we're hardly going to see each other, and we're both on board with that, and this is what we want. Go in peace. I think you're nuts, but Go in peace, but still, you made the decision together. That's right, and that's the difference. And I find that a lot of people do not do that, and I also think it adds to the stress and the loneliness and the anxiety and the depression is because we're chasing something that is so fleeting, and no matter what Empire we may build professionally, we can't take it with us, right? Michael Hingson  48:13 And that's something that I wish more people would truly realize. It would make for a much happier world. Carlos Hidalgo  48:21 It would. But the unfortunate part is, until the pain and consequence of how you're living outweighs the fear of change, most likely you're never going to do anything different, right? 48:31 So tell me, Carlos Hidalgo  48:32 oh, go ahead. No. Oh, okay, tell me about the Michael Hingson  48:36 title of the book, the UN American Dream. Where did that come from? And why did you name the book that, why was that the title? And so on, Carlos Hidalgo  48:42 yeah, and so in 2016 is when I informed the company that I had started with my brother 11 years earlier that I was stepping down. Didn't really know what that looked like. I literally just one day, through the help of a friend and God's good grace, decided that it was time for me to go. And so the way they wanted to handle it in end of the year, and I think this was like end of October ish, when I made that decision, they said, You know what, let's not announce anything. We don't want our clients to get spooked in q4 so let's wait until the turn of the the new year. So that was into 2017 so I made a post, and I published it in February, 2017 about why I was leaving the company, some of the things that I was learning along the way. And what surprised me was the phone calls and emails I got from colleagues who said, Hey, I just read your post. Can we talk? I'm kind of thinking about the same thing. I'm miserable. And it was one email in particular that still stands out, where he said, I'm miserable. I started to think like, wow, okay, this, this is not just me. My circumstances were different. But this seems to be a problem, so I started to just do some research on our obsession with work, the number of hours we work, this idea of balance and hustle culture. Really immersed myself in it, and I thought this isn't what Truslow Adams meant when he coined the term the American dream. We're killing ourselves for what like, for What's the objective here to just add another zero to my bank account. So as I started to do that research, I saw myself and a lot of that same story, and the mistakes I made and how I was, you know, I had put my business first all the things that we've talked about. And I thought, Man, this is really quite un American, really, because we say we're the land of the free and the home of the brave, but we're not free if we're slaves to our company or our jobs or our careers. So I thought, You know what? I think what we're doing to ourselves is un American, and we're chasing the UN American dream, and that's how I came up with the title, Michael Hingson  51:05 who have been some of your greatest influencers? Carlos Hidalgo  51:09 Wow, I have had a lot. Obviously, my parents have been huge influences in my life. My mom is a fierce prayer warrior, and so I fervently believe I would not be where I'm at today if it wasn't for her and her faithfulness and that and my dad is it has been in marketing and sales and advertising. So learned a lot from him, just in life, and then also in business. There's a gentleman who lives up the street who is kind of like a second dad to me, it's an interesting relationship, because his son is also my best friend, but gentleman by the name of Keith Vander wheel who is salt of the earth, wise, just a wise, wise man has loved me, has when needed, given me a swift kick in the rear end, and just really helped keep keep me focused, and been one of these guys that I can go to, and it's a little about almost 20 years older than I am, so he's one that has seen more and done more. So I'm thankful for that. And then I am very fortunate to have about three or four very, very dear, dear friends, close friends, I mentioned one, Keith's son, who spur me on to greater things, encourage me when necessary, rebuke me and help me. And then I would say, more than anything, my wife, I learned stuff from her each and every day, her steadfastness, Her Grace, her strength of character, she is absolutely the strongest person I know, and has been the biggest influence in my life. Michael Hingson  52:45 I when I was in college, did radio, and I've always liked comedy. I've always liked trying to be a little bit flip and so on, yep. But I will tell you that my wife constantly amazed me. She was pretty much a lot more straight faced and straight laced than i But when she came out with a zinger, it came out of left field, and you never saw coming. She was amazing. Clearly, she observed me a whole lot more than I thought she did, right? Carlos Hidalgo  53:18 And what a gift that is to have. My wife and I were just, we went out for brunch today, with it being the holiday, and I just, I told her, I said, I just love how much we laugh. Yeah, what a gift that is to have in your marriage. We're just laughing together and laughing at each other in a way that's not demeaning, but appreciates our differences. And you know, we can tease each other and enjoy it and know it comes from a place of love, yeah. Michael Hingson  53:42 How do we deal with the epidemic of loneliness in our lives and in our world? Carlos Hidalgo  53:48 Wow, that's a great question. It's first of all, I think it's heartbreaking. I see this especially with men. And statistics would show that that men especially struggle with loneliness. I think number one is we have to come to the realization we were not meant to live in isolation. We are communal beings. God created us to live in community, and we need to step into that. And part of that is letting your guard down and being vulnerable and letting people know where you struggle. Now I'm not talking about wearing your heart on your sleeve and walking right every stranger and spilling, but those closest of relationships, and I can say, you know, for me, when I isolated, that's when I became the worst form of myself and went to places I never thought I would go. And so I think loneliness, first of all, get off social media and your phone, because that's not a connection. No, your friends, all of your 1000s of friends on Facebook, are not true friends. They're people, you know, but they're not people that are going to walk with you through some of the hardest times of your lives, and so find those. Group, find that community, whether it's your church, whether it's a small group that you take part in, whether it's people at your work, but really start to invest in those relationships and bring as much to it as you're expecting them to. And for me, it became just with those closest relationships. I'm an open book. I'm not going to BS. I'm going to talk about what's on my heart, what I'm struggling with, what my victories are, what my low points are. And for me, that starts with my spouse. As I mentioned, I've got three other men in my life that are around my age that I can confide in, be open with, and it's the most freeing, wonderful thing, and it's their relationships that I cherish, and I think that's how we end this cycle of loneliness. But I think a lot of people have been duped. Well, I'm on I've got a bunch of friends online, yeah, you know, put the phone down, get off your social media platform and go be human and interact with other people. Michael Hingson  56:01 It gets back to the same thing we talked about earlier. There's a whole big difference between head knowledge and really knowing. And the friends who are truly your friends are people who you know and who know you and that you can truly be honest with and who will be honest with you. And that is not something that you get from all those Facebook friends. Otherwise, you're being awfully silly, right? Carlos Hidalgo  56:23 And I also think we have to get out of this idea in our culture that if I don't affirm you, I somehow don't like you anymore, this idea that tolerance and love are the same thing. Some of my closest friends have been some of the ones that have come to me and said, Hey, here's what we've observed, and we're sure you don't like that about you, and you know this needs to change. And I love that. I love that I friends who will call my stuff and a wife who will say to me, this isn't the best you like what's going on here? I need that in my life, because if all I want to do is have people pat me on the back and affirm me. I'm going to get entitled pretty quick. Yeah, and that doesn't help at all. Right? How do we bring civil discourse to our society? We're in an environment and in a world where we just don't appreciate or have conversations anymore. How do we deal with that? Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, I think we have to get back to an appreciation for and a respect for human life and humanity in general. Michael, I'm sure if you and I spent a few hours together, we would eventually land on a topic that we don't just that we don't agree on. I can be okay with that, and because if I'm open to say, Hey, Michael is a human being. He's smart. He's overcome incredible odds in his life, and maybe if I listen, I can learn something. Doesn't mean I'm going to come to your side of the the position, but I can at least learn something. But I think systematically, over decades, we've been denigrating the the value of human life. I mean, how many millions of babies have we aborted in this country? You know, your your own story, your parents were told, hey, just put him in a home. He's not going to amount to anything because of his blindness. That's insanity, you know. So today, instead of civil discourse, if I don't like you, I berate you online, I make something up about you, or I kill you. And right so and to tell you how far we've gone, not only does that happen, but then we're gonna have people who celebrate in the murder of whether it's an insurance CEO or a Charlie Kirk, or anybody, and I just sit there and say, Okay, we've we've gotten so far right civil discourse. And so I think number one is just a respect and a value for human life, which we have a lot of work to do there. And then number two, again, back to what I said, this idea that if I disagree with you, I somehow don't love you anymore. And the example I use is this idea of, well, you need we need more tolerance and affirmation. There was a time Michael where my behavior within our marriage just was unacceptable. I mean, I was cheating on my wife, and once she found out she still loved me, but she couldn't tolerate the behavior for reasons that I think I need to explain. So at that point, you say, All right, well, how do those two things work together? If I had kept doing what I was doing, I know for 100% she would have loved me till the day she died, but she died, but she wouldn't have been able to stay with me, because you can't tolerate that behavior. She's supposed to affirm that. And so this idea that because I quote, unquote, love you, I affirm you, I actually make the case that if I love you, I'm going to help you be the best form of yourself, which sometimes means disagreeing with you and pointing things out in your life. That are unhealthy, that's fair. So I think we have to get back to that place of we can have disagreement, still have respect for each other. We can disagree vehemently and still do it respectfully, right? And then at the end of the day, I can respect your position because of who you are as a person, and that you know, giving you the benefit of the doubt. This is a well thought out position. And so, okay, great. We agree to disagree. We can still be friends, yeah? Michael Hingson  1:00:27 And we might learn something, or at least be put on a path where we think about it, and we may discover that, oh, that person's right, correct, yeah, which is Carlos Hidalgo  1:00:36 cool, yeah, and it's not that hard. And again, no, do your do your homework. Know what the real issues are, and stop reading headlines on social media. Michael Hingson  1:00:46 Yeah, really, get away from that. What else should we know about you? Carlos Hidalgo  1:00:50 Well, I'm the father of four amazing kids spread all over the country, ages 30 to 20. He'll be 24 in 10 days, and then an amazing daughter in law, soon to be daughter in law, my second son is engaged, gets married next year. I love the outdoors, anything outside. And I would say, if I want your audience to remember anything, it's that what Jesus Christ has done in my life has been nothing short of amazing. And like I said at the beginning, this is my operating system, and it's who I am and my reason for being in each and every day. And I sit here and I just am in awe of the life I get to live. So I'm very, very thankful and very, very humbled by it all. Michael Hingson  1:01:36 If people want to reach out to you and maybe explore working with your company, using your company to help them. How do they do that? Carlos Hidalgo  1:01:43 Yeah, you can email me at Carlos at Digital exhaust.co it's not.com so make sure it.co's or I won't get it. So you can shoot me an email visit our website, which is digital exhaust.co or looked me up on LinkedIn, just Carlos adalgo, H, I, D, A, L, G, O, right. That is correct. Yeah. I appreciate you getting the name right on the introduction. So thank you for that. I worked at it well. Michael Hingson  1:02:12 I want to thank you for being here. This has been wonderful. And as I tell people all the time, if I'm not learning at least as much as anybody else on this podcast, and I'm not doing my job well, which means I do need to listen and think about it. And I appreciate all the insights that you gave us today, and I appreciate all of you being here and being with Carlos and me. Love to get your thoughts. Please reach out to Carlos. Please email me at Michael H i, at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, but most of all, wherever you're listening or watching the pod podcast, please give us a five star review and a rating. We love that. We love your your input, please. Of course, I want it always to be positive, but I'll take whatever you send because we we value that. And for all of you and Carlos, you as well, if you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on the podcast. We'd love it if you'd let us know we're always looking to meet more people to help show that we're all more unstoppable than we think we are. And with that, I want to thank you again, Carlos, for being here. This has been absolutely fun. Carlos Hidalgo  1:03:13 Michael, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. Michael Hingson  1:03:20 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m

GUEST: Luke Duecy Millionaire Tax Marathon // War in Iran // Gee wants to talk about DEI // WOULD YOU RATHER

Listen to JCO OP's Art of Oncology Practice article, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections from the Clinic" by Dr. Carlos Stecca. The article is followed by an interview with Stecca and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr Stecca reflects on the impact of the public illness and death of Brazilian singer and actress Preta Gil on his patients with colorectal cancer and on his own practice as a medical oncologist. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections from the Clinic, by Carlos Stecca, MD Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experiences in oncology. I'm your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I'm Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. What a pleasure it is today to have Dr. Carlos Stecca, a medical oncologist at Evangelical Mackenzie University Hospital, to discuss his JCO Oncology Practice article, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections From the Clinic". Dr. Stecca and I have agreed to call each other by first names. Carlos, thank you for contributing to JCO Oncology Practice and for joining us today to discuss your article. Dr. Carlos Stecca: So great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder if we could start off by asking you to tell us about yourself. Where are you from and what led you to this point in your career? Dr. Carlos Stecca: So I am Brazilian. I was born in Brazil in a small town in the south of Brazil, and I did my medical training all in Brazil. So I did medical school here, internal medicine, and medical oncology. My residency period ended in early 2018. I did my residency at the AC Camargo Cancer Center, which is in Sao Paulo. And then right after that, I moved closer to my parents to start my journey as a medical oncologist. And I stayed here in the south for two more years. And then I was lucky enough to be accepted for a clinical research fellowship in genitourinary malignancies at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center. And I had the pleasure to work with Dr. Kala Sridhar for two years. So this was during the pandemic, so 2020, 2021. And then right after that, I moved back to Brazil. And I've been here for the past four years working as a medical oncologist specialized in genitourinary malignancies. But also, well, unfortunately here in Brazil most of us cannot do only one site, so we have to do a little bit more, so I'm doing gynae and GI as well. And in a few days, I'm moving back to Canada. I was lucky enough again to be accepted for a position at the University of British Columbia, so I'm moving in a few days. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh, my word. We caught you just in time then. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, yeah. I'm moving in four days now. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I can't imagine what it's like to be going between those extremes of weather from Canada down to Brazil. Did your teeth crack when you did that? Dr. Carlos Stecca: Something like that. Yeah, it was like, I moved in December. So in December we have summer here in Brazil, and it was like 35, 40 degrees Celsius when I left Brazil at the airport. And when I arrived, it was close to minus 20 when I went to Toronto. Yeah. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh, my word. Dr. Carlos Stecca: It was rough. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, those of us who live at or near the Southern Hemisphere, I will tell you, I've started to wear puffy jackets and snow caps when it drops into the 60s. Good luck with reacclimating to Canada. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the story that sparked this terrific essay. It was so interesting. The Brazilian singer and actress Preta Gil died of rectal cancer in July of 2025 at the age of 50. And she went public with her diagnosis. What is it that she communicated to the public about colorectal cancer? Dr. Carlos Stecca: So she was very open about her diagnosis since the beginning. So this was very interesting. She is very famous here. She had tons of followers on Instagram and social media, and she was very outspoken about her diagnosis since the first beginning. So she was diagnosed with an early stage disease, and she did a great job raising awareness for this condition, for colorectal cancer. She had a beautiful journey discussing the specifics of her case. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: So she talked both about her diagnosis and some of the treatments she was undergoing, but also about symptoms of cancer, right? Dr. Carlos Stecca: She really engaged in this discussion about her diagnosis and how she found out about her cancer. So rectal bleeding, this was disclosed in her stories on Instagram, and so she was very open about this. And it really helped people understand the condition, and it really increased the number of screening tests that Brazilians were doing. And of course, we saw this increasing uptake of the screening tests, which was amazing. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: In a way, I think she did a real public service, I think, both for early detection of colorectal cancer with symptoms, also for screening, so asymptomatic people who would undergo colonoscopies, and also demystified a little bit the treatment of colorectal cancer. In the US, we saw a similar phenomenon when the actor Chad Boseman of Black Panther movie franchise fame died of colorectal cancer in 2020 at the age of 43. These deaths have also sparked an international conversation about cancer in younger adults. Are you seeing that in your clinic? Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yes, definitely. We're seeing many more cases of cancer diagnosed in the younger population, right? So yeah, this discussion was very important to have, not only because the screening tests increased in patients after the age of 50 years old without any symptoms, but also raised awareness for those symptoms that should trigger the proper investigation. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder if you could speculate a little bit about why it is that we're seeing more cancer in younger adults. Do you think it has anything to do, for example, with diet and people eating more ultra-processed foods? Is it a phenomenon? I've even heard people talk about microplastics and whether that could be contributing. Also, recently, there was an article that came out that speculated that while we're seeing more cancers in younger adults, we're not seeing more deaths in younger adults, so we may just be picking these up earlier as more people are going to be screened or for additional testing at a younger age. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, I think so. I think this is definitely the case. I think younger adults are eating more processed foods, and we know that this is an obvious risk factor for colorectal cancer and other cancers as well. And maybe obesity as well, we are seeing this as a pandemic now in the world, right? So we are seeing this especially in developing countries. And here in Brazil, of course, we are seeing this as a phenomenon. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: It's so fascinating. I feel like we won't really know the answer about the uptick in cancers in younger adults for years until some of the data settle out, including the data about people during the COVID pandemic not going for screening and testing as often and whether we're now starting to see the downstream effects of that. Dr. Carlos Stecca: For sure, I think this is- well, during the pandemic I was in Canada, but shortly after the pandemic was coming to an end, I came back to Brazil, and I saw that. I saw that a lot of patients came to the clinic with more advanced cancers because they missed those opportunities of being seen by a physician during the pandemic, because of course, for obvious reasons, people were not coming to the clinic. And we saw that, a huge number of patients being diagnosed with late-stage disease because of that. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: It's fascinating. There's a named phenomenon called the Angelina Jolie effect. I don't know if you remember following the actress's 2013 opinion piece about genetic testing for hereditary cancers such as BRCA1 and following her prophylactic mastectomy. She is a carrier of a mutation. There was a wave of testing that occurred thereafter. So some good can come from celebrities going public with their cancer diagnosis. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Oh, definitely, definitely. I think that more good can come from their diagnosis and them being verbal about this than the downsides. Of course, the positive side of it is definitely outweighing the negative effect. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: You write a really thoughtful essay. You mention downsides, and there can be some downsides. One of the things you wrote in your essay was, "Yet for others already living with colorectal cancer, the same story had the opposite effect. Instead of empowerment, it fueled anxiety, guilt, and resignation. Some patients grew silent, fearing their treatment was futile as they compared themselves to a celebrity who had access to the best hospitals, specialists, and resources, and still passed away. Others questioned why they had not caught their cancer earlier, internalizing blame." Can you talk a little bit more about some of the unintended consequences of a celebrity who goes public with his or her cancer diagnosis? Dr. Carlos Stecca: That was exactly it, right? I was witnessing this in my clinic. I work in a public hospital here, and I would see those patients coming to me and voicing their concerns about their diagnosis, colorectal cancer, that was now in the spotlight because of that famous person that battled with colorectal cancer and unfortunately passed away after two years of starting her journey. And that was something quite difficult for the patients because, as you mentioned, and as I wrote in the text, some of those patients were in the public system and they were comparing themselves, comparing their diagnosis with the diagnosis of someone who had endless resources. And in fact, she even went to the United States and took part in a clinical trial. She participated in a clinical trial. And yet she was not able to overcome this diagnosis, and sadly she passed away. So, most of our patients were coming to the clinic and voicing their fears, like, "If even she couldn't get through this, how can I? I'm a simple person and I'm here in this world of limited resources." And here in Brazil, we do have the public system and the private system, and there is a huge gap between what we can do in one system and another. That was a concern that they voiced. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I'm sorry she passed away. How did you deal with that? So how did you respond to patients who said, "Gee, if this famous actress with unlimited resources dies from her cancer, what hope do I have?" Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah, so I think this is very difficult, right? And this is something that I was learning to understand now. Because as you mentioned, Chadwick Boseman and Angelina Jolie, we heard of those stories, but I never felt that this would be impactful in my clinic, that there would be patients voicing their concerns about their diagnosis being in the spotlight. And this is something that happened to me now. I would often see those patients, and I started to think about the downsides of a cancer being on a headline for those already living with cancer, and already living with that cancer and having their cancer in the spotlight. And so that was something that I needed to hear and address their concerns more actively than before, right? So this is something that is really important. And sometimes it is as important as discussing toxicity related to chemotherapy or other things related to the treatment itself. But addressing their concerns, it would be a way to alleviate the burden that the patients are experiencing from that. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: So what would you say to them? If somebody said to you, "How can I do well when this famous actress didn't do well?", what would you say? Dr. Carlos Stecca: The first thing is to talk to the patient that every diagnosis is different. So we do have differences in staging, we do have differences in biology of the tumor. And as we study more those diseases and every type of cancer, but here, especially colorectal cancer, we are seeing that those differences are very important in the treatment and they will be part of the prognosis as well. So no disease is the same as other disease. So your experience is unique. So your diagnosis is in a certain way unique. Your treatment might be different, right? Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I like how you personalized that for each patient. I really love how you end this essay. You write, "In those quiet moments after a headline, when fear enters the exam room, my responsibility is clear. I must not only prescribe treatment, but also restore perspective, dignity, and courage. Sometimes that is the most difficult, yet most essential part of being an oncologist." I remember, Carlos, one of my patients once described what we do as being almost pastoral. He himself was a minister and said this. And an important part of our job is to provide that context, but also a space where people can feel forgiveness for what they perceive as their fault. I wonder if you could reflect on that a little bit. How is it that, it almost sounds like it's too extreme, but we provide a sanctuary where patients can forgive themselves for the guilt they've been carrying around. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Yeah. No, I think this is very important. As medical oncologists, we are more than just physicians. We become friends with the patients, right? So most of the time I do create this relationship, this strong bond with the patient, because I worked as a family doctor before, so I treated patients very intimately as well. But nothing compares to being an oncologist now, because I think that the emotional burden associated with the profession is extremely high. And it's very difficult for the patient, for the family. And so we become part of their families and part of their story and their journey throughout their whole journey with the cancer. So it can be very emotional. I think that it's much more than being a physician and treating patients and prescribing treatments and discussing the biology of the tumor. And it's much more than that. And I think that being an oncologist entails all that, entails being part of their story and engaging in an emotional journey that they are having with the cancer. Especially here in Brazil, I think that the diagnosis of cancer has always been challenging. And I think that a patient's experience is unique and addressing the emotional part of it is very important. Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, what a beautiful way to sum up what we do. We become part of our patients' stories and journey, and they become part of ours, and I think that's why we write about it. It has been such a pleasure to have Dr. Carlos Stecca to discuss his essay, "When Cancer Becomes a Headline: Reflections From the Clinic". Carlos, thank you so much for submitting your article and for joining us today. Dr. Carlos Stecca: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague or leave us a review. Your feedback and support helps us continue to have these important conversations. If you are looking for more episodes and context, follow our show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen and explore more from ASCO at asco.org/podcasts. Until next time, this has been Mikkael Sekeres for JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Show notes:Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review. Guest Bio: Dr Carlos Stecca is a medical oncologist at Evangelical Mackenzie University Hospital.

