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Rainbows, youth, soma bandits and liberation – in this Ask Me Anything episode, Thom unpacks how Vedic wisdom sees everyday life, from Indra dhanush rainbows to the way attention is stolen and spent.Thom speaks directly to young people about avoiding a “stress‑bag” future and choosing a different destiny through Vedic Meditation.Thom also clarifies the Vedic meaning of soma bandits and offers a nuanced distinction between moksha and nirvana as expressions of liberation.Listen in to explore how these timeless ideas can reshape how you see yourself and the world around you.Episode Highlights[00:45] Q - What is the significance of rainbows?[00:56] A - Indra Dhanush And Rainbows[08:38] Q - How can we inspire more young people to meditate?[09:14] A - The Destiny Of A Non-Meditating Adult[13:46] Q - What is a soma bandit?[13:59] A - Attention Robbers[18:35] Q - What is the distinction between moksha and nirvana?[18:41] A - Breaking Of Shackles vs Liberation Of PotentialUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
Homily of Fr. Mike O'Connor from Mass on March 1, 2026 at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis, MS. Readings Gn 12:1-4a 2 Tm 1:8b-10 Mt 17:1-9 If you would like to donate to OLG and her livestream ministry, please go to https://olgchurch.net/give
TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] was Luther King jr. right? Does love have the power to turn an enemy into a friend. We’re creating an inspiring documentary called Courage to Love The Power of Compassion, which explores extraordinary stories of those who have chosen to do the unthinkable, love and forgive even those who are deeply hurtful. Gissele: Through their journeys, we will uncover the profound impact of forgiveness and love, not only on those offering it, but also receiving it. In addition, we’ll hear from experts who will explore where the love and compassion are part of our human nature, and how we can bridge divides with those we disagree with. Gissele: If you’d like to support our film, please go to www M-A-I-T-R-E-C-E-N-T-R e.com/documentary. It’s mitre center.com/documentary Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. [00:01:00] Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re talking about self-compassion in teenagers. And my guest is Dr. Gissele: Karen Bluth, who’s an associate professor emerita at the University of North Carolina, where she studies how mindful self-compassion improves the mental health of teens and young adults. She’s the author of five books for teens and caregivers, including The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens and Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens in Schools. Gissele: In addition, she’s a 2022 recipient of the Inaugural Mind and Life Foundation Award for Public Communication of Contemplative Research. Yay. As a mindfulness practitioner for over 45 years, a mindfulness teacher and an educator with over 18 years of classroom teaching experience, Dr. Bluth frequently gives, talks conducts workshops, and teaches classes in self-compassion in educational and community settings and trains [00:02:00] teachers in mindful self-compassion for teens internationally. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Dr. Karen Bluth. Hi, Karen. Karen: Hi. It’s well. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for coming. I think this is a topic that it’s definitely needs to be discussed, and as a mother of two teens, I know the need for self-compassion. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got started in this work. Karen: Sure. Well it really takes me back to my teen years. I was in high school, it, I was a senior in high school. It was 1975 and I needed. A topic for an independent study project that I had to do for my English class. and it was due the next day. I was driving down the road. I didn’t have my topic of course. Karen: I was driving down the road and outta the corner of my eye, I saw a sign that said something about meditation. Tm at that ti at that time it was transcendental meditation. It still [00:03:00] is actually, but I remembered hearing something about meditation in a different class in my social studies class. And there was something about it when we talked about it in that social studies class that resonated with me. Karen: And I remember thinking, Hmm, that makes sense. So when I saw that sign out of the corner of my eye, I thought, oh, well, let me check this out. So I pulled in. It was this old house I remember, and I went in and I picked up some brochures about transcendental meditation. And talked to the people there and they said, well if you want to be initiated, and I think that was the word they used, come back Saturday at 10 o’clock, I think they said, bring flowers and a piece of fruit. Karen: So it sounded very mysterious to me, but I did, I went back and, and was given a mantra at that time, and that was the beginning of my meditation practice. And you know, I practiced for my senior year in high school. I think when I went to college, it kind of fell away [00:04:00] for a couple of years. And then I got back into it after college and have been practicing meditation, mindfulness since you know, probably the mid eighties. Karen: Regularly. It’s been a cornerstone, an anchor throughout my entire adult life. As I’m sure as I’m sure you know, it has been for, for many people. I, I was very lucky to start early on. And then sometime in the nineties I had little kids and so I spent a fair amount of time in my car with them, in their car seats, trying to get them to nap because they wouldn’t nap at home. Karen: Yeah, I imagine there’s a lot of people that, that