GUEST: Luke Duecy on the Skykomish Child Abuse Case // If you could live anywhere in WA, where would it be? // WE NEED TO TALK: Storytime with Gee

Vandag is Internasionale Vrouedag en die kwessie van vroueverteenwoordiging in openbare en private ruimtes word bespreek. Vanjaar se tema, “Gee om te wen”, is daarop gemik om geslagsgelykheid te bevorder deur oorvloedig te gee. Kosmos 94.1 Nuus het met Sister Namibia se nasionale koördineerder, Brigit Loots, gesels wat sê meer moeite is nodig om meer vroue in alle sektore van die land in te sluit.

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Mike cover the tech news stories you might have missed. Hallow app beef update. Meta sued over false privacy promises about it's glasses. Gee, what a shocker. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q33nvj0qpo Google sued for wrongful death after a vulnerable user died by suicide after talking with its chatbot Gemini. https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/04/father-sues-google-claiming-gemini-chatbot-drove-son-into-fatal-delusion/ Brothel workers unite! Workers push back against a contract trying to claim rights to their image. Consider donating to them if you can! https://unitedbrothelworkers.org/ Advocates in the UK have been fighting nonconsensual image-based abuse, and winning. A new law makes the gross category of "semen-images" illegal. It's basically what you think. https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/semen-images-illegal-investigation and for context https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/glamour-campaign-10-downing-street A powerful piece by Kwaneta Harris & Leigh Goodmark describes the ways True Crime media exploits incarcerated women and makes them vulnerable to predation by creeps. https://truthout.org/articles/incarcerated-women-featured-in-true-crime-media-face-flood-of-sexual-harassment/ A new global poll finds that Gen-Z men are twice as likely as their Baby Boomer grandfathers to hold misogynistic views of gender roles. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/poll-gen-zs-gender-divide-reaches-politics-views-marriage-children-suc-rcna229255 [FUNNY] Pressing 2 for Spanish in the phone system of a Washington State agency leads to unexpected results. https://apnews.com/article/washington-dol-spanish-accent-ai-3a1b8438a5674c07242a8d48c057d5a3# Let us know what you think about these stories by emailing hello@tangoti.com or leaving a comment on Spotify! Pre-order our forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com ! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! || instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc || youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.socialSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, an in-depth investigatory show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (2/28/26). As always, take the information discussed in the video below and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant. !function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/u2q643"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");   Rumble("play", {"video":"v748wcq","div":"rumble_v748wcq"}); Video Source Links (In Chronological Order): Stephanie Seneff PhD Interview - Glyphosate & The Engineered Sick Care System Biotech and Pesticide Corporations Are "Winning" Under Trump's Second Administration New Tab (20) Monitor

It's amazing how when you are struggling with something you feel like this is the worst condition or problem you've ever had. You start thinking, "Gee, I don't know how this is going to work out for me in a good way. I don't know what I'm gonna do." But amazingly, you've totally forgotten that you've had big problems before, seemingly impossible problems before, and God delivered you and blessed you in the past. Here's a message that give.you some new insights into dealing with challenges that come your way.

It's amazing how when you are struggling with something you feel like this is the worst condition or problem you've ever had. You start thinking, "Gee, I don't know how this is going to work out for me in a good way. I don't know what I'm gonna do." But amazingly, you've totally forgotten that you've had big problems before, seemingly impossible problems before, and God delivered you and blessed you in the past. Here's a message that give.you some new insights into dealing with challenges that come your way.

It's amazing how when you are struggling with something you feel like this is the worst condition or problem you've ever had. You start thinking, "Gee, I don't know how this is going to work out for me in a good way. I don't know what I'm gonna do." But amazingly, you've totally forgotten that you've had big problems before, seemingly impossible problems before, and God delivered you and blessed you in the past. Here's a message that give.you some new insights into dealing with challenges that come your way.

Tell me if this makes sense… We live in a world today characterized by a fetishized pornographic addiction to rape. If it were not so, Law & Order: SVU wouldn’t have made it past a single season – let alone, into SYNdication for nearly 30 years…! I loathe Adorno and the CULTural Marxists who SYNthesized (read: weaponized) Marx and Freud to the general detriment of mankind, beginning with the ‘West’. But, he raised some legit points, as often the baddies do. It’s their SOLUTIONS we all need be wary of. For nigh on 100 years, we’ve basked in the jaundiced glow of the Frankfurt School, as legions of university students continue having their minds and spirits poisoned in the name of ‘Progress’. See also the ancient Roman Collegium, a concept dating back to (at least) the days of Plato – who, incidentally, literally wrote the book on The Republic. I digress… In Adorno’s “Fetish-character” essay, he states, a fetish is a substitute object of desire.[1] I would submit that in the latent undercurrent of this Nietzschean ‘power-evolving universe’ of today’s America; men and women, by and large, secretly harbor a craven desire for rape. It sounds crazy! Until one considers the popularity of Law & Order: SVU for the last 27 years. America is Kung-Fu LARPing, with each new iteration of the ‘fetish substitute object of desire’ further blurring the lines between fantasy and reality (schizoaffective disorder) as we creep ever closer to the Chaos Magick of bringing these secret desires to life. But, beware; LARPing has consequences.[2] The Epstein Saga has been publicly ongoing for 2+ decades. More than a thousand witnesses have come forward – including dozens who’ve accused Trump (E. Jean Carroll) – and yet, only Epstein and Maxwell have been ‘brought to justice’. Speaking of ‘justice’, Thomas Massie probably said it best:[3] Congress created the Department of Justice, Congress funds the Department of Justice, and Congress is responsible for the oversight of the Department of Justice. When will we see justice? I’ll tell you what I’ve not seen. I’ve not seen any arrests from the revelations in the Epstein Files – over 3 million documents describing horrible things, describing unspeakable things, much of it redacted. Over two dozen people have resigned; CEOS, members of government, worldwide. But, I haven’t seen any arrests or investigations here in the United States, from this Department of Justice. Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who has since been stripped of his royalty, his royal titles, due to his affiliation with Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested. Peter Mandelson, who previously served as UK’s Ambassador to the United States, resigned in disgrace from United Kingdom’s House of Lords and the Labor Party, and he’s been arrested. Former Prime Minister of Norway Thorbjorn Jagland has been charged. But, we don’t see any charges, arrests, or investigations in the United States. What do we see? We see our FBI Director celebrating in the locker room at the Olympics overseas. It’s fine to be proud of this country. But, we should be proud of this country because we have a system of justice that works. And yet we do not. … We need justice. We want the Department of Justice to get to work, and that’s what they need to do – now. The Trump (45/47) DOJ is unwilling to rat itself out – and so are the other 77+ million co-conspirators… And then there’s the 77 million co-conspirators who voted for Epstein’s best friend Trump as many as three times, knowing he’d been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women, and even after he was found liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll. For 77 million men and women it was not a dealbreaker! He rapes, but he saves. He saves more than he rapes … but he probably does rape.[4] Considering the aforementioned, what would be crazy is not acknowledging America’s fetishized pornographic addiction to rape – which is precisely what we’re doing. We are gaslighting ourselves at this point, as we turn a blind eye to our own culpability. After all – on the eve of America’s 250th Anniversary of Independence – wasn’t this always to be a government of, by, and for The People…? 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; …21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified [him] not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, …24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: …26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.28 And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. — Romans 1:18, 21–22, 24, 26–32 KJV 4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: [and] again I say, Rejoice.5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord [is] at hand.6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things. — Philippians 4:4–8 KJV #Links Clips [1:58] Etymology (the origins of words) was taken out of schools in the early 1900’s for a reason. (See also entry below) [5:39] Demons in the Headlines EXPOSED: The War for Power and Souls in D.C. | Strange Encounters | Ep 29 – YouTube (See also Blaze Media article below) [3:15] Rep. Massie Asks, “When Will We See Justice” Following Latest Epstein Files Revelations (See also C-SPAN Congressional Chronicle entry below[3:1]) Previous RWR broadcasts referenced 2026-02-25 2026-02-26 Proof of America’s fetishized pornographic addiction to rape Amanda Seyfried Wore A “Prosthetic [redacted]” For ‘Testament Of Ann Lee’ Amanda Seyfried will go to extreme lengths for a film role — especially when it comes to feeling comfortable during a nude scene. The actor wore what she described as a “prosthetic [redacted]” in her recent movie The Testament of Ann Lee, as she revealed in a Feb. 25 interview with BBC’s The Scott Mills Breakfast Show. “This movie, it needed to be graphic, so, like, I had a prosthetic [redacted],” she said in a clip posted to Instagram, which understandably perplexed Mills himself. When pressed for more details, she surprisingly had a rave review about the experience. “It was cool. It was exciting.” Seyfried plays the real-life Ann Lee, a Christian woman in 18th-century Great Britain who viewed herself as a representative of God and eventually founded a religious sect called Shakers, with the film capturing her group’s move across the pond to New York during the Colonial era. Son of megachurch pastor sentenced after horrific materials found at home ‘among worst investigators have seen’ An Indiana megachurch once known for preaching purity and sexual morality has found itself at the center of a scandal that has shaken a congregation, rattled political allies, and ended with a six-year prison sentence. Jonathan Peternel, 24, of Pendleton, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty in January to one Level 4 felony count of child exploitation and three felony counts of possession of child sexual abuse material. The case drew intense public scrutiny not only because of the disturbing evidence uncovered by investigators, but because his father, Nathan Peternel, remains listed as lead pastor at Life Church and is a longtime mentor and close associate of Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith. Why Viewers Say You Should Watch ‘Nymphomaniac’ Alone Due to Its Graphic Scenes Both volumes of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac are streaming on Netflix in the U.S., and its return to an easy, familiar platform has revived a warning that has followed the film since 2013: ‘Watch this one by yourself.‘ … So why does this movie come with a warning like that? The movie’s name actually answers that on its own. The term nymphomania is used to classify someone who has an uncontrollable compulsion toward sex, and that is exactly what the film follows across 2 volumes and 8 chapters. It opens with a woman named Joe, found beaten in an alley. A man named Seligman brings her home, and she begins telling him the story of her life from her earliest sexual memories through decades of escalating need. Von Trier was telling the story of a woman whose entire life is shaped by a compulsion she cannot control. … The discomfort the audience feels isn’t incidental. It’s the mechanism. Von Trier built the film so that watching it puts you closer to Joe’s experience than any non-explicit version ever could. The surface reading is addiction… What Joe is actually chasing is not sex but connection. Every encounter she describes to Seligman moves her further from other people rather than closer to them. Sex becomes the thing she reaches for because the thing she actually needs keeps slipping out of range. That distance between the act and the need behind it is where von Trier plants the real story. The compulsion is real, but the loneliness underneath it is what he keeps circling back to. He called this technique “Digressionism,” a term he coined to describe a storytelling style that deliberately wanders away from its own plot. He cited Marcel Proust as an influence. Nymphomaniac is the final film in what von Trier and critics call the Depression Trilogy. Following Antichrist in 2009 and Melancholia in 2011. After years infiltrating child exploitation rings, expert reveals an even DARKER American underworld | Blaze Media Demons in the Headlines EXPOSED: The War for Power and Souls in D.C. | Strange Encounters | Ep 29 – YouTube [31:30–33:26] Back to the politics piece; everybody within politics – even if they disagree with exploitation or whatever – they show partiality. And, I believe it’s, is it second Peter? … It says, ‘where partiality exists, exists every form of deceit and evil’. We can look it up … but I think that’s it. But, where partiality exists, exists all forms of evil. ***[Did he mean this passage?]For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, [and] easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. – James 3:16–17 KJV*** And, what is happening in our political world that I’ve that I’ve seen now is; you have career politicians – even if they claim to be Christians – they sell access. And, it might be access to conservative organizations. But, they sell access – and they’re partial to donors. … they’re unbelievably partial. And, they’re partial to their ‘club’, as opposed to the people they’re elected to represent. And, you have a bureaucracy that’s in place, and you have these elitists that are in place, that think that they can buy – because they have been able to buy your position – buy you, buy access to you, or buy access to somebody else, and ‘own’ – in this case, a US Senator, what I’m running for. But, it’s across the board for everything; Congressmen, even the President … Everything’s for sale. And, it’s ‘access’ that they’re selling, right? And, that’s the thing that stood out to me the most; partiality. More proof / Trump-Epstein Saga DOJ’s Epstein Files Screwups Get Worse With Unredacted Nudes and Images of Kids The Justice Department is under fire after newly released Jeffrey Epstein case materials reportedly included unredacted nude images and photos involving minors. Analysis by CNN uncovered nearly 100 explicit pictures of two naked young women on a beach, the news outlet reported. The materials also included photos showing a young girl kissing Epstein on the cheek. At least one unredacted image depicted Epstein alongside a nude female, and additional selfie-style nude photos of at least two other unidentified females were also published, with their ages unclear, according to CNN. Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed and President Trump signed in late November, the DOJ is obligated to omit sexually explicit imagery and anything that might identify victims. The images have now been redacted. DOJ Gives Shameless Reason for Hiding Photo of Howard Lutnick and Jeffrey Epstein Donald Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is ‘Shocked’ the FBI Dared to Come for Her ‘Uncle Jeff’ shifts focus on Erika Kirk grooming allegations post-Epstein file release – We Got This Covered Most Americans in new survey dispute Donald Trump’s economic boom claim CBS’s new hire appeared 1,700 times in Epstein’s files, and John Oliver just exposed his disturbing emails – We Got This Covered Epstein Had Close Ties to Prosecutor Behind Key Provision of Plea Deal | The New Republic Turns out ICE is just a bunch of scared widdle guys Fear as senator discovers staggering true amount Trump spent on arming ICE – Raw Story Congressional Chronicle – Members of Congress, Hearings and More | C-SPAN.org[3:2] [standalone clip] Rep. Massie Asks, "When Will We See Justice" Following Latest Epstein Files Revelations | Video | C-SPAN.org The Purpose Of the System Is What It Does (POSIWID) Millions at Risk as Android Mental Health Apps Expose Sensitive Data US defense secrets sold to Russians for millions in crypto – Newsweek Tucker Carlson pushes DNA tests for Jews, ‘Khazar’ theory | The Jerusalem Post The largely discredited theory states that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically descended from a Turkic minority that converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages rather than from the 12 tribes of Israel. During Tucker Carlson’s interview last week with Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, both men made considerable waves with their takes on history and theology. Anthropic says it will not accede to Pentagon demands as deadline looms | AP News Anthropic said it sought narrow assurances from the Pentagon that Claude won’t be used for mass surveillance of Americans or in fully autonomous weapons. But after months of private talks exploded into public debate, it said in a Thursday statement that new contract language “framed as compromise was paired with legalese that would allow those safeguards to be disregarded at will.” From the Wayback. Why – and why now – is Daily Mail breaking these stories out of the dust bin…? Secret mind-control techniques using TVs revealed in disturbing patent | Daily Mail Online Declassified CIA memo reveals plan to turn citizens into unwitting assassins | Daily Mail Online On the lighter / brighter side… Why age is an advantage for starting a business – Fast Company Sardonic levity, as Rome burns… Images That Might Indicate Society is in Decline | eBaum’s World Caller Dialogue David – WI Feminism dating back to early 1800s (CH: Owenism – Wikipedia) Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto – Wikipedia Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886)[5] Insanity in individuals is something rare–but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. Bitchute: Etymology (the origins of words) was taken out of schools in the early 1900’s for a reason. Also on YouTube: Etymology ~ The Origins Of Words Was Taken Out Of Schools In The Early 1900s For A Reason – YouTube James – Vancouver The Scribner-Bantam English dictionary : Williams, Edwin B. (Edwin Bucher), 1891-1975 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive #Footnotes Clowney, David W. “On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening” Reading Notes for the 1938 Essay by Theodor Adorno. 3 Nov. 2005, p. 6, users.rowan.edu/~clowney/aesthetics/ReadingGuides/Adorno.ppt. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026. More (e.g., “course guides” at Clowney’s aesthetics page: users.rowan.edu/~clowney/aesthetics/. ︎ Berenson, Alex. “On the Dangers of Cosplay.” Substack.com, Unreported Truths, 11 Jan. 2026, alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-the-dangers-of-cosplay. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026. ︎ C-SPAN. “Congressional Chronicle – Members of Congress, Hearings and More.” C-SPAN.org, C-SPAN, 24 Feb. 2026, www.c-span.org/congress/?chamber=house&date=2026-02-24. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026. Click on “Speakers” tab, select Thomas Massie in “Speakers” dropdown menu, and see timestamp (10:45:03 AM) and transcript of Massie’s remarks. ︎ ︎ ︎ [Massie:] Congress created the Department of Justice, Congress funds the Department of Justice, and Congress is responsible for the oversight of the Department of Justice. When will we see justice? I’ll tell you what I’ve not seen. I’ve not seen any arrests from the revelations in the Epstein Files – over 3 million documents describing horrible things, describing unspeakable things – much of it redacted. Over two dozen people have resigned; CEOs, members of government, worldwide. But, I haven’t seen any arrests or investigations here in the United States, from this Department of Justice. Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who has since been stripped of his royalty, his royal titles, due to his affiliation with Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested. Peter Mandelson, Who previously served as UK’s Ambassador to the United States, resigned in disgrace from United Kingdom’S House of Lords and the Labor Party, and he’s been arrested. Former Prime Minister of Norway, Thorbjorn Jagland has been charged. But, we don’t see any charges, arrests, or investigations in the United States. What do we see? We see our FBI Director celebrating in the locker room at the Olympics overseas. It’s fine to be proud of this country. But, we should be proud of this country because we have a system of justice that works. And yet we do not. Who are the men that should be investigated? I’ll name them right here. Leon Black; you don’t even have to see past the redactions to see that this man needs to be investigated. Jess Staley; accused of terrible things, it’s right there in the files. Why is he not being investigated? And, Leslie Wexner; why did the FBI list him as a co-conspirator in their own documents in a child sex trafficking case, and then tell him, according to him, that they had no questions for him? Why is that? Well, the Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the DOJ and the FBI to disclose to us their internal memos and emails about how they made those decisions, whether to prosecute or not prosecute. Yet, they have not delivered those memos. And, we still don’t have the memos and documents and emails from 2008, to explain why Jeffrey Epstein was given such a light sentence in what would have been an open and shut case of child sex trafficking, which allowed him to go back and recommit these terrible crimes, create hundreds of more victims, and ensnare so many other people in his conspiracy. Where are those documents that describe those decisions? We need justice. We want the Department of Justice to get to work, and that’s what they need to do – now! Jones, Marcie. “Gee, Look at All These Co-Conspirators in the Epstein Files That Pam Bondi and Kash Patel Say Never Existed.” Wonkette.com, Wonkette, 25 Feb. 2026, www.wonkette.com/p/gee-look-at-all-these-co-conspirators. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026. ︎ Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. 1886. Gutenberg.org, Chapter IV. Apophthegms And Interludes, ln. 156, 4 Feb. 2013, gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm. Accessed 28 Feb. 2026. from The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1909-1913). ︎

Scrap quilts. Sewing bees. Secret codes. Political activism. Controversies. Three of your new favorite Culcitologists – Olivia Joseph, Luke Haynes, and Joe Cunnignham – are stitched together for one mega episode on one of the most underappreciated and widely practiced arts in the world: quilting. We cover donated quilts, galleries vs. linen closets, incarcerated quilters, the ONE person you do not want to enter a fair with, quilting and covid, the Gee's Bend Alabama quilters who turned modern art criticism on its head, and the icons you need to know about. Also: washing, preserving, appraising, repairing, and enjoying quilts. It'll change the way you interact with your aunt, your local thrift store, art shows, and your very bed itself.  Visit Joe's website and follow him on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Visit Luke's website and follow him on Instagram Follow Olivia on LinkedIn Donations went to the National AIDS Memorial, Visit Gee's Bend, San Diego Craft Collective, and Crafting the Future Download the FREE Ologies x Luke Haynes Quilt Pattern PDF More episode sources and links Other episodes you may enjoy: Museology (MUSEUMS), Genealogy (FAMILY TREES), Indigenous Fashionology (NATIVE CLOTHING), Cabinology (CABINS), Modern Toichographology (MURALS & STREET ART), Canistrumology (BASKET WEAVING), Mythology (STORYTELLING), Venereology (SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS) 400+ Ologies episodes sorted by topic Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes Sponsors of Ologies Transcripts and bleeped episodes Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes! Follow Ologies on Instagram and Bluesky Follow Alie Ward on Instagram and TikTok Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jake Chaffee Managing Director: Susan Hale Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth Transcripts by Aveline Malek  Website by Kelly R. Dwyer Theme song by Nick Thorburn Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Listen to JCO's Art of Oncology article, "Mother's Grief" by Dr. Margaret Cupit-Link, who is an assistant professor of pediatric hematology/oncology at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital of St. Louis University. The article is followed by an interview with Cupit-Link and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr Cupit-Link shares a pediatric oncologist's experience of a patient's death through the new lens of motherhood. TRANSCRIPT AOO 26E03 Narrator: Mother's Grief, by Margaret Cupit-Link, MD, MSCI  Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experiences in oncology. I'm your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I'm professor of medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. What a treat it is today to have joining us our third place Narrative Medicine Contest winner, Maggie Cupit-Link, an assistant professor of Pediatric Hematology Oncology at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital of St. Louis University to discuss her Journal of Clinical Oncology article, "Mother's Grief." Both Maggie and I have agreed to call each other by first names. Maggie, thank you for contributing to the Journal of Clinical Oncology and for joining us to discuss your winning article. Maggie Cupit-Link: Thank you so much for having me and for choosing my article. It's an honor to get to speak with this group. I know a lot of our listeners have a lot in common with us in our profession, so I'm excited to be here. Mikkael Sekeres: We're excited to have you. You are such a terrific writer. Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, and walk us through where you are at this stage of your career? Maggie Cupit-Link: I grew up in a small town in Mississippi called Brookhaven, and I ended up attending college in Memphis, Tennessee, which is important to note because I was a pre-med student when I got diagnosed with childhood cancer, Ewing sarcoma, at the age of 19. And so that really shaped my career goals. And I was treated at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is very formative as well, given that I was surrounded by childhood cancer patients. I ended up doing my medical school at the Mayo Clinic Medical School in Minnesota, which was very cold for me but a wonderful experience. And then went to St. Louis to WashU, St. Louis Children's for my residency, and then back to Memphis for my fellowship at St. Jude. But now I'm back in St. Louis at the other hospital, Cardinal Glennon, which is affiliated with St. Louis University. And my husband's originally from St. Louis, so it was always a dream of his to be back here. And once I ended up here, I really have loved St. Louis as well. So this is home for us and our two babies who are ages one and two, and they are one year and one day apart exactly. Mikkael Sekeres: Oh my word. Well, you are definitely in the thick of it, aren't you? Maggie Cupit-Link: It's a very busy, chaotic life, but I'm very grateful. And so that makes it worth it. Mikkael Sekeres: That sounds fantastic. Well, I'm calling in from Miami today, so believe me, the thought of being in Rochester, Minnesota is not very appealing in mid-February. Maggie Cupit-Link: I believe that. I'm glad I'm not there right now. Mikkael Sekeres: Gee, I didn't know about your history of having cancer yourself. What was it like to return for fellowship at the place where you yourself were treated? Maggie Cupit-Link: That was an incredible experience for me. It was very emotional as well. I remember the first day of fellowship getting a tour and crying throughout the tour. More tears of joy, but it was, it was really surreal. It was really special. And I got to learn from some of the doctors who treated me, which made it really special as well. I'm really glad I got to train there and to be at a place with such a large volume of pediatric oncology patients was a really great learning experience. Mikkael Sekeres: I wonder, infrastructures, buildings change over a few years, particularly in medical centers. Was there ever a moment when you were talking to a patient who was sitting in the same chair where you were sitting when you were a patient? And was that something that you were open to sharing with people? Maggie Cupit-Link: All the time, on all accounts. Yes. The infrastructure has changed. It continues to grow significantly, but the clinic hadn't changed at that time. I think it will in the next couple of years. But the solid tumor clinic where I was treated was exactly the same. And there were many times where I took care of sarcoma patients and Ewing sarcoma patients who were teenagers as I had been in the very same rooms and times where I learned from my own oncologist as he was teaching me and training me. So it made it really special. It made empathy a big part of my experience. And I think it is for all of our experiences in oncology in particular, but I think that empathy has always been a huge part of my job and something that comes to me naturally, which is a gift. But as is sort of alluded to in my piece that we're discussing today, can be difficult at times. Empathy can also sometimes be a curse when it's hard to turn off, and that's been something as a mother now that I've really had to learn to cope with is like figuring out when my empathy might not serve me in moments and might not serve the patient in moments, and when it is an asset and a gift. Mikkael Sekeres: Empathy at the deepest possible level, having walked the same path your patients have walked as well. Really a remarkable story, Maggie. Maggie Cupit-Link: I'm very blessed to get to be alive and well, but especially to get to have a job that's so meaningful to me and hopefully can share my experience in a way that helps my patients. Mikkael Sekeres: And you share it through writing as well. When did you start writing narrative pieces? Maggie Cupit-Link: I started writing a lot when I was a cancer patient for more like a journal experience. And I had a CaringBridge page, which is one of these social media pages where families update their friends a lot on what's going on. And I started journaling daily, and then ended up publishing a book of my experience as a patient. I had also done a lot of writing of letters to my grandfather who's a retired professor of Christian philosophy because during my illness, I was really struggling with my faith and having a lot of questions as we all do when encountering children with cancer, "Why? Why God?" And so the book is actually called Why God? Suffering Through Cancer Into Faith, and it's a collection of narratives that I exchanged with my grandfather. And his part is more philosophical, and mine is more raw and emotional and expressive of the grief that I was feeling at the time as a patient. So that was the first big time I did narrative medicine, but I've found myself continuing to do so as a way to cope and process things that I go through. And the most recent one before the one we're discussing today was a piece about fertility that was published in JCO Cancer Stories and also I got to do the podcast for that piece. And that was about my experience losing fertility as a patient and how that has impacted what I tell patients about fertility and how I counsel them about possible fertility loss. And the plot twist there is that I actually have two miracle babies that I birthed for some reason after 13 years of menopause. So now I'm not infertile, but I'm very passionate about fertility as well. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, I remember that essay. I also remember how impactful that was to a lot of people who read it and how helpful it was. And gave a lot of people hope. Maggie Cupit-Link: I think hope is very, very important and necessary in the realm of cancer. Mikkael Sekeres: My word, you have so much that you could potentially share with your patients on their journey. Have you also been open to sharing your faith with them? Maggie Cupit-Link: Absolutely. I am. I think that it's something I'm really cautious not to push on anyone, but whenever patients bring up faith and want to talk about that or when they introduce that as a topic and make it clear that that's something that they are thinking about, then I'm definitely very open about that too. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, that must be a comfort to them. Maggie Cupit-Link: I hope so. It's a comfort to me as well. For me, I don't know how I would do this job and lose patients and children to death if I didn't believe in something more. Mikkael Sekeres: It's beautifully said. In this essay, you make a close connection to your patient and his mother when you write, "I imagined my own son contained in a hospital room, attached to an IV pole, vomiting from chemotherapy. I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine and the weight of his body on my chest. And as I looked back at Tristan's mother, I could only support her decision to hold her baby." What is the importance of this connection to patients, and are there any downsides? In other words, you know, in medical school, we're often taught to keep a distance, or there was an essay I wrote with Tim Gilligan, who's a GU oncologist and this incredible communicator, where we wonder if all the communication classes we're exposed to in medical school actually undo our natural communication and our natural connection because we figure, "Gee, if we have to take all these classes on communication, maybe we've got to communicate differently." What is the importance of this connection to patients, and are there any downsides? Like, should we keep a distance or not? Maggie Cupit-Link: I don't know if we should, but I know that I can't. This is my gift and my curse. I think that taking care of someone with a sick baby, especially as a parent, is so human and so full of emotion that it's not possible for me not to feel that connection. Now, I do think there's a point at which I have to be careful that what I'm doing and what I'm expressing doesn't make it harder for them. I think it's important for them to know that I feel for them and that I am having these feelings, but I don't want it to become about me when I'm trying to help them. So I once in one of these medical school situations was told that the moment the family begins to comfort me might be a moment that I've known I've gone too far. And so I think that's a rule of thumb I think about is like, if I'm crying in this moment with this family, does that make them feel loved, or does that make them feel like they need to worry about me? And I think most of the time it just makes them feel loved, but that's sort of the tension there. I think when it comes to me too, I've been unable so far to put up boundaries to protect myself emotionally. I don't know that I'm capable of that, but more importantly, I don't think that's authentic for me. And so I don't do that. I'm trying to process and grieve so that I can cope and continue to be the doctor and person that I am. But I refuse to put up emotional walls because I don't think that will serve the patient or be authentic to who I am as a person. Mikkael Sekeres: You bring up a couple of really important notions, and the first is authenticity, being true to ourselves. And if we're not true to ourselves, our patients will see through that and wonder if we're not being true to them. And also having our antennae up to get the pulse of the room, to see how people are reacting to what we're doing and making sure that we're serving our patient's needs more than we're serving our own needs when we're actually in the clinic room with our patients. Maggie Cupit-Link: Definitely, I agree. And and those scenarios in medical school, I remember just thinking to myself that it didn't make a lot of sense to me and that I was lucky that this class wasn't meant for me, that I'll just do what I feel is appropriate. And I always did really well in the simulations, but I had no way to articulate why I knew what to do. It just, for me, I was so lucky that part came naturally, and I think it does in many of us who find medicine as a calling. But I don't know how to teach or learn that. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, you've seen it from the other side as well. I mean, you strike me as being a naturally empathic person and someone who's tuned into other people's emotions. But you've also been there. You're more tuned in than I am, having been someone who's had cancer. I've certainly had close family members who've had cancer, my mom has lung cancer, for example. So I've been in the role of somebody in the room who's supporting somebody with cancer, but I haven't myself had cancer the way you have. Maggie Cupit-Link: It definitely impacts my empathy. And I think that I was surprised after becoming a mother how much that also changed things for me and impacted my empathy further. Until you're a parent, you really don't know the depth and intensity of your love for a child or a person. And it was only then that I realized how heartbreaking it might be to lose a child. It's very difficult to suppress that empathy. And that's when it might not be helpful sometimes is when I'm leaving work and thinking about someone who lost their baby and knowing that no matter how much I empathize with them, it's not going to fix it. It's been the first time in my career and maybe my life where I've had to tell myself that maybe it's okay not to have empathy in this moment. Like, maybe I should turn it off for a little bit so that I can relax and enjoy my baby. Mikkael Sekeres: My God, it's such an interesting perspective. I think as oncologists, we have this different perspective on illness and, and if we're smart about it, if we're really focused and in the moment, we appreciate the aspects of life and realize how precious they can be. And that can be a lovely thing and something we pass on to our kids. I will tell you, my own children have accused me of brushing off some of their maladies with the refrain, "Well, it may hurt you, but it's not leukemia." Maggie Cupit-Link: I've heard that's common with physician's children, but it takes a lot to get a rise out of the parent. Mikkael Sekeres: You write at one point in the essay, "At first, I believed that I had no right to grieve in this way, that it was his mother's grief, Tristan's mother, not mine. I reminded myself that I was not Tristan's mother. I did not give birth to him or name him." Now, we recently published an essay about grieving called "Are You Bereaved?" by Trisha Paul, where she also wonders whether we as oncologists have a right to grieve. What do you think? Do we? Maggie Cupit-Link: I have to note that Trisha and I were co-fellows together in our training, so I'm happy that you mentioned her. And I need to go read that essay. I haven't read that one, so I will. It's weird to wonder if we have the right to grieve. My grandmother is a psychologist, and I remember as a child saying like, "I know I shouldn't feel this way, but" about some random thing. And I remember her saying, "Feelings aren't 'should'. Feelings just 'are'." So like, maybe it doesn't matter if we should or shouldn't, but if we are grieving, we're grieving. I think in some ways it feels like I don't have the right to grieve because I have this wonderful, happy life. And this can be true of survivorship as well when I'm taking care of many children who won't get to be survivors, especially because I care for a lot of sarcoma patients. But I often wonder like, "Am I allowed to be this happy," or "am I allowed to not be happy because there's so much grief in their lives?" So it's hard. I feel this tension often like, I'm not allowed to grieve as much as this mom, but also I better be really, really happy because I'm okay and my baby's okay. It's hard when we compare our emotions to other people's who are going through different things. But it, but it's hard not to wonder, like, "Am I allowed to feel this way?" "Am I supposed to feel this way?" For me, that's when writing is helpful. Just writing down what I feel in great detail helps me move through the feelings, I guess. Mikkael Sekeres: Part of the processing of it. You described the code call for your patient vividly. You know, you draw us as readers into your essay and into that moment. We've all been in that moment. I remember when I was just talking to somebody about when I was in the intensive care unit, when I was a resident, and how at that time, a psychiatrist actually met with us every week to help us process what we were seeing in the intensive care unit, which was really remarkably forward thinking for how long ago I trained. Maggie Cupit-Link: That's really great. Mikkael Sekeres: How did you process it in real time and afterwards though? Maggie Cupit-Link: That day, even now, an aspect of me was dreading this conversation because I feel nauseated when I think back to that day, to that code, and I feel like I'm going to cry. And I don't feel like that in every code, but I think it was because of the parallels between the little boy and my baby. To note, my baby, Houston, he is a big, bald, fat faced baby with a binky in his mouth at all times, and Tristan was a fat, bald baby with a binky in his mouth at all times. And so even though there was a bit of an age difference, when I saw Tristan, I just thought of Houston, and I couldn't separate that. I feel often when I'm doing a lumbar puncture or running a code in real time on a patient, I can sort of dehumanize to the degree that's helpful where I just do what needs to be done and put aside the ick feelings. But with that child, in that code, I couldn't. And luckily I didn't have to do anything but stand there and tell them when to stop or just be supportive, but I felt sick. I felt like I couldn't do anything to help. I didn't feel like a doctor in that moment. I felt like a family member of that child. And that was really difficult. I was so lucky, and I don't know how much the piece reflects this, but the other doctor who was there, the other oncologist, is a mentor of mine who's older than me and wiser than me and very experienced. And I call her my 'work mom' lovingly. She was there, and she stepped in and helped me and checked on me and made me feel like I could handle things. It would have been much worse without her there. Mikkael Sekeres: We're fortunate when we do have our friends and colleagues to help process this because if you're not in this field, at that moment it's hard to understand just how deeply we can also feel the pain that our patients are going through. Maggie Cupit-Link: Absolutely. Mikkael Sekeres: And I do hope you'll retain that description of Houston for when you give the speech at his wedding because I'm sure he'd appreciate that. Maggie Cupit-Link: The big fat bald binky baby. Yes. Houston is now in his 'mama phase' where if I'm not holding him at all times, he fake cries, "Mama," until I do pick him up. So it's been exhausting physically, but I must pick him up. Mikkael Sekeres: I have to say it has been such a pleasure having you, Maggie Cupit-Link, join us to discuss your essay, "Mother's Grief." Thank you so much for submitting your article and for joining us today. Maggie Cupit-Link: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for everyone for reading. Mikkael Sekeres: If you've enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague or leave us a review. Your feedback and support helps us continue to have these important conversations. If you're looking for more episodes and context, follow our show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen and explore more from ASCO at asco.org/podcasts. Until next time, this has been Mikkael Sekeres for JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Show Notes: Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review.   Guest Bio: Dr Margaret Cupit-Link is an assistant professor of pediatric hematology/oncology at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital of St. Louis University.   Additional Reading:  It Mattered Later Why, God?: Suffering Through Cancer into Faith, by Margaret Carlisle Cupit, et al

Once again, Ray and Gee spotlight their favourite new  series for the year! From yandare romance to the breezy everyday of a single woman's life, and a whole breadth of honourable mentions, come listen  to our picks for the year!!Follow Ray on her channel ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Whimsical Pictures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠And if you can't get enough of me, Gee, be sure to follow me on my ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠Finally, check out the latest podcast updates out on the ⁠⁠⁠RRTL Bluesky⁠⁠

*Disclaimer* This episode contains adult content and is not recommended for young listeners.   Hebrews 12:15 NLT “Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.”   *Transcription Below*   About Dr. Morgan Cutlip:  It's hard to know where to start so I'll start with what matters most to me and that's my relationships.   I'm a mother to two kids, Effie (12) and Roy (9). They are hilarious, spirited, spicy, deeply thoughtful and emotional kids. I adore them and being their mother. They've challenged me in the most surprising and wonderful ways. I'm married to my high school sweetheart, Chad. I always feel like I lose a little street cred when I say that so, for the record, we didn't date that entire time and eventually reconnected years after college on MySpace (yup, now I've aged myself). He's the love of my life, an incredible man that loves others deeply, works so very hard, and continues to be open to growth and change.   I've worked in the field of relationship education for over 15 years alongside my father, Dr. John Van Epp, who is the founder of Love Thinks and developer of multiple relationship education courses that have been taught to over a million people worldwide. I started traveling to conferences with him when I was in junior high and so, in many ways, it feels like I've grown up in the relationship education field. He's amazing and brilliant and I'm blessed to have learned so much from him over the years we worked together and just cherish our relationship.   I distinctly remember a conversation with my dad over 20 years ago where I said that someday I wanted to support women, but I just wasn't sure how.   Fast forward 10 years and Effie (our oldest) was born and, holy moly, did motherhood hit me like a ton of bricks and I completely lost myself in motherhood (you can read the full story in my book).

The message was delivered on Sunday, February 15, 2026, at All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by Rev. Dr. Nicole Kirk, Program Minister. Description: What happens when a premature infant stops breathing and a world-renowned doctor declares he sees a "wise soul"? This moment sparked a 25-year contemplation on what the soul truly is—not something to be saved or damned, but our creative energy, our meaning-making force, our freedom itself. In 1932, creditors raided Gee's Bend, Alabama, seizing everything from one of America's most impoverished Black communities. Yet the women there transformed worn clothes and flour sacks into bold, geometrical quilts that warmed their homes and sustained their spirits. When Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in 1965 to find zero registered Black voters in a county that was 80% African American, these same women—hands trained at creating beauty from scraps—marched to the courthouse through tear gas and smoke bombs. Their quilts later appeared in the Sears catalog, in museums nationwide, and two mules from Gee's Bend pulled King's casket in 1968.The women had founded the Freedom Quilting Bee, turning their art into fuel for the civil rights movement. They proved a fierce truth: authorities can close the ferry, block the courthouse, make the road longer and harder—but they cannot stop hands and hearts from creating something beautiful and meaningful. Mary Oliver asked if the soul is solid like iron or tender like a moth. Perhaps it's both—tender and strong as hands that stitch something new. In times when freedoms we thought enshrined are disappearing, when the temptation is to shut down and go numb, the question becomes urgent: How is it with your soul? What are you making? Subscribe: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-souls-unitarian-church/id193096943 Watch this message on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QIiUoY19d4o Give a donation to help us spread Love Beyond Belief: https://www.allsoulschurch.org/GIVE or text AllSoulsTulsa to 73256 Let's connect: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allsoulstulsa Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allsoulstulsa All Souls Church Website: https://www.allsoulschurch.org

GUEST: Sam You, the son of woman comforted on flight, seen in Gee's viral video. / The latest on Savannah Guthrie // Do you feel the 'singles tax?' // SCENARIOS! 

Silver Quintette - "Sinner's Crossroads" [0:00:20] Voices of Whiterock - "Oh Jerusalem" [0:03:43] Ellison Singers - "He's Holding Me" - He's Holding Me [0:07:27] Airs of Harmony - "When I Was a Sinner" [0:14:15] Mission Light Singers - "How Much I Owe the Lord" [0:16:51] Spiritualaires of Hurtsboro, Alabama - "Trouble" - Singing Songs of Praise [0:20:01] White Rose Quartet - "Gospel Train" [These are the famous Gee's Bend quilter, recorded by Steve Grauberger.] [0:23:51] Two Sons of Thunder and Madame Jackson - "Made Up My Mind" [0:26:23] Kings of Joy - "Somebody Knows" [0:29:14] Elder Lanier and the Zion Travelers - "Yes I Know" [0:33:47] Reliable True Tones - "I Come a Long Ways" [0:39:11] Fabulous Golden Tones - "The Lord is My Shepherd" - Take Care of Me Lord [Mary Margaret Legette, lead vocal] [0:39:57] Golden Trumpets - "There's Been a Change in Me" [0:45:13] Gospel Seekers - "You've Been Good to Me" [0:46:37] Southern Tones of Raymond, Miss. - "Somebody's Gone" [0:50:20] https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/161223

Report: SPD response to protesters at Christian rally  / Gee makes a sweeping statement! //  GUEST:  Councilman Martin Moore, former Federal Way Council President who spoke out against ICE // SCENARIOS!

Lawmakers press Attorney General Pam Bondi for not responding to victims in Epstein files // GUEST: Flight attendant from Gee’s VIRAL VIDEO: Eric Cato // SCENARIOS 

How many 12s made it out to the parade? / Seattle reaches settlement for family of young woman killed in car crash / plans of ICE at World Cup games in Seattle  // Gee shares his favorite moments from the parade // Continued conversation about why yesterday was a special day for the 12s

Hey we're back! And where did everybody go? Seriously... it's like a ghost town around here. No one. Nothing. Not even one Shake Shack. Anyway, Mike (@comedymikegoldstein) and Lizzy (@lizzyhoo) were clearly up all night partying with Kyrgios because they are dusty and barely making sense. There's tennis-adjacent chat, new (and very cheap) graphics, and some wild speculation about what AO champion, Carlos Alcaraz, will get for a tattoo. And all this happens while Ace vapes in the corner, giving off a menacing vibe. Oh, and we finish with a very special visit from the uber-sensual tennis legend, Marat Safin. Gee he's cool. And smells nice. I mean like, really nice. I would best describe it as an intoxicating mix of moisturising cream and sandalwood. AusOpen.comiHeartApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Live recaps of trophy ceremony and parade with Luke, Gee and listener Andrew! // Agree to Disagree: Winter Bronze Olympic Medalist tells the whole world he cheated on his girlfriend and wants her back // TEXTS

Gee joins us ahead of the parade / Chris Sullivan takes a look at the day's traffic / Would you pay $12 to pay for 12s damage? // The controversy of the Winter Olympics Skating Backflip // Joint income or split? The finance question facing couples

Gee joins us live from the Bay Area to recount his experience at the Super Bowl // GUEST: Luke Duecy shares his experience interviewing the 12s // WE NEED TO TALK:  Seahawks Parade is happening Wednesday! Is it ok to play hooky?

Gee reacts to Halftime Show // Split Screen: Households around America divided watching TPUSA "All-American" halftime while Bad Bunny performed // GUEST: Beth Hartman, Seattle Seahawks superfan who was in the crowd on Sunday

Exclusive Super Bowl Interviews with Gee // AGREE TO DISAGREE: Were the ads this year a hit or a miss? // WE HEAR YOU! and WORDS TO LIVE BY

durée : 01:00:08 - Oh Gee - par : Nathalie Piolé -

No more excuses. No more waiting to see how things play out. AI has moved past the experimental phase, and if you’re still treating it like a nice-to-have rather than a fundamental shift in how your agency operates, you’re already falling behind. In this episode, Chip comes out swinging with a wake-up call for the agency community: the ground is shifting faster than most are willing to admit, and the window for meaningful adaptation is closing. Gini backs him up with examples of how AI has progressed from an intern-level tool to something that can genuinely replace mid-level work—if agencies don’t evolve what they’re selling. They dig into the practical reality of training AI tools to work like team members, not just one-off prompt machines. Chip explains how he uses different platforms for different strengths—Claude for writing, Gemini for competitive intelligence, Perplexity for research, and ChatGPT as his strategic baseline. Gini shares how her 12-year-old daughter creates entire anime worlds through conversation with AI, demonstrating the power of treating these tools as collaborators rather than search engines. The conversation covers what clients actually want to pay for in 2026 (hint: it’s not social posts and press releases), how to build AI agents trained on your specific expertise, and why the process of training AI forces valuable clarity about your business. They emphasize that this isn’t about slapping the “AI-powered” label on your services—it’s about fundamentally rethinking what value you deliver and how you deliver it. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the AI dust to settle, this episode is your warning: there is no settling. There’s only evolution or extinction. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “If you do not change, it will replace you. It will take away your revenue. If you keep doing the same thing that you’re doing today, it absolutely will destroy you.” Gini Dietrich: “We are no longer relying on our agencies to do the work. We are relying on agencies to teach us what’s coming ’cause we don’t have the time.” Chip Griffin: “AI is not just changing how your business operates, it’s changing how other businesses operate. It’s changing how the media operates. And so it is truly a disruptive force that we need to be thinking about.” Gini Dietrich: “When somebody says to me, oh, I just can’t get it to output what I need, I’m like, user error. You haven’t taken the time to train it.” Turn ideas into action Train one AI tool this week like you’d train an employee. Pick the platform you use most (ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini) and spend 30 minutes having an actual conversation with it about your preferences—tone, structure, what you hate (like emojis), and what outcomes you need. Feed it examples of your best work and tell it explicitly when outputs miss the mark and why. The tool won’t improve with one-shot prompts; it needs training just like a new hire. Map what clients will actually pay for in 2026. Block one hour to list every service you currently bill for, then honestly assess which ones AI can now handle at a competent level. Don’t lie to yourself—if ChatGPT can draft solid social posts or press releases after reviewing past examples, that’s table stakes now. Identify what remains valuable: strategy, teaching clients to use these tools, implementing new processes, or solving problems AI can’t touch. This clarity will drive every business decision you make this year. Test AI on something personal before rolling it to client work. If you or your team are intimidated by AI, start with meal planning, fitness routines, managing schedules, or drafting birthday card messages. Use it for something low-stakes where you can experiment with conversation-style prompting without pressure. Once you see how it responds to feedback and training in a personal context, you’ll understand how to apply the same approach to agency work. Resources LinkedIn post by Vineet Mehra that Gini references Related Agencies succeed through consistency and evolution AI myths agencies must avoid View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, you know, we started the new year off on a note where we weren’t gonna yell at our audience, but I feel like it, it’s time to yell at our audience again. I’ve taken too much time off from being Mr. Nice guy. Gini Dietrich: Okay, well this shall be interesting. I can’t wait. Chip Griffin: I, and this is, it’s partly for our audience, but it’s really for the overall agency community, particularly PR and marketing, PR and communications generally, even outside the agency world. I’m just, I’ve become kind of wound up lately because I think that the industry as a whole, and perhaps even some of our listeners are not acting swiftly enough to understand just how much the ground is shifting beneath them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And how much serious evolution needs to take place. Really over the next year. I mean, I don’t think, I don’t think we’re on a long-term horizon here. I think that too many have waited to change too long in many ways, and AI is now becoming sort of the, the real trigger point for it, but it’s bigger than that. I think a lot of the, the PR space in general has lagged behind a lot of what’s going on in the business community, and AI is just the fist to the face that’s, that’s gonna separate out the people who are gonna survive. Gini Dietrich: The fist to the face. Wow. All right, then. Chip Griffin: I told you I was a little wound up on this one, so, Gini Dietrich: okay. So everybody’s gonna be punched in the face. Got it. Okay. Chip Griffin: If that’s what it takes to wake up and pay attention. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, no, I, yeah, I totally agree with you. And, you know, I have been gungho on AI for going on four years now. And it’s, it’s my second love for sure. But it is time to pay attention to how it is changing things and what it’s going to do to your business, to your teams, to how you deliver work, all those things. Chip Griffin: I mean, look, a lot of the PR world has been focused in recent years on figuring out how to keep their head above water and survive, and hang on to the old ways of doing things. And this predates the explosion of AI in recent years. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: But, what the explosion of AI has done is really, it has drawn the attention of particularly clients to the issue. It has drawn the attention of employees. It, and it is still being ignored. And I think we’ve hit that point where we can no longer ignore it. I think we’re at the point with a lot of these AI tools where they are now both accessible and reliable enough that there’s no reason not to accelerate your pace of change using AI as a tool to get there. And we’ve talked about this before, and I, and I’m not changing my point of view, AI is not the end in itself. The AI is just a way to get there. So don’t mistake what I’m saying here for saying that, you know, you just need to adopt AI for the sake of AI. You still need to find problems to solve first and AI will help you on a lot of them, but you need to be finding those problems. You need to be thinking ahead to what do clients really want from you? What is going to help them to get the results they’re looking for? It can’t be about how do I use AI to make myself a little bit more efficient in what I’m currently doing. Because everything is changing. And we need to be on top of that. Gini Dietrich: I read an article on LinkedIn probably in November, and I’ll see if I can find the link to include in show notes. But it, it was from a chief marketing officer at a Fortune 10 company, and what he said was this: if I were an agency wanting to work with clients in 2026, here are five things I would do. And I can’t remember all of them, but one of them was teach organizations, teach marketing and comms teams how to use AI to be more effective. Implement your process, whatever it happens to be. Because we are no longer relying on our agencies to do the work. We are relying on agencies to teach us what’s coming ’cause we don’t have the time. And that has stuck in my head because I think that’s right. I think that. Yeah, sure, agencies will always, or big companies, will always need arm extra arms and legs to do the work, but that’s not the work that most of us want to be doing. Right? We don’t wanna be writing the social posts and the news releases. We wanna be part of the strategic conversation. We wanna be part of the of helping to move an organization forward. And if we can do that by teaching our clients how to use AI to be more effective, to be more productive, to accelerate their work, and I know everybody’s worried it’s going to replace me, it’s going to, it’s going to reduce our number, our billable hours, whatever happens to be. I think there’s a huge opportunity here for you to reframe how you’re helping clients and using AI to be able to do that. Chip Griffin: Yeah, but I would be very direct with listeners. If you do not change, it will replace you. It will take away. Gini Dietrich: That’s fair. That’s totally fair. Chip Griffin: Your revenue. Gini Dietrich: Yes, it will. I totally agree with you. Yeah. Chip Griffin: So, you know when we say that you know that AI is not gonna destroy your agency, that’s only if you evolve. Gini Dietrich: That’s fair. Chip Griffin: If you keep doing the same thing that you’re doing today, it absolutely will destroy you. I don’t care whether you’re an employee or a business or whatever, if you are an employee and you think that AI isn’t gonna take your job in a year, it is If you don’t evolve, that’s and figure out how to use it for yourself. Gini Dietrich: Yep. That’s totally fair. Chip Griffin: And we need, everybody who’s listening needs to wake up to that fact. It requires a huge mindset shift. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Because AI can write your news releases, it can write your social posts. It can do all of that stuff that Chip Griffin: not only can, Gini Dietrich: we don’t wanna do anyway, Chip Griffin: It should. Yeah. Because it has evolved enough in the last year that the quality is there now. I used to describe AI as an intern. It is moved beyond the intern stage. Yep. It is at a minimum a junior employee, and if you train it well for your organization, it can be even a mid-level employee or perhaps even in some cases more than that. But this training piece is important too, because part of the problem that a lot of people run into in my experience is they, they hop onto the AI tool and they just say, Hey, write this press release on this subject. And I look at it, oh, this is rubbish. It still requires a lot of work. You know what? It absolutely does. The same thing would happen if you hired an employee off the street who knew nothing about you and your clients, and you said, write me a press release. The result would probably be pretty similar to what the AI came up with. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: But once that employee starts writing more press releases and you start telling ’em, this is the tone of voice we use, this is the style we use, these are the facts we use. You feed more information into it. You explain your preferences. When you’re using these AI tools, you need to just be direct with it. Don’t accept the first response. Explain as you would with an employee what you want done differently. If you do that, it will tailor the outcomes. Even simple stuff. Like I’ve told them, stop showing me damn emojis. I don’t wanna see an emoji in any response because I think it’s wildly unprofessional and I hate them. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: So guess what? I don’t see them anymore. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: I’ve asked it to tighten up the spacing on it so that I can see more on a screen. It does that. And that’s even before you start telling it, you know, this is the structure of a paragraph that I like. You start feeding in information. I’ve fed in a thousand articles and transcripts and that sort of stuff into the platforms. It now can speak like me reliably to the point where I don’t know if what it’s giving me is a quote from something I’ve written before or original text that it’s come up with that just speaks so clearly in my voice. Gini Dietrich: I love that it will say, it will give, usually gives me three options. One is like strategic leadership, like C-level blurbs. That with Gini-isms or like smart, funny, witty blurbs. And then I can decide, and usually what I do is I take a combination of the three, but it has gotten to the point where if it actually calls it Gini-isms, that like it knows how I talk, it knows how I write, it knows how I coach, it does it knows all of those things. And it has created an opportunity for me to say, yeah, this probably, we probably shouldn’t have some Gini-isms in this ’cause it’s really professional. Or, we can include more because it’s more me talking to a screen or whatever happens to be. So it’s gotten to that point. It’s, when you train it, it’s very, very good. Chip Griffin: Well, and you can even tailor those recommendations. So one of the things that, that I’ve told it is it’s fine to give me multiple options, but give me your recommendation. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And when you do that, don’t give me a whole lot of backup on the alternative. So spend your time explaining why you’re making the recommendation. That’s fine. But then, you know, if it’s, let’s say it’s a title or something like that, you know, give me three or four other options, but it, by default, it tends to explain those three or other four other options. And so now you’re dealing with like a 10 page response, Gini Dietrich: right? Chip Griffin: For what should be something pretty simple. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: So. I, part of my instructions to my tools are, don’t do that. Give me the alternatives, but just, you know, bullet point them. If I want more information, I’ll ask for it, but it allows it to work more the way that I want it to. And so we all need to do that. We also need to be looking at these tools and understanding that there’s no one size fits all solution. I have people say, well, should I, you know, should I use Claude or Chat GPT or Gemini? The answer is yes. Gini Dietrich: Yes to all of them. Chip Griffin: But they all serve different purposes. Yep. Just like you have different employees who serve different roles, these tools excel in different areas. I mean, Claude is fantastic at writing. I mean, to me, Claude is my head of writing because it can just absolutely nail it, but there’s a lot of things that it doesn’t do quite as well. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Yep. Chip Griffin: And then I look at something like Gemini, and I love what Gemini does in terms of inferring things from research. So it’s more willing to go out on a limb, and kind of read between the lines of things that it finds to come back with, particularly for competitive intelligence or things like that. You know, deep research. Whereas Perplexity is very good for research where you really wanna make sure it’s accurate and you really wanna be able to cite all the sources, but it will not go out on a limb. So understanding what the strengths of each platform are is useful. And then there’s Chat GPT, which is sort of my, you know, my default choice for just basic stuff, strategy, et cetera. But I’ve also told it, tell me when I should go somewhere else. And so it’s good. It’ll say You should hand this off to Claude now. Gini Dietrich: I love that. Chip Griffin: Because we’ve, I’ve had an actual conversation with Chat GPT about my stack and, and what I think of it and I bounced things around and, you know, refined it. So now it knows how I want to handle certain things. And so it will stop at a certain point and say, now it’s time for you to go here. And that’s really helpful. Gini Dietrich: I love that. I do not do that. I usually move between, but I haven’t had it recommend when to move it. That’s… Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, but it could, because it won’t generally by default tell you to do that. But if you, if you explain what you have access to and what you want to use it for, it will tell you when is the right time, and sometimes I’ll pause and say, are you really the right one for this? Or should I be using one or the others? And they’ll say, no. Good point. You know, you should use this one instead for this particular task. Gini Dietrich: I love that. Chip Griffin: And it’s great. I mean, and I’ll, I’ll bring things back and forth like, so when I’m creating a piece of content, I’ll often, you know, ask more of the strategy piece from Chat GPT, because I’ve put more of the strategy stuff into there. Then I’ll go over to Claude to write it, but then I’ll bring it back for feedback. Now the next level is then to automate this with agents with n8n and those kinds of things. And, and so, you know, I’ll play with those things too. But for now, even doing it manually is a huge time saver, Gini Dietrich: huge time saver, Chip Griffin: and still ends up with really high quality content. It’s not, people talk about how AI is helping put out rubbish. And that’s because people are doing it without training. Gini Dietrich: Correct. Chip Griffin: You need to think through how you use these tools to get the results that your clients are looking for and the results that you need as a business. And this is where people are falling down, and this is where a lot more effort needs to go into it. If you want to not just survive but thrive. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And you know, it’s funny ’cause when somebody says to me, oh, I just can’t get it to output what I need, and I’m like, user error. I usually say that because that’s exactly what it is, is you haven’t taken the time to train it. I, and you have to, I, you said earlier, you talk to it like it’s an employee. I do the same thing. Talk to it through like, okay, this isn’t quite right and here’s why. Think about this, this, this, and this. We also need to consider these things. And then it goes. Oh, okay. Goes into thinking mode and then it, it outputs pretty close to, but you have to have a conversation with it. I use this example all the time, but my 12-year-old is obsessed. Obsessed with anime, and she like, no, nothing else exists in her world right now other than anime. And she has created an entirely new ecosystem of anime worlds from her favorite shows using chat GPT. I mean, it’s so good that I’ve actually considered. Finding a, a publisher to have it published as fanfiction because it’s that good. And she doesn’t type into it. She literally has a conversation with Chat. She calls it Gee. And she will say, Gee, I’m thinking about this. I want the guy to do this, and I want the girl to do this. And like she has a whole conversation and it creates this world with her that… it’s fascinating to sit and listen to how she’s using it. So it’s the same kind of thing. Have a conversation with it. You can do it via voice, you can do it, you know, by typing whatever is easiest for you. But have a conversation with it and teach it just like you would an employee. It’s gonna learn faster. It doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t need to eat. It doesn’t need to work out. It doesn’t need to take a break. It doesn’t, it’s not going to pause for meetings. You can have stuff running in the background while you’re doing something else. I mean, it’s the more time you spend training it, just like with a human being, the better it is. Chip Griffin: Yep. And I’m gonna be honest, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be more work and stress in the short term for you. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, this is not, Gini Dietrich: mm-hmm. Chip Griffin: You know, this is not a quick fix. It is not. It is not something where there’s some magic formula. You’re gonna have to try to figure out what works for you and for your team. What works for your clients. And the client piece is really where you need to start with this. You need to spend some time thinking about what are your clients really hiring you for? What are they going to need you for 12, 18, 24 months down the road? Then start figuring out how these tools can help you to get there. Because there’s just, there is too much of this “Well, you know, I need to, I need to protect my billing model, and so I need to do value pricing because of AI.” That is not the answer. Although if it were, what you would discover is that, that people are valuing less what you are doing today. So if you’re truly going to follow value pricing, that doesn’t mean that you get more. It means you probably get less for a lot of these things because they realize, you know, that drafting of a press release, I actually can get that out of Claude pretty well. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah. Chip Griffin: Particularly if you feed it in your last three or four years worth of press releases. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: It’ll be pretty darn good at coming up with them on their own. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Probably candidly, in less time that it takes to communicate to your team that they want it. Gini Dietrich: Yep. 100%. Yes. Chip Griffin: Now there will still be companies that are happy to outsource it generally. Gini Dietrich: Sure. Chip Griffin: Right. That’s, that is always going to exist. But the way that they value it from a price standpoint and the other things that they want alongside of it will absolutely change. And you need to be thinking about that. Because AI is not just changing how your business operates, it’s changing how other businesses operate. It’s changing how the media operates. And so it is truly a disruptive force that we need to be thinking about as communicators and as agency folks because it, it upends a lot of what we have done, tactically at least, in recent years and over the decades. It does not upset the outcomes that are being sought after. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: From the work that we’re doing. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And, and we lose sight of that for the tactics too often. Gini Dietrich: One of the things that I did is I built an agent, and I call it my co CEO. And as I was building it, I was going through a really rough HR time and so I used it mostly, honestly, just to vent. But it got to know me, and what’s important to me, and my voice, and what things I wanted to be human forward on, and what things I needed to stay professional on. And so I, as I was building it, it was, I was going through that process. Now I can say to it, okay, we’re thinking about doing this. So for instance, a client came to me probably midyear last year and said, Hey, we really want your team to do an audit of all of our brands and where they sit on the PESO model maturity level. And I kind of laughed and said, well, I can tell you right now, they’re all at level zero. And he was like, great, that’s good to know. What’s what takes us from zero to one, one to two, and so on up. And I thought about that for a little bit and I was like, hmm. I don’t have an answer for that. And so I went into my CO CEO and I had a conversation with it. Like, if we were gonna build a maturity model for the PESO model for an enterprise customer, what does that look like? And it probably took two weeks for me to get something that I could go back to him with and feel comfortable and confident with it. But it would’ve taken me two months to do that on my own. So, you know, it helps you think, it helps poke through holes in things. You have an AI that you’re building and I hope it’s okay for me to mention this ’cause I don’t know if it’s available yet, but I got to beta test it and it’s, I put in there that I was looking for. I said, okay, this is where, this is where the business is at the end of 2025. These are our goals for 2026. Here’s what I’d like to do in the next three to five years. Here’s like, I put in all of that information, where are the holes? And it started poking holes into things that I had never even considered. And I was like. Chip, this is really good. It’s just, it’s really, really good. So when you, when you train it, when you teach it what you’re wanting, what your voice is, what you’re trying to achieve, it is going to help you in more ways than one. It’s gonna help you think through problems. It’s gonna help you come up with solutions you didn’t consider. And like I said, it doesn’t need to sleep. So it can work in the background while you’re doing other things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And there are a lot of these ways that we can innovate for our businesses and that particular example, it is live on the SAGA website now. It’s an AI agent called Sage. Gini Dietrich: It’s awesome and everyone should check it out. Chip Griffin: It’s trained on a huge volume of my both public and private materials that I’ve created over the last eight or nine years, and it does a remarkably good job of mimicking the advice I would give. Is it a hundred percent? One-to-one? No. Yeah, but it’s, it’s pretty darn close to the point where I’ve had a couple of clients now who have tried it and then asked me the same question they asked of Sage, and they got almost exactly the same answer. And, and so that’s how, you know, it’s, it’s working pretty well because I think, as any listener knows, I have some views that are not necessarily exactly in line with every other advisor in the agency space. And so, and in some of those cases, they were pieces of advice that you wouldn’t get if you went somewhere else. So, you know, you can tell that it’s actually using the training materials. And not simply doing a general knowledge search. But these are all things, it does take time. You’ve gotta have the material to provide to it. You need to spend the time with it, as you did in conversing and going back and forth. But the more you go back and forth, the smarter it gets. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And the better it can help you the next time something comes along. Gini Dietrich: That’s right. Chip Griffin: And I think the other thing is that the more you use these tools, the more it forces you to think about some of these things. Because in order to get the most from them, you really have to be very clear about who is your ideal client? What are the services you provide? What is the value you deliver? And so, it’s just like a business plan. I always say that the business plan itself doesn’t really matter, but the process you go through to create it does. The process you go through to train your AI itself is beneficial and helps to get clarity. Because the clearer you are with the AI, the clearer you are with yourself by necessity. And so you need to be thinking about these things. You need to be really thinking about making much more radical change to your business over the next year or two than you probably have previously thought. You really need to be thinking about how not just technology, but client needs will force this change, otherwise you are gonna get left behind. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree. And to your point earlier, if you evolve and if you use it, and you’re better, you’re doing a better job of understanding what it is that your clients are willing to pay for, and they’re still willing to do it. They just don’t wanna pay for social posts and news releases. Chip Griffin: That’s right. I mean, there’s a huge opportunity here. There’s a giant threat, Gini Dietrich: huge opportunity, Chip Griffin: and I don’t wanna minimize that, but there’s a huge opportunity. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: But the key is you actually have to evolve and change. You can’t just play buzzword bingo. Gini Dietrich: Yes, please. Chip Griffin: Just slapping AI on top of something that you deliver that’s not gonna help you. Gini Dietrich: And it’s fun. It’s fun to test it. It’s fun to try it out. So do it. Chip Griffin: Yeah, Gini Dietrich: Do it, do it, do it. Chip Griffin: I mean, but we can’t minimize. It is scary for a lot of people too. I mean, Gini Dietrich: sure, absolutely. Yeah. Chip Griffin: But you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta embrace that fear if you wanna succeed. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I always say when I have somebody new join the team that’s scared of it, I say, all right, let’s do it. Let’s use it for something personal. So I will say that to you as well. Meal planning, fitness, hobbies. Managing your kids’ meltdowns, whatever it happens to be, just try it for something. Write a poem in a birthday card. Try it for something personal, and I guarantee you, you’ll be hooked. Chip Griffin: I had no idea we’d be getting to poems and birthday cards here today. So I think that’s the note that we’re gonna wrap up this episode on. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

Melinda Gates responds to Epstein Files / Savannah Guthrie to Skip Olympics as Search for Mother Yields Few Clues // Eddie Bauer and Bahama Breeze closing down // Gee's interview with Luke Willson

NFL pushing Jody Allen to sell Seahawks, report says // Democrats unveil WA income tax on people earning over $1 million // GUEST: Rick Rizzs on his big announcement and his baseball journey // Gee had to travel like the rest of us... in coach!

Episode 275-Pretti’s Law  Also Available OnSearchable Podcast Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode 275 Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDS Second Amendment, Minnesota protest, Firearm Policy Coalition, natural rights, government officials, political opportunity, federal law, carry rights, red flag laws, gun rights, law enforcement, public carry, constitutional rights, gun policy, political reaction. SPEAKERS Speaker 2, Speaker 1, Evan Nappen, Teddy Nappen Evan Nappen 00:18 I’m Evan Nappen. Teddy Nappen 00:20 And I’m Teddy Nappen. Evan Nappen 00:21 And welcome to Gun Lawyer. So, we’ve been following the events in Minnesota, and I’m sure you have as well. And, you know, this is troubling. It’s created quite an interesting political situation, and it’s kind of strange to see sides shifting. Yet, it appears that this may, in fact, be a political opportunity to help the Second Amendment get strengthened. Let me tell you where I’m going with this. Take a look here at the Firearm Policy Coalition’s recent statement. (https://www.firearmspolicy.org/fpc-statement-rights-are-not-privileges) I don’t know if you’re familiar with the FPC, but they do a lot of great work in litigating through the court system, Second Amendment challenges. As a national group, they do good work, and they put out a statement that I thought was very interesting. It’ll lay the groundwork as we get a little bit more into depth about where I see some potential here that should be taken, frankly, advantage of in this interesting moment in time. Evan Nappen 01:50 So, what the FPC wrote in their statement is this. “Recent events in Minnesota underscore a recurring and deeply troubling theme: Government officials and commentators treating natural rights as privileges.” Now that’s an important statement right there about treating rights as privileges. As they mentioned in the article, the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth, is merely codification of pre-existing rights. They don’t create the rights. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the Constitution. The Constitution simply is a guarantee of those rights and puts limits on Government, not the people. That’s why, if someone ever asked you, what rights are you given by the Constitution? The answer is none! Because those rights pre-exist the Constitution. The Constitution is there as a guarantor, guaranteeing those rights against the Government. And it puts limits on the Government to ensure that our rights stay respected. It doesn’t grant us rights. Only God granted us our rights, or natural law has granted those rights. Fundamental, fundamental natural laws. That’s what we’re talking about when it comes to actual rights. Page – 2 – of 9 Evan Nappen 03:18 So, this gets distorted politically by politicians who apparently seem to forget that. And here we end up in Minnesota, where this individual, (Alex) Pretti, came to this protest with a gun. The FPC points out that the mere presence of a firearm does not erase a person’s rights. It doesn’t turn lawful conduct into wrongdoing. It does not make someone fair game to be arrested or killed for the Government’s convenience. The Government does not get to flip the legal or moral burden. The fact that one is armed is not a license for the Government to shoot you! Nor is a right to bear arms a license for any person to use unjust force. And that is very strong and very true. This is where this situation now where Pretti ended up getting shot and killed by ICE for essentially bringing his gun to the protest. There’s a lot of dispute now over whether he used it, drew it, or whether he’s being disarmed, whether there was, I mean, there. All that’s out there. Evan Nappen 04:43 But my point isn’t whether Pretti, as a matter of fact, I don’t even support Pretti’s political view here. I’m all for ICE. I’m not. I don’t want to see our country with illegal immigrants but that’s my view. That’s my opinion. Okay, that’s fine. And Pretti had his opinion. He has a First Amendment right, and he has a Second Amendment right. The problem is reaction to the exercise of his Second Amendment right. When you take a look at what happened here, it’s somewhat disturbing that those folks that are supposed to be understanding what the Second Amendment means take an anti-Second Amendment group’s view. So, Politico had an article. It’s “Gun Rights groups blast Trump over Minnesota response”. (https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/27/gun-rights-groups-blast-trump-over-minnesota-response-00748217) And in fact, they did. Evan Nappen 05:47 Let me show you what has happened, where the tables and the issue has turned here. It’s very interesting, because I think it presents an opportunity that we’ll get to in a moment. So, for example, this is right from the Politico article. “FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday on Fox News. ‘You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have a right to break the law.’ DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday that she didn’t ‘know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that ‘any gun owner knows’ that carrying a gun raises ‘the assumption of risk and the risk of force being used against you,’ during interactions with law enforcement.” I mean, come on. What the hell is with these people there? They are feeding into the Second Amendment oppressionists with this, with this stuff. Evan Nappen 07:05 So, gun rights groups pushed back, and a number of them were particularly enraged by Bill Essayli. He’s the acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, who posted, “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you.” What the “f” is he saying? Are you kidding me? If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there’s a high likelihood that they’ll be “legally justified in shooting you”. The NRA, okay? The NRA said that Essayli’s remarks were “dangerous and wrong” and called for a full investigation, instead of “making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens”. That’s the NRA folks saying that now to this Page – 3 – of 9 character. Aidan Johnston, the Director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, called Essayli’s remarks, “absolutely unacceptable”. That’s GOA. I mean, listen this quote from Johnston. “Federal prosecutors should know better than to comment on a situation when he didn’t know all the facts, to make a judgment in a case like this, and then also, just to make a blanket statement, threatening gun owners in that way.” And Johnston is absolutely right. It’s outrageous. And yet, yeah, Teddy. Teddy Nappen 08:48 I will say, just taking a step back and looking at what they’ve kind of just put out of their reaction. You brought a gun and all the other and there’s stupid comments. What they could have said, which would have been a very easy play, is the Second Amendment isn’t your right to attack law enforcement officers. All right.? It has nothing to do with the carry. It had to do with the fact that it is agitators obstructing and attacking ICE. That would have been the very easy statement, but no. Evan Nappen 09:21 They focused just on the action and not the carry. But instead they focus on, oh, you come up to a law officer with a gun, they’re legally justified at shooting you. No, they’re not. They’re not. Unless you’re going to use it wrongly. Okay, we can all. And then the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus chair Bryan Strawser, he said, “We can all see what is on the video” what happened, and he’s not on the side of what the Trump administration is putting out. As a matter of fact, it says, an analysis done by the Washington Post that federal agents appear to have secured Pretti’s gun moments before an agent shot him. Teddy Nappen 10:18 So, just to break it down, a little more from that which they’re ignoring. I love the mainstream media loves to ignore. They take away the first 30 seconds where it’s him getting into it with the officers, where they’re blocking traffic, where he’d been doing that all day, and the woman was also blocking traffic. The officer shoves her out of the way because they’re blocking traffic, obstruction, you know, a crime. And then he tries to be the white knight and gets in it with the officer. They’re trying to pin him down to arrest him. He’s still fighting. He’s still fighting. One of the guys sees a gun and yells, gun. He pulls the gun away. And during it’s like, I didn’t know the timing of that. It’s like only a second or so split, and you hear them shout, gun. And the guy draws his pistol and he fires, because it’s a split second. I think there is a Supreme Court case where you have to look at it from the officer’s perspective, from there. Evan Nappen 11:13 And I can understand that. But what is disturbing is the key administration officials focusing on guns and gun owners and carry, instead of on the behavior of this person, which, arguably, is the real issue, and is what is the problem. Not having the gun. And then you combine that with, for example, Gavin Newsom, who, let’s face it, you know, he’s a Second Amendment oppressionist, right? I mean, he is. But what does he say? He says, “The Trump administration does not believe in the 2nd Amendment. Good to know.” So, okay, granted, he’s an opportunist here. But he’s actually seeing, even though we don’t believe he’s sincere, of course, but who knows? He’s seeing what’s wrong with what they’re saying. Even Newsom sees what’s wrong with their saying and then takes advantage of it in that way. Look, Representative Dave Min and Rep. Mary Peltola, one is a Democrat from California and the other Page – 4 – of 9 is a Democrat from Alaska. This is from the Politico article. They also used the moment to highlight the right to carry. Here’s their quote. “Joining the gun lobby to condemn Bill Essayli was not on my bingo card but here we are, Min said on X. “Lawfully carrying a firearm is not grounds for being killed.” So, there, look at that. A Democrat, Democrat, saying that, and Newsome even pointing out the hypocrisy of it. And here we have them really taking a terrible view of gun owners and carry. Evan Nappen 13:27 If you step back from all this, I see political opportunity, and I’ll tell you why. Because what I think would be very, very good would be to propose what we would call Pretti’s law. It’d be Pretti’s law. And what Pretti’s law would do would be to create a federal, pre-emptive right to carry in public. Going directly at the legal issue, by the way, in the Woolford case, the so-called vampire rule and other forms of public carry. We need a federal law that preempts, preempts, any state from putting forward so-called “sensitive place” laws that interfere with the right to carry that the Left has acknowledged, the Left is acknowledging in their defense of Pretti. This presents an opportunity to tie in with that national reciprocity so that you have your right to keep and bear arms respected, and we push this with the Pretti situation. Evan Nappen 14:52 In other words, why is it the Left always gets to take the situation and turn it to their advantage? Well, this is an opportunity for us to use this situation to our advantage, because you can see from what we just discussed that the Left is putting out that message. The Left is putting out the pro-Second Amendment message. The Left is seeing that carry was a right, that carry was fine for this, believe it or not, white male to be carrying. I mean, we should all be in shock that the Left is defending armed white males. Wow. But here they are. So, instead of letting this moment pass, let’s grab onto it. Let’s get a federal law that can go at and preempt, wiping out, sensitive place restrictions and getting through national reciprocity. We can do both of those things in this bill, because that is a solid focus federally on carry. That’s what we’re talking about here, and that’s what this situation highlights. Now is a chance to do federal protection of our carry rights, and it’s also a chance for the Trump administration to make clear their position in support of it as well. Here’s the common ground, folks. Here’s the common ground that this demonstrated, and I hope that someone takes advantage of it. Teddy Nappen 16:40 Also, just taking a step back on the whole situation here. The one good thing about this administration that everyone can agree on is that they listen. The one thing that they, anyone can just stop and say, like you can have disagreements on different things, but they listen. They hear what the issue is. And I get the sense that Kristi Noem and Kash Patel are not 2A. They never had the 2A mindset. They never had that. You know, people always say, oh, I’m for the Second Amendment. What does that mean? What do they actually believe and stand for, for that? And I think this is a moment for them to realize and learn what that actually stands for, for the people, for us, for what that means for us. The ability to carry and defend ourselves. Where we don’t have security teams. We don’t have, you know, the full backing of the U.S. Government to protect us every single day. So, I think this is a chance for the administration to learn, and heck, they should appoint like a gun czar, a 2A Czar. Someone to advise them on these issues. If they don’t know, don’t just go to X or Truth and post it. Ask and learn, and then you can have be more informed on the issue. Page – 5 – of 9 Evan Nappen 17:55 That’s a great idea, Teddy. It would be really good for them to do it, and I’d be happy to have that role. Speaker 1 18:01 Ha, ha, ha. Wow, yeah, man. Evan Nappen 18:07 Yep, that’s good. Well. Teddy Nappen 18:09 Yeah, he’s saying, like, all right. And then also legalize all machine guns. We’re closing down the ATF. Here’s a lot of recommendations. Evan Nappen 18:17 I’ve got them, but here is one where politically, we are seeing the other side, actually seeing it our way. And that’s an opportunity that we shouldn’t lose. That’s the point of this. Well, let me tell you about our friends at WeShoot. WeShoot is a range in Lakewood. An indoor range where both Teddy and I shoot, and we love it there. WeShoot is conveniently located right off the Parkway, and they have some cool specials I want to tell you about. They have a Smith M&P 9 M2.0 Compact ready to roll. They have that. They’re also offering the M&P 9 2.0 in Metal. So, you can have your choice in metal or polymer. They have the Vortex Triumph, which is an all new optic, right? It’s pretty cool. Vortex makes some good stuff. I have some Vortex on my guns. They also have the Rost Martin RM1C, which is a striker-fired compact pistol that is really taking the gun world by storm. You should check out the Rost Martin. It’s a really good gun. Evan Nappen 19:37 And, of course, you want to check out the WeShoot girls there. They’re featuring a number of folks, including Kristina Fernicola. Go to their website. Go to weshootusa.com. You can see all these wonderful guns, and the models posing with wonderful guns. And you will be glad that you went to look at all of that. I’m sure of it. Then make sure you check out the range at WeShoot. Go down to the range there. You can get some fantastic training. They have a great pro shop right there in Lakewood, New Jersey. weshootusa.com Evan Nappen 20:26 Also, I want to mention our friends at the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs. They’ve been quite busy fighting in the courts and in the legislature in Trenton. Murphy’s gone, and we did get some new laws, of course. This is a very tough environment, but they also were able to get some changes that are critical. And I was glad to see modifications, although completely stopping when the folks have all the power, is tough, but they made a big difference. We are thankful. Because without the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, we would have no unified voice of umbrella organization of our clubs and organizations. You need to be a member of the Association. Go to ANJRPC.org and join today. You’ll get the newsletters that are the best newsletter in the state on guns. Page – 6 – of 9 You’ll see the email alerts. You’ll know everything that’s going on when it comes to our gun rights in New Jersey. anjrpc.org Evan Nappen 21:45 This is also when I shamelessly promote my book, which is New Jersey Gun Law, the Bible of New Jersey gun law. It’s over 500 pages, 120 topics, all question and answer. It’s your guidebook to not becoming a GOFU in New Jersey. And man, let me tell you, so many times people call me and it’s after the fact. I’m like if they had only read my book, oy vey. We’ll still fight and defend you, but it would have been a lot better if you never had the problem to begin with. And most of my clients would agree with that, I’m afraid. So, get your copy of my book today. Go to EvanNappen.com, EvanNappen.com, and get your copy of New Jersey Gun Law. At this moment, we have Teddy who’s going to tell us about Press Checks. What have you got for us Teddy? Teddy Nappen 22:45 Well, as you know, Press Checks are always free. One of the things I always, I am always astounded by on the Left, because they try to act like they have knowledge and understanding of guns. We know, of course, the closeted hoplosexuals like (Josh) Sugarmann, who actually does know guns, but the vast majority of them do not know guns. I always think back, Dad, to your what was the quote, unquote “firearms expert” on fixed ammunition. Evan Nappen 23:23 Oh, gosh, yeah. Experts testifying under oath that are just flat out lying. Flat out lying. Teddy Nappen 23:32 So, yeah. And here is their new term that they’re trying to push. As I always believe in going to the, going to the gun right suppressors and see what’s their latest message? What are they pushing for? The new term that they have invented is “safeguarding”. That’s their new push. This comes out of The Trace, everyone’s favorite gun rights suppressor organization, written by Fairriona Magee. (https://www.thetrace.org/2026/01/safeguard-gun-barber-red-flag-law-suicide/) Safeguarding. “Violence prevention groups and researchers have spent years working on initiatives to get firearms out of the hands of people who may pose a danger to themselves or others.” Hmm, through the risk, through extremist protection laws, known as Red Flag. Oh, yes. So, they’ve been getting so much flack about the legalized swatting that they have created. That they’ve been pushing through these insane Red Flag laws. So, I love this. While these laws have bipartisan support, oh, from a bunch of RINOs that are anti-gun and don’t believe in Second Amendment rights, but now the Second Amendment groups have launched a concerted attack on Red Flag laws in the court system. Gee, I wonder why. Evan Nappen 24:52 No due process. Teddy Nappen 24:53 Yeah, no due process. You get put in, you get locked up, you get labeled and all. Robbed. Firearms stolen and your rights and your life destroyed. Other than that. Page – 7 – of 9 Evan Nappen 25:03 Yeah. Teddy Nappen 25:04 So, in this supercharged political climate, what are the other options? Well, we have it for you. Safeguarding. The process of taking, temporarily taking, control of someone else’s guns, if they have risk of suicide or harming someone else without involving the criminal justice system. So, what does that mean? That means, okay, if you think your friend may want to hurt themselves or hurt others, just simply say, hey, man, why don’t I take your guns? Let me just keep them in my house. I think you’re going through a rough patch. I’m going to take your guns. These ideas are somewhat analogous with laws that allow people to temporarily ban themselves from buying guns. So, Dad, I’m pretty sure they just advocated for someone to commit a crime in New Jersey. Evan Nappen 25:59 In New Jersey that would be absolutely unlawful because of the other anti-gun laws that they helped push, such as Universal Background Check. So, how do you temporarily give guns to somebody when there’s no transfer of guns allowed unless you go through a dealer and go through the permitting system and go through the entire process? You can’t just say to your buddy in New Jersey, hey, let me just take your guns. No, you can’t do it. It’s got to go through a dealer. You’ve got to do all the paperwork, the NICS check, the whole bit. So, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Because if you listen to what they are telling you to do, you will be committing a felony level offense, multiple felony level offenses, in New Jersey. There is no temporary transfer. This is, in fact, officially, this week’s GOFU, Teddy. Evan Nappen 27:03 As far as I’m concerned, that’s the GOFU. Do not ever temporarily give your guns to somebody else in New Jersey, except under two very narrow circumstances. If you’re at the range, there is a law in New Jersey that allows you, only while the person’s in your presence, to let them try your gun at the range. Or if you’re hunting, and everybody’s legal and licensed and they’re there in your presence while hunting. That’s it. But that’s it. That’s the only temporary transfers allowed to adults legally. There is no provision in New Jersey that allows you to temporarily transfer your firearms or to take somebody else’s firearms temporarily because somebody might want to harm themselves, or you perceive that they’re thinking about harming themselves, or they tell you, hey, I’m thinking about harming myself. Or I would just feel better if you had my gun. Again, none of that flies in New Jersey. None of it. It is completely a violation of New Jersey gun laws. A violation of many of the laws that the gun rights oppressors have pushed to put in place in New Jersey. The reason you cannot do what they’re suggesting in New Jersey is because of their anti-Second Amendment gun laws themselves. So they pass and force the passage of these laws through their fellow comrades in the legislature and then give advice on how to violate the very laws, because they’re so clueless as to what they are doing in terms of the actual effect, the actual effect, it has on real people and the real situation. Teddy Nappen 28:59 So, I love how they end this article too. They get this expert, because they always have to. They always lean on the logical fallacy of, oh, I’m an expert, so trust me on this. Catherine Barber out of the Harvard Page – 8 – of 9 Injury Control Research Center, gee, that doesn’t sound biased. She makes this long winded argument, making it so this sounds like if you’re a gun owner, oh, you’re mentally ill, even though gun owners are more than twice at the risk of non gun owners from taking their own lives. And they equated where we should treat Red Flag like suicide prevention. Just this long winded expression, trying to make it seem like, oh, that’s right, if you own a gun, you probably have mental illness. That is the level of disgusting nature that these people are. And they try to argue that. Evan Nappen 29:56 Right. So they, so that. So, this person’s saying, if you own a gun, you’re mentally ill, and we have these administration folks and this U.S. attorney saying, essentially, if you have a gun, you’re a threat immediately to law enforcement. I mean, they’re just making these assumptions on both sides that are just strictly out of bounds when we’re talking about a Constitutional right, a Constitutional right. I mean, just make believe it’s the First Amendment instead of the Second Amendment. Anyone that freely speaks their mind is mentally ill. Anybody who freely talks to police is justified in being shot, and that doesn’t. Neither those statements make any sense, right? Evan Nappen 30:44 Well, we’re talking the Second Amendment. That’s a Constitutional right. It’s not a second class right, either. Just like the First Amendment is a right, and this right is supposed to be guaranteed by the Government. Guaranteed by the Government. Not given by the Government. It needs to get respected and put in the proper perspective of being treated as a right. It’s not a mental illness. It’s not a threat to law enforcement, intrinsically a threat. This all is based on the individual’s behavior. That’s the point, and that’s what the focus has to be on. But yet it’s so easy to just look at it as a symbol, the symbol. Americans always had this thing about going after the symbols. I mean, why were switchblades banned in the ’50s? Well, they were the symbol of juvenile delinquency, right? I mean, what? Why were machine guns banned, oh, the symbol. It was symbolism. It’s just this constant moral crusade by picking an item, an item to go after. We need to look at actions of people. What is not malum prohibitums, where a legislative body just decides this should be banned or that should be banned. But instead, we focus on the malum and say things that are wrong within themselves, and those things are the actions and wrongdoings by people. That’s where laws have to focus. Teddy Nappen 32:41 I think it definitely needs to be a wake up call. Because, look, I understand, and hopefully we do get common ground. And you know what, if Pretti’s law comes into play and we get enough the Democrats to jump on because they want to, you know, look like they’re 2A affiliates or whatever, which, by the way, anytime you hear the news, the CNN, MSNBC, use the words 2A or democracy. You look at the little end, it’ll say, TM, trademark. It’s their version of the Second Amendment, their version of democracy. That is what they always argue. It’s rules for thee, not from rules for thee, not for me. That is how the Left operate. So, just remember that every time they’re trying to coax the Left, the right against the administration. Evan Nappen 33:30 Well, Pretti’s law will have an interesting effect, because it’ll put the Left on the spot, on the vote. Do you support being able to carry a firearm in public the way he did, where you’re claiming to? Well now Page – 9 – of 9 you’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is. So, to speak, you have to vote. You better vote, I think. And within the same question, wait gets made to the other side. Do you support the Second Amendment or not? So, this is why, politically, it’s an opportunity. Teddy Nappen 34:05 I think we joked that Trump should come out against carry, which would force the Left. Like, I think we joked about that exact thing there. You’re right. He should come out against machine guns. Evan Nappen 34:19 Yeah, absolutely. Okay, because actually, the next thing you know, you’ve got Newsom putting out and Democrat Congresspersons putting out, pro-gun statements, pro-Second Amendment statements. I mean, it’s well, that’s why it’s opportunity time, and hopefully someone will take advantage of it. Evan Nappen 34:48 Well, this is Evan Nappen and Teddy Nappen reminding you that gun laws don’t protect honest citizens from criminals. They protect criminals from honest citizens. Speaker 2 35:01 Gun Lawyer is a CounterThink Media production. The music used in this broadcast was managed by Cosmo Music, New York, New York. Reach us by emailing Evan@gun.lawyer. The information and opinions in this broadcast do not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your state. Downloadable PDF TranscriptGun Lawyer S5 E275_Transcript About The HostEvan Nappen, Esq.Known as “America's Gun Lawyer,” Evan Nappen is above all a tireless defender of justice. Author of eight bestselling books and countless articles on firearms, knives, and weapons history and the law, a certified Firearms Instructor, and avid weapons collector and historian with a vast collection that spans almost five decades — it's no wonder he's become the trusted, go-to expert for local, industry and national media outlets. Regularly called on by radio, television and online news media for his commentary and expertise on breaking news Evan has appeared countless shows including Fox News – Judge Jeanine, CNN – Lou Dobbs, Court TV, Real Talk on WOR, It's Your Call with Lyn Doyle, Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, and Cam & Company/NRA News. As a creative arts consultant, he also lends his weapons law and historical expertise to an elite, discerning cadre of movie and television producers and directors, and novelists. He also provides expert testimony and consultations for defense attorneys across America. Email Evan Your Comments and Questions  talkback@gun.lawyer Join Evan's InnerCircleHere's your chance to join an elite group of the Savviest gun and knife owners in America.  Membership is totally FREE and Strictly CONFIDENTIAL.  Just enter your email to start receiving insider news, tips, and other valuable membership benefits.   Email (required) *First Name *Select list(s) to subscribe toInnerCircle Membership Yes, I would like to receive emails from Gun Lawyer Podcast. (You can unsubscribe anytime)Constant Contact Use. Please leave this field blank.var ajaxurl = "https://gun.lawyer/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";

Gordon Gee framed his defense of Les Wexner as a matter of loyalty, philanthropy, and presumed ignorance, insisting that Wexner was blindsided by Jeffrey Epstein and had no meaningful awareness of the abuse orbiting his former confidant. Gee leaned heavily on Wexner's decades of charitable giving and institutional support, portraying him as a benefactor whose generosity and civic engagement should outweigh uncomfortable questions. In doing so, Gee treated proximity to Epstein as an unfortunate coincidence rather than a relationship that lasted years, involved extraordinary financial power, and raised obvious red flags long before the public reckoning.What makes Gee's defense so troubling is not just what he said, but what he refused to confront. By defaulting to character references and donation tallies, Gee sidestepped the basic issue of responsibility that comes with wealth, access, and sustained association. His comments implied that elite benefactors deserve the benefit of the doubt denied to everyone else, and that institutional gratitude can substitute for scrutiny. Instead of demanding accountability proportional to influence, Gee lowered the bar, effectively arguing that if someone gives enough money and claims shock afterward, the questions should stop. For critics, that posture doesn't protect the truth—it protects the donor class, and it reinforces the very culture of deference that allowed Epstein's network to operate in plain sight for so long.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Former OSU President Gee defends Les Wexner amid probe into billionaire's ties to Epstein | WOSU Public Media

Gordon Gee framed his defense of Les Wexner as a matter of loyalty, philanthropy, and presumed ignorance, insisting that Wexner was blindsided by Jeffrey Epstein and had no meaningful awareness of the abuse orbiting his former confidant. Gee leaned heavily on Wexner's decades of charitable giving and institutional support, portraying him as a benefactor whose generosity and civic engagement should outweigh uncomfortable questions. In doing so, Gee treated proximity to Epstein as an unfortunate coincidence rather than a relationship that lasted years, involved extraordinary financial power, and raised obvious red flags long before the public reckoning.What makes Gee's defense so troubling is not just what he said, but what he refused to confront. By defaulting to character references and donation tallies, Gee sidestepped the basic issue of responsibility that comes with wealth, access, and sustained association. His comments implied that elite benefactors deserve the benefit of the doubt denied to everyone else, and that institutional gratitude can substitute for scrutiny. Instead of demanding accountability proportional to influence, Gee lowered the bar, effectively arguing that if someone gives enough money and claims shock afterward, the questions should stop. For critics, that posture doesn't protect the truth—it protects the donor class, and it reinforces the very culture of deference that allowed Epstein's network to operate in plain sight for so long.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:Former OSU President Gee defends Les Wexner amid probe into billionaire's ties to Epstein | WOSU Public MediaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Every day we turn up and, to our amazement, our passes still work. It's only a matter of time before we're turned away, possibly by Wally Masur himself. In this scintillating and erotic new episode, Mike (@comedymikegoldstein) and blow-in host Sam Taunton (@samtaunton) trade barbs and Australian Open observations. You'll hear them say things like — but not limited to — 'Golly gosh, Lorenzo Musetti had his heart ripped out'. They'll also ask probing questions like 'Gee whiz, what's with all the straight-sets matches?' They also massacre a Neil Diamond song, which is just horrendous for all involved. Oh, and we talk to USA turbo-hunk tennis dude, Ben Shelton. Are you not TENTERTAINED (tennis-entertained)?! Don't answer that. Anyway, as our sponsor would say: 'Get some bubbles up ya!' Listen to The AO Wrap to stay up to date with the latest results each day of the main draw. AusOpen.comiHeartApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTube See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WA bill that would bar most police from wearing face coverings clears Senate / Lawmakers push to close probate loophole  / New Alex Pretti video // Holy coincidence! Luke Ducey joins us to talk the latest Seahawks conspiracy // Six years of Gee and Ursula: Remembering the meatball story

Gee was president of Ohio State University twice, and now he's back for a third time in a consulting role.

Gee was president of Ohio State University twice, and now he's back for a third time in a consulting role.

WHAT'S NEW AT 10: GUEST: John Urquhart on the shooting in Minneapolis over the weekend // Gee was on the field after the Seahawks big win! // SCENARIOS!

Air Week: January 26-February 1, 2026 George Goldner, Pt. 3 – Gone & End Records It’s part 3 of our 3 part series on record man, George Goldner. He is said to have had the “golden ear” for hit records and songwriter Jerry Leiber even complimented his talent for picking hit songs by saying that Goldner had, “the musical taste of a fourteen-year-old-girl.” Born to Jewish immigrants in 1919, Goldner’s first love was Latino dance music and he began his career by opening night clubs and starting Tico Records, a Latino label in 1948. By 1953, he was interested in Rhythm & Blues and began releasing records under the Rama subsidiary. In early 1954, he set up Gee Records and scored a huge hit in early ’56 with The Teenagers, “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.” By mid-’57, due to his gambling debts, Goldner sold Tico, Rama and Gee to alleged mobster Morris Levy. This week, we will take a close look at Goldner’s last R&B labels that he would run independently: Gone & End Records. Both new labels did well with Gone scoring hits with NY vocal group, the Dubs and Goldner-arranged instrumental “7-11 (Mambo No. 5)” by the Gone All Stars featuring Buddy Lucas on tenor sax. End soon followed with million-sellers from The Chantels, The Imperials and The Flamingos. Both labels proved that Goldner still had the magic ear for picking the music teenagers wanted to hear and buy, but eventually both labels would face the same fate as Goldner’s early record companies. You’ll get the full story of Gone and End Records and the finale of George Goldner on this week’s “Juke In The Back.” LISTEN BELOW

We've got some leftovers from the holidays. Let's pull them out of the fridge and answer them once and for all! Is a French dip REALLY a dip? How early is too early to put up your Christmas tree? How long can you drink eggnog or wear your holiday boxers before your partner falls out of love with you? And FINALLY: are zombies the scariest monsters because they're REAL? All this - plus an ad for Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific! Shampoo - and more, on today's HOLIDAY LEFTOVERS edition of Judge John Hodgman!BROOKLYN! Join Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn LIVE at The Bell House for NIGHT COURT (no, not that one)! Get your tickets here: Friday, March 6, Saturday, March 7Have a question that you can't settle? No dispute is too small for the honorable Judge John Hodgman and Bailiff Jesse Thorn! Submit your cases directly to the court at: https://maximumfun.org/jjhoFollow Judge John Hodgman on:YouTube: @judgejohnhodgmanpodInstagram: @judgejohnhodgmanTikTok: @judgejohnhodgmanpodBluesky: @judgejohnhodgmanReddit: r/maximumfunPlease consider donating to Al Otro Lado. Al Otro Lado provides legal assistance and humanitarian aid to refugees, deportees, and other migrants trapped at the US-MX border. Donate at alotrolado.org/letsdosomething.  Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes, discounts on our merch, and more by joining us at: maximumfun.org/join!

David Gee, a veteran CISO, CIO, board advisor, and author, joins Ann Johnson, CVP of Cybersecurity, Microsoft, on this week's episode of Afternoon Cyber Tea. Drawing on decades of experience and insights from his books, Gee explores the gap between theory and reality for security leaders, the role of imposter syndrome in professional growth, and why embracing discomfort is essential to effective leadership. The conversation examines how CISOs can balance risk management with business enablement, reset expectations with boards and executives, and build resilient, team-driven security cultures. Gee also shares perspectives on mentorship, long-term sustainability in the role, and how the CISO must evolve from a control-focused operator to a strategic influencer in an era shaped by AI, regulation, and constant change.    Resources:  View David Gee on LinkedIn  View Ann Johnson on LinkedIn     Related Microsoft Podcasts:   Microsoft Threat Intelligence Podcast   The BlueHat Podcast    Uncovering Hidden Risks           Discover and follow other Microsoft podcasts at microsoft.com/podcasts      Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson is produced by Microsoft, Hangar Studios and distributed as part of N2K media network.

Episode 273-Warning: Critical Gun Law Alert  Also Available OnSearchable Podcast Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode 273 Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDS New Jersey gun laws, accidental discharge, criminalization, reckless discharge, felony consequences, gun ownership rights, self-defense, insurance coverage, Second Amendment, gun safety, gun dealers, international disarmament, gun control, gun owner education, legal challenges. SPEAKERS Speaker 2, Evan Nappen, Teddy Nappen Evan Nappen 00:17 I’m Evan Nappen. Teddy Nappen 00:19 And I’m Teddy Nappen. Evan Nappen 00:20 And welcome to Gun Lawyer. Well, folks, the New Jersey legislature has done it again. They have passed some atrocious gun laws, and I need to make all of you aware of one, particularly, that is very much a threat. It is something that’s going to affect many, many gun owners, and it is not being talked about in the general media, of course, because of how they write these laws in such a sneaky, underhanded way. But this law is going to impact all of us, frankly. And the potential is there, under this law, to not only take away gun owners’ rights to have guns, but to turn us all into felons at any time, simply based on an accident. That’s right, an accident. Evan Nappen 01:31 Because what New Jersey legislature’s both houses have passed, and I expect, very shortly, the governor will sign, is Assembly Bill, 4976. (https://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2024/A5000/4976_R2.PDF) And what this bill does is it criminalizes Accidental Discharges (ADs). Now, an accidental discharge is when your gun goes off, accidentally, either by what some folks call an uncommanded discharge or an accidental discharge. But it is something that can happen, and although we have to always be very careful, circumstances can be such that a mistake can be made. I mean, we’re all human, and mistakes can happen. And unfortunately, you know, I see it in the practice, and I get accidental discharge cases all the time where individuals make a mistake and a gun goes off unintended. It happens. Now sometimes it happens because of the actual mechanical flaws to a firearm and that can be because of a gun’s design. It can even be due to circumstances where a firearm can go off from the slightest touch. Evan Nappen 03:08 Now you may not be aware of this, but years and years ago, I know of a case where an individual had a shotgun that this fellow had kept loaded. One of those single shot, top-breaker type shotguns. You know, like the old kind of like the toppers, the H and R Toppers, and what have you, similar to that. It Page – 1 – of 11may even have been one. I don’t know. But it’s one of those old single shot shotguns. And for probably 50 years, that gun had remained loaded with a shell in it. At one point, there were folks that were causing all kinds of problems in this guy’s yard, and he wanted to scare them off. He didn’t want to shoot them, and he put the gun out of, pointed the gun out the window, and boom. It went off, and he never pulled the trigger. He absolutely never pulled the trigger. There was no hit to the primer of the shell when it went off. And what has happened was, in this particular design of the gun, the firing pin had been pushing against the primer because the hammer was down and it didn’t have a firing pin block. And for like 50 years, this gun sat there, sensitizing the primer so that the slightest touch, you know, just the right jolt, without having to actually pull the trigger, made it go off. So, a gun can actually even do that under those extraordinary circumstances. Evan Nappen 04:57 But normally, an accidental discharge or uncommanded discharge that we encounter is because somebody believed, honestly believed, their gun was unloaded. And it ends up, of course, that it wasn’t. Now this can happen because somebody thought they checked it and maybe even did check. But then, with a magazine in and the slide going forward, a round loads, but they didn’t realize that it loaded, because they checked that it was unloaded. And sure enough, there’s a round there. I mean, I’ve seen every combination of error that could happen and a discharge can occur. And, of course, we know the rules, always point in a safe direction, etc. Make sure your gun is unloaded. Double, triple check to make sure that the chamber is empty. That there’s no magazine, and there’s no live ammo. I mean, all those things that we do. But accidents can happen, just like in a motor vehicle. We drive as safe as we possibly can, but people still have accidents. And what New Jersey has done in this bill is essentially criminalize an accident so that individuals will be looking at what is, in all likelihood, felony level charges. And they structured this bill in just a sneaky, evil, devious way. It’s going to have great impact, and it’s going to create, I think, unintended consequences. Evan Nappen 06:40 Now, as gun owners, we have to understand how we have to behave if any of us ever are so unfortunate as to have an uncommanded or accidental discharge. So, the law talks about “recklessly” having a discharge. “Reckless” in criminal law means, you know, with a conscious disregard of a known risk, okay? Criminal laws can have recklessly or reckless as a standard, as opposed to something being intentional, right? So, if you intentionally meant to pull the trigger, that’s intentional. Reckless could still be you didn’t intend to do it. But if there was that conscious disregard of that known risk and it ended up discharged, then you could argue that it’s reckless. So, reckless is kind of a standard where it’s not that traditional mens rea, your mental and your mental state of having that intention to have the gun fire. Reckless has been in our criminal law for a long time, and reckless conduct is something that’s out there, like reckless driving. I’m sure that you have heard of that. Evan Nappen 08:05 But what they’re doing here is even more devious by using the word “reckless”. So, what now is being prohibited? And I’m going to read this to you so you can see how they’ve done this. It says, a person commits a disorderly person’s offense. Now that sounds like, okay. A disorderly persons offense in New Jersey is equivalent to a misdemeanor. It’s not a felony. So, you’re saying, well, first of all, this is not creating a felony. It’s creating a disorderly persons offense, right? It sounds like it’s, you know, Page – 2 – of 11apparently, trying to be reasonable. But trust me, folks, it isn’t. I’m going to show you why. “A person commits a disorderly persons offense by recklessly discharging a firearm.” Okay, so at this point they’re saying, well, it’s just a low level offense, and it’s for recklessly discharge. You know, we’ve conscientiously disregarded a known risk. Okay, so it started out sounding, you know, not great, but okay. It’s not. It shouldn’t affect a lot of folks, and luckily, if it does, it’s still a misdemeanor. And, of course, it requires that recklessness. So, that sounds all good. Evan Nappen 09:22 Let me start again and read you, but wait until you hear the rest of it. A person commits a disorderly persons offense by recklessly discharging a firearm “using live ammunition rounds”. Well, okay, that’s good to know. A blank gun isn’t a reckless discharge, but you know you’re firing a blank. No live ammo. Okay. So, if I’m firing dead ammo or ammo that’s not live, then that’s not a reckless discharge. Well, good. How do I get a discharge with ammo that’s not live? I don’t know how that’s even going to happen. But okay, they throw that in, probably more as subterfuge and, you know, smoke and mirrors. But again, here we go. “A person commits a disorderly persons offense by recklessly discharging a firearm using live ammunition rounds unlawfully . . .” Okay, unlawfully. So, you’re unlawful. “. . . or without a lawful purpose.” Whoops, wait a minute. “Without a lawful purpose.” You commit a disorderly persons offense by recklessly discharging a firearm without lawful purpose. Evan Nappen 10:35 Except that a second conviction for such an offense constitutes a crime of the fourth degree. Well, a crime is a felony, and that’s a fourth degree. It’s a year and a half in jail. And a third or subsequent conviction is a third degree and that’s five years in State Prison. Okay. So, you may even read this part and say, well, it’s still arguably, weirdly reckless, maybe. But it’s for discharging a firearm without lawful purpose, but at least it’s a disorderly persons offense. And I, boy, if we do it once, I sure wouldn’t think I’d do it again. So, why is this such a problem, you know. Evan Nappen 11:09 But oh, well, wait, wait, wait. We’re not done yet. Because then it says, if a person commits a violation under this section, you’re charged with a crime one degree higher than what ordinarily would be charged for such an offense when the violation occurs within 100 yards, 100 yards, folks. Not 100 feet. A football field’s worth of distance of an occupied structure. Oh, what’s an occupied structure? Any building, room, ship, vessel, car, vehicle, or airplane, or a place adopted for overnight accommodations of persons or for carrying on business therein. Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute! An occupied structure includes a car or vehicle, and it doesn’t even mean it has to be occupied. It means even a vehicle or a building or a room, and it has to be within 100 yards, a football field, of a car. If there’s a car driving by within 100 yards where the accidental discharge takes place. If you’re in your own home? I mean, this is basically every accidental discharge. You will probably be within 100 yards of a car or a building or a room, or hotel or whatever, or an airplane. Man, even if the airplane is flying over the sky, I don’t know. I mean, this is nuts. Evan Nappen 12:55 So, if the violation occurs within 100 yards of a “structure”, guess what? It’s no longer that disorderly persons offense. It’s bumped instantly to the fourth degree, felony level offense. Up to a year and a half Page – 3 – of 11in State Prison, and now you’re going to be a convicted felon. That’s if your gun discharged for not having, without a lawful purpose. Oh, you mean like an accident? Yeah! Like an accident. An accident because you didn’t have a lawful purpose. Did you lawfully have a purposeful accident? No, that’s silliness in a nutshell. So, what it means now is essentially any accidental discharge is a felony in New Jersey, and you can face State Prison time of at least a year and a half, unless it’s going to be enhanced even more based on these other factors. And as a felon, you lose your gun rights for the entire United States. Evan Nappen 14:12 And even if it’s kept at the misdemeanor, a so-called disorderly persons level, they’re still going to go after your gun license and your gun rights. They’ll claim, under Chapter 58-3 of the licensing law, that you’re somehow a danger to public health, safety, welfare. You think if you’re going to have a criminal charge, a criminal offense charged here of accidental discharge, where they’re classifying it as reckless because it went for a “an unlawful purpose”. Like I said, I don’t know how you have a lawful purpose accident. And it was somehow within 100 yards of any car or room, which made it originally a felony even, right? Felony level in New Jersey. You’re getting your license and your guns confiscated and taken and face prosecution over this insane law. Evan Nappen 15:17 Now, this is the consequences of this bill, right? But that’s just the consequences in the law itself, like the penalty you may face and licensing problems. But what it also means is that upon any accidental discharge, folks, any, you immediately, now, immediately, have a Fifth Amendment right against self- incrimination, and you’re going to have to stand by that. Because I know in many of the cases we’ve seen, someone had an accidental discharge, and it may have gone through their wall. It may have gone to a neighbor’s house. It may have not whatever. But if you react, if you call the police, if you try to find out what happened, any type, you’re getting criminally charged. You have a right to say nothing. You have an absolute right, a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, because you will end up incriminating yourself. This is going to mean that any New Jersey gun owner who has an AD or an uncommanded accidental discharge needs to immediately take the Fifth and seek counsel, the Sixth Amendment. Just call your attorney and don’t say anything to anyone. Do not make any statements to law enforcement or anybody. And, you know, this is a shame. Because what if that round actually caused injury to somebody? Teddy Nappen 16:59 Actually take it a step further. Evan Nappen 17:01 Think about it. You’re gonna incriminate yourself. You gotta absolutely. Go ahead, Teddy. Teddy Nappen 17:07 Take it a step further. Imagine instead of “gun”, this was “car”. I asked. I was in. I got into a car accident. So, therefore, all car accidents are felonies, where there is nowhere. Were you back? Were you 100 feet from your driveway? Was there a car driving by? Did you back into that car? Felony! You are now a felon because of that. And don’t tell me it’s the firearm versus the car! Because the car is a Page – 4 – of 11two ton steel death machine that kills more people than firearms do. So, it’s that level of argument, the utter draconian insanity that they have created here. Where from an accident, an actual accident, God forbid. Evan Nappen 17:54 An accident. That is right. Teddy Nappen 17:56 You are guilty until proven innocent. Evan Nappen 17:59 And wait. Let me say this. This has been put out there as a possible problem for self-defenders. And that’s actually not completely accurate, because there’s an exemption here that says it’s an affirmative defense, if you fired your gun in self-defense. Okay. Affirmative defense means the burden is on you to prove that you acted in self-defense. Then they’ll say, okay, that wasn’t a reckless discharge. But even the fact that the legislature has to put in there that if you act in self-defense, it’s an affirmative defense. Well, wait a minute. Why is it an affirmative defense? Because it wouldn’t have been reckless if it was intentional. Why do we even need that? So, in other words, the legislature itself knows that they’ve manipulated this law to simply be discharge for unlawful purpose, period. If you didn’t have a lawful purpose when your gun went off, it’s felony level if it’s within 100 yards of a car, or a room, or a building. Insanity. Evan Nappen 19:05 And as you say, Teddy, it would be like making every car accident, any fender bender that you have, you become charged with a felony. New Jersey has done that to gun owners now. Any accident, any accidental discharge, you’re going to face these criminal charges. This is going to, you’re going to end up in the system. If you have an AD, you’re getting charged. And now we’re going to have to fight this out on an offense that is essentially strict liability. That is the way they’ve set it up. Couching it and hiding it under so-called reckless, recklessly. But when they actually write it, they put the recklessly with the little bonus of having “without a lawful purpose”. This is nuts. Nuts. Nuts. Evan Nappen 19:58 I’m telling you right now the cases we get, it’s going to be crazy, crazy and a problem. So, folks, be extra careful. This is bad news. It has passed both houses, and the Governor, I’m sure, will sign it very shortly, if he hasn’t signed it already. And now gun owners are at extreme risk under this law. Teddy Nappen 20:24 I just thought of another one, too. What if you’re a first time shooter and you go to a range course, you’re in a range, a gun range learning, and the gun accidentally goes off because you’re brand new to firearms? You’re now a convicted felon. No discretion. Evan Nappen 20:44 Oh, well. It was near a room. That’s right, no discretion, and anybody that has that AD. So, again, it’s designed to disenfranchise gun owners of Second Amendment rights. And by the way, you may not be Page – 5 – of 11able to then get even insurance coverage. Because if it’s criminalized over what you did, it’s not anymore. Now, you’re talking about behavior where they can claim it’s a criminal act. It’s a criminal act, okay? And again, you may depending on your policy, depending on what actually the injuries and damage, you may not even have coverage. The insurance companies will use it to deny you coverage. I’m sure of that. That’s their job, as it normally is, anyway. To try to figure out how to deny coverage. Well, they’ve just given them that ability on the civil side to further make it harder for you. It’s jeopardizing gun rights, and it’s looking at creating incarceration at felony level for gun owners. It’s outrageous, and it really is something that I’m sure we’re going to see major, major impact. And then that’s not the only fun. Go ahead, Teddy. Teddy Nappen 22:04 I was just curious on the constitutionality of it? Because they’ve made, there must be some avenue. Because it’s very, like they’re giving no discretion? And just saying. Evan Nappen 22:16 Nope. Teddy Nappen 22:16 It’s automatic. There’s no constitutional challenge. Evan Nappen 22:20 Well, I guess there could always be a constitutional challenge. But what’s going to happen is it’s going to have to be the fight. The real fight is going to be over, maybe an argument of, was there a conscious, conscientious disregard, or conscious disregard of a known risk. But the other side will argue that as soon as you have a gun with ammo, you have a known risk. I mean, a firearm, and that’s their entire anti-Second Amendment strategy. Teddy Nappen 22:43 When you deal with guns, you do so at your peril. Evan Nappen 22:53 Right! And that’s New Jersey case law, right there. So, they’re saying, hey, you do it at your peril. You took a known risk because you possessed a gun, even. You can well see a New Jersey jury buying that argument. This is nuts, and gun owners, beware, beware, beware, beware. And like I said, this isn’t the only shenanigan that occurred in Trenton. They also signed S1425. (https://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2024/S1500/1425_R1.PDF) Now, this is actually law. This law, real quick, specifically applies just to dealers. Just to New Jersey dealers. How nice. They have their own very special law now. This law says, “A licensed dealer who sells or transfers a firearm to a person when the dealer knows or reasonably should know that person intends to sell, transfer, assign, or otherwise dispose of that firearm to a person who is disqualified from possessing a firearm under State or federal law is guilty of a crime of the second degree.” That means up to 10 years in State Prison. They have a minimum mandatory period of three and a half years, and they made it a second degree. This is insane. Page – 6 – of 11Evan Nappen 24:03 If you’re a dealer in New Jersey, they can claim that you reasonably should have known that a gun you transferred to somebody was going to be transferred to somebody who was disqualified from possessing. Let me give you an example. You sell a Red Rider BB gun. That’s a firearm under New Jersey law. And if you reasonably should have known that that person was going to let their kid have that BB gun, you’re looking at a second degree charge here, Dealers. Yeah for that BB gun. Because as long as the state can show you reasonably should know that, that the person intended to transfer it to someone who was disqualified, who would be arguably that minor, unless it’s under a strict exemption. I mean, this is the kind of pathways being cut here. How do you know or reasonably should know? What is that reasonably should have known nonsense? Evan Nappen 25:03 I mean, that’s again, 12 people on a jury are the ones who’s going to decide whether reasonably you should know. All the law says, “. . . ‘reasonably should know’ means that a person reasonably should know a fact when, under the circumstances, a person of reasonable prudence and competence would ascertain or know that fact.” Oh, that’s a that’s so crystal clear. Huh? Real, crystal clear. Now what it means is 12 people who aren’t smart enough to avoid jury duty are going to decide whether the dealer should have known on that gun sale. And if they decide otherwise, the dealer is looking at a minimum mandatory sentence on a second degree crime, which carries up to 10 years in State Prison. Okay? That’s what they’re doing. Focused on New Jersey dealers. Do you think they want to put every dealer in New Jersey out of business? I do. And that’s the other bonus law that’s actually signed into law. It’s ripe for abuse, folks. Beware. It is just atrocious what’s going on in New Jersey. Evan Nappen 26:07 Let me tell you about our fight. You know, we are in this fight. We constantly, we’ve tried to fight these things. New Jersey is an extremely tough environment. We’re going to see court challenges, even more court challenges, and it’s our state Association that’s going to be heading the fight. I’m sure we’re going to see a constitutional challenge to this so-called Accidental Discharge bill and the same over what they’re looking to do to dealers. And it’s ANJRPC, the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs at the forefront, fighting for our rights. They’re the umbrella organization of gun clubs in New Jersey, and you can join as an individual member. You really need to. You’ll be sent email alerts, and you’ll be told what’s going on. And you know, we’re able to get changes made with pressure, but most importantly, our salvation seems to be in the judicial fight in the courts. The Association is there as we speak. This is an extremely tough environment in New Jersey, the toughest in America, where the oppression of Second Amendment rights is second to none. New Jersey wins the prize for Second Amendment oppression, and it’s the Association there at the forefront. You need to be a member. Go to anjrpc.org and join today. Be part of the solution. It’s really important that you do that. Evan Nappen 27:43 I’d also like to talk about our good friends at WeShoot. WeShoot is an indoor range in Lakewood, easily accessible, off the Parkway. It’s where Teddy and I both shoot, and we both qualified. It’s where we got our CCARE and where we get our training. We love WeShoot. That’s the place to shoot. It’s a place you can shoot. They have a wonderful facility, a great pro shop, and great instructors. You’ve got to check out their website, magnificent photography there. And they run all kinds of great deals and Page – 7 – of 11specials, and they have all the top state of the art equipment. Check out weshootusa.com. weshootusa.com. You’ll be glad you did. It is a great resource for us to have a range right there in Central New Jersey that is as professional and modern as WeShoot. Go to weshootusa.com and check them out. You will be thrilled, just like Teddy and I. Well, that’s where we shoot. It’s what we love. You’ll love it too. Evan Nappen 29:00 Let me also mention my book, New Jersey Gun Law. It’s the Bible of New Jersey gun law. I’m working on the update from what I just told you today. So, the free update will be coming out, including the 2026 Comprehensive Update. We’re going to look at and add in all the new laws that’ll be coming out shortly. So, if you have the book, make sure you scan the QR cover. The QR code on the cover. Join my free private subscriber base, and you’ll get notice of the updates that are forthcoming. You can buy the book at EvanNappen.com. That’s right, www.EvanNappen.com. Go to EvanNappen.com and get the big orange book today. You’ll be glad you did. It’s over 500 pages, 120 topics, all Question and Answer, designed to make it as user friendly as possible. I try to make it so you can navigate these treacherous waters of Second Amendment oppression in New Jersey. So, go to EvanNappen.com and get your book. Teddy, what do you have for us today in Press Checks? Teddy Nappen 30:15 Well, as you know, Press Checks are always free. While you’re talking about the utter insanity that is New Jersey, there’s one positive bit of news. It’s kind of been, you know, from the entire news cycle of everything they try to cover. There’s one thing that kind of slipped under the cracks that some people did pick up on. And it caught my eye. I was like, wait a second, I remember this. So, President Trump has withdrawn from the UN Register of Conventional Arms. (https://gunrights.org/united-states- withdraws-from-united-nations-register-of-conventional-arms/) That treaty. Now, I remember growing up as a kid, Dad, you told me, always keep an eye out if there are blue helmets walking down the street. Evan Nappen 31:01 Yeah, that’s right, that blue helmet day came, if that ever was to come. Yep. Teddy Nappen 31:08 And oh, I remember you telling me about that treaty. And you know that stupid, you know, the UN has always been an anti-gun organization, with that stupid, bent revolver they have. Evan Nappen 31:20 Yeah, the revolver with a barrel and a pretzel knot. (https://dam.media.un.org/archive/Gift-of- Luxembourg-to-the-United-Nations-2AM9LOQORWK.html) I mean, look at folks. It’s a revolver, by the way. It’s not an AK, you know. It’s not an AR. It’s not in an “assault firearm”. No, no. It’s a freaking revolver with a barrel in a pretzel knot there. Gee, who are the primary possessors of revolvers? I wonder. Is that paramilitary organizations? No. Terrorist, radicalized wackos? No. A revolver. Let me see. Oh, you mean, like average citizens? Wow, hmm. Interesting. Page – 8 – of 11Teddy Nappen 32:02 But what I remember that being back, you know, where this was a big fear. Where it was the giant arms treaty, where they were trying, I think it wasn’t ratified by Obama, but that was that insane policy to try, even. The UN even actually has an Office of Disarmament. (https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our- work/conventional-arms/legal-instruments/arms-trade-treaty) That’s actually their whole like deal. What they try to push for. Now, they cloak it in like militarily. If you actually go to the website, this was from the gunrights.org. (https://gunrights.org/united-states-withdraws-from-united-nations-register-of- conventional-arms/) The National Association of Gun Rights put out the article, and they provide the link where you can go on to the UN website. You can see their register of their whole charter on the UN, and it goes into they brag about it. We’ve recorded and captured 90% of the global arms trade. By the way, this was supposed to be about, you know, tanks, armored carriers. You know, stuff used in actual, like, large scale warfare. But then I love how they do this. In 2016 they adopted the international small arms and light weapons in parallel with the other seven categories, so we can keep track of all small arms. Hmm, 2016. What were they doing to try, what was the big anti-gun push to try to disarm us around that time? Thinking that they’re going to try to go around collecting our arms in the United States. Like it’s so disgusting. I love how they just cloak it. You actually can go on to their reports. I got bored. So, I clicked the arms report of 2023 and I was like, okay, armored carriers, all that . Small arms. I wanted to look and see who were like the top buyers. So, revolvers and self-loading pistols – Iraq. Apparently. Evan Nappen 33:57 Really? Teddy Nappen 33:58 Yeah, like 2,150 pistols from us to Iraq. Evan Nappen 34:03 Oh, from the U.S.? Teddy Nappen 34:05 Yeah, from the U.S. It keeps track of each country. Evan Nappen 34:07 Well, we’re making them. Teddy Nappen 34:09 Yeah. Evan Nappen 34:09 Of course. We’re a major industrial manufacturer. What we should be doing is making guns. Teddy Nappen 34:14 Yeah. And then rifles and carbines. They separate that from “assault firearms”. Rifles and carbines. 20,000 to Israel. So, there you go for that end. Page – 9 – of 11Evan Nappen 34:27 Yeah, Israel makes a lot of their own weapons, too, and they make really good ones. Teddy Nappen 34:32 Yeah, I know they have the Hebrew hammer. Evan Nappen 34:35 Oh, yeah! Teddy Nappen 34:35 The Tabor X95. (https://iwi.us/firearms/tavor-x95/) But with the sub-machine guns, Saudi Arabia, 550. Evan Nappen 34:41 This doesn’t even matter. This is so absurd, and it’s just trying to globalize Second Amendment oppression. You know, our country’s blessed with Second Amendment. And of course, New Jersey does everything it can to undermine it, but the majority of America doesn’t do that. But internationally, we, you know, they hate us. They hate our Constitution, and they want to see us disarmed. We are standing as a threat to their globalist intentions, right? Teddy Nappen 35:21 I mean, that was the famous line that Donald Trump said to the world. The world does not belong to globalists. And that’s a fact. And here, in their charter, they even say, such measures, as they’re describing the whole disarmament office, such measures can also encourage restraint in the transfer and production of armament and decelerate military build up. In words of, okay, we need to lower the amount of guns in the world and try to disarm the people. That’s the cover they run, but they dress it up. I will give the Left credit. Their ability to wordsmith their way into something else is crazy. Evan Nappen 36:06 Well, listen, man. It’s not every political group that can convince people, you know, that a man can be a woman. So, why can’t they convince the world about this with guns? Right? Teddy Nappen 36:17 Well, it’s the political group that has the. When they did the whole study on mental health of different groups, the vast majority of people that vote Democrat have mental illness. So, let that sink in. That was an actual study, and that was put out by, like, CNN! So. Evan Nappen 36:18 Really? Teddy Nappen 36:19 Yeah, they had to be like. No, I love it. If you are ever bored? Anyone who’s very bored, go on to CNN and catch Harry Enton, the statistics guy. He’s the golden retriever of CNN. He just talks about numbers, and he gets so excited. He’s like, oh my God, have you seen these numbers? I can’t believe Page – 10 – of 11it. He’s always, like, shocked every time. He sees like, you know, everyone keeps saying Trump’s numbers are going bad, but you go over to here. Six months ago, 84, and now, it’s 85. Oh, wow, amazing. Like, it’s just, it’s that energy. It’s crazy. Evan Nappen 37:13 Well, how old is he? Maybe he’s just trying to get excitement to statistics? Teddy Nappen 37:18 I know, but it’s just like, what are the numbers? Pretty good. He’s like, gad Zooks. He’s like, clapping. I know. It’s just like, what the heck is it? Like if anyone is bored? Just look up Harry Enten on CNN. He’s, it’s so fucking weird. Evan Nappen 37:37 Okay, I love it. All right, Teddy. Well, that is interesting to know, but I’m not surprised, not surprised at all. This is the moment, the moment when we discuss the GOFU, that is the Gun Owner Fuck Up. It is one of the most important aspects of what we do, because every day we deal with Gun Owner Fuck Ups. And when we can let the listeners know, you get to learn expensive lessons for free. And this week’s GOFU is real simple. It’s Accidental Discharge. Let me just make it real clear. Now, more than ever, more than ever, you’ve got to be extremely overly conscientious. You better triple check chambers. You’ve got to make sure. You cannot afford in any way to have any kind of Accidental Discharge in New Jersey, because you risk it all. You risk it all. You risk becoming a felon. You risk going to prison. You risk losing your gun rights for the entire United States. You risk not being covered, arguably, by insurance. It is an insane risk that New Jersey is imposing, and I’ve seen 80 cases throughout my entire practice. Unfortunately, they happen, and, you know, in hindsight, they’re all avoidable. But folks don’t be a GOFU. Please, please, please. Follow all the rules of safety, and make sure you treat every gun as loaded. Every gun, you treat as loaded. Do not for a second, not do that. It’s just that critical. They’re criminalizing those who make a simple mistake, and there is no tolerance. Evan Nappen 40:00 This is Evan Nappen and Teddy Nappen reminding you that gun laws don’t protect honest citizens from criminals. They protect criminals from honest citizens. Speaker 2 40:13 Gun Lawyer is a CounterThink Media production. The music used in this broadcast was managed by Cosmo Music, New York, New York. Reach us by emailing Evan@gun.lawyer. The information and opinions in this broadcast do not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your state. Page – 11 – of 11 Downloadable PDF TranscriptGun Lawyer S5 E273_Transcript About The HostEvan Nappen, Esq.Known as “America's Gun Lawyer,” Evan Nappen is above all a tireless defender of justice. Author of eight bestselling books and countless articles on firearms, knives, and weapons history and the law, a certified Firearms Instructor, and avid weapons collector and historian with a vast collection that spans almost five decades — it's no wonder he's become the trusted, go-to expert for local, industry and national media outlets. Regularly called on by radio, television and online news media for his commentary and expertise on breaking news Evan has appeared countless shows including Fox News – Judge Jeanine, CNN – Lou Dobbs, Court TV, Real Talk on WOR, It's Your Call with Lyn Doyle, Tom Gresham's Gun Talk, and Cam & Company/NRA News. As a creative arts consultant, he also lends his weapons law and historical expertise to an elite, discerning cadre of movie and television producers and directors, and novelists. He also provides expert testimony and consultations for defense attorneys across America. Email Evan Your Comments and Questions  talkback@gun.lawyer Join Evan's InnerCircleHere's your chance to join an elite group of the Savviest gun and knife owners in America.  Membership is totally FREE and Strictly CONFIDENTIAL.  Just enter your email to start receiving insider news, tips, and other valuable membership benefits.   Email (required) *First Name *Select list(s) to subscribe toInnerCircle Membership Yes, I would like to receive emails from Gun Lawyer Podcast. (You can unsubscribe anytime)Constant Contact Use. Please leave this field blank.var ajaxurl = "https://gun.lawyer/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php";

Air Week: January 19-25, 2026 George Goldner, Pt. 2 – Gee Records It’s part 2 of our 3 part series on record man, George Goldner. He is said to have had the “golden ear” for hit records and songwriter Jerry Leiber even complimented his talent for picking hit songs by saying that Goldner had, “the musical taste of a fourteen-year-old-girl.” Born to Jewish immigrants in 1919, Goldner’s first love was Latino dance music and he began his career by opening night clubs and starting Tico Records, a Latino label in 1948. By 1953, he was interested in Rhythm & Blues and began releasing records under the Rama subsidiary. We featured Rama Records in part 1. This week, the “Juke In The Back” with Matt The Cat will take a close look at Goldner’s second R&B label, Gee Records. It’s been said that the label was named after the huge success of The Crows single, “Gee” on Rama Records, but it’s more likely that he named the Gee label after himself. Gee was very vocal group focused and we’ll hear seldom-played classic records from The Coins, The Five Crowns, The Valtones, The Debonaires and The Quintones. Goldner scored the biggest and most influential hit of his entire career on Gee with “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” by The Teenagers featuring 14 year old Frankie Lymon. The late, great Herbie Cox of The Cleftones was in Goldner’s office when the Teenagers auditioned as The Premiers and we’ll hear Herbie recall that story as well as how the Cleftones came to sign with Goldner. Next week, we’ll close the series with a spotlight on Gone and End Records, Goldner’s last 2 labels under his stewardship. LISTEN BELOW

Yes, we're wrapping up the podcast. Is it Heated Rivalry's fault? Kinda! We had a really good go, but after a lot of conversations about this, we have decided that we will end Gayest Episode Ever with one last ten-episode season. The below episodes will be going live every other week (in the way new episodes have appeared in the feed in the last year), so we're going to be around for some time yet, but this is the plan for the last run of GEE. And if you're disappointed or surprised, please let us know. But in this mini-ep we do get into the reason why we've come to that decision. The schedule for the final season (order TBD) Happy Days S2E4 "You Go to My Head"  Ned and Stacey S1E19 "Gay Caballeros" Dear John S1E13 "Stand by Your Man" Married… With Children S3E21 "Life's a Beach" Duckman S3E2 "Forbidden Fruit" Oh Grow Up (episode TBD) Gay Disney shorts Cheers S11E26 "One for the Road"  Batman: TAS S2E11 "Baby Doll"  Frasier S1E24 "My Dinner With Niles"