resonate with this. And so I had a cassette tape at that time. That’s what we used in our cars of poetry of self-compassion read by the British poet, David White. And this cassette tape had been passed around my meditation group [00:05:00] and so I had this copy and I listened to these poems and. Karen: I think I internalized the message a lot because it was in my car stereo for quite some time. And so this message of self-compassion became really integrated into into, you know, how I spoke to myself. And then about a decade later, I decided to go back to school and get my PhD and I wanted to bring together the different threads of my life. Karen: So that was my personal life, my mindfulness practice Gissele: mm-hmm. Karen: And this whole time I was, I was teaching in schools. I was a teacher and middle school and upper elementary school, fifth grade, mostly also younger grades, but mostly fifth grade and middle school. And so youth and, and, and being with youth and. Karen: Wanting to improve the lives of youth was [00:06:00] really very central to me and my mission actually. And so I, when, when I went back to school in 2008, I wanted to bring together these different threats of my life, my personal mindfulness practice, and my interest in helping youth. And at that time, it was just a few years after Kristen Neff was publishing her work. Karen: So her first articles, research articles on self-compassion came out in 2003. And so this was five years later. There wasn’t that much published at that time and nothing with teens. And so that’s when I just started diving into the work at that point. So that’s a long, a long story really, but that’s really how, how I came to where I am now. Gissele: It’s wonderful. I love that as the teen, you, it’s like, okay, well I’m gonna be initiated here. I’ll show up with my stuff. Karen: It was like, why not? You know? It was 1975. I was like, you know, whatever. It sounds a little weird. Fruit and flowers and [00:07:00] a mantra, but whatever, you know? Gissele: Mm. Yeah. That’s lovely. I do Kriya yoga and so there, there is like an initiation part of the, the component too, and there’s like the offering. Gissele: So yeah, that I resonated with that. I’m interested to to know what the receptivity is of young people towards self-compassion. And the reason why I ask that is as, as a mother of two teenagers, I know that when I, you know, I emphasized to them the importance of meditation, the importance of loving yourself. Gissele: They understand it, but they don’t always wanna practice what I’m doing. And so they wanna find their own path to loving themselves and being compassionate to themselves. What has been the reception of young people? When you show up to schools Karen: Yeah, of course, of course. So yeah, it’s interesting. Karen: So I hear from parents a lot that there’s, and this is actually, you know, this is the job of teens, is to resist what comes from parents. Gissele: Yeah. Karen: And find their own way, as you said. So this is not [00:08:00] not only is it not a bad thing, it’s actually a good thing that they’re a little bit resistant, a little bit of, Hmm. Karen: I don’t wanna just like take on what you’re handing me. Gissele: Yeah. Karen: So what is the reception? It depends who it’s coming from. So again, if it’s coming from a parent, of course it varies. It depends on the relationship between the parent and the kid. But usually, and I’m making a generalization here, there is Karen: A little bit of resistance, a little bit too, you know, maybe a little bit more than a little bit of resistance. Generally after the first class teens if we don’t push them and we don’t, you know, we, it’s always an invitation to participate in these classes. we’re not heavy handed about it. Karen: We don’t require them. Not that you could anyway, you can’t require somebody to do these practices, right? Gissele: Yeah. Karen: We just invite them in, but we don’t you know, we’re not heavy handed. We invite them in and if [00:09:00] we approach it that way the resistance decreases a lot. And you know, the teens might be quiet, but they’re taking it in. Karen: And I have to tell you that. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard from teens at the end of a class teens will pull me aside and say something like, you know, this was really my mom’s idea to take this class, or, this was my therapist’s idea. I didn’t really wanna do it, but I’m so glad I did. Karen: I frequently hear that. You know, this is the nature of the beast, you know, this is what, this is what teens are supposed to be doing. They’re supposed to be questioning, they’re supposed to be particularly questioning what comes on, you know, what the adults around them are saying to them. Gissele: I agree with you. I think it’s a developmental stage, right? Because we’re constantly trying to improve, what our parents did be better, be different, if we only just accepted the status quo , I don’t think there’d be progress . I’m curious [00:10:00] as to what some of the outcomes you have seen What are some of the things that you have found have helped, maybe some of the things that maybe weren’t as successful? Karen: Yeah. So well first of all, we know from research that teens who are more self-compassionate experience less depression, anxiety, and stress. For example, we know that as teens progress through adolescence, they tend to become more depressed. Karen: And that’s mostly driven by females. And that, that when teens are more self-compassionate, they’re less likely to get depressed as they move through the teen years. So we see that. We also know that stress is linked to depression, but we know that teens who are more self-compassionate, when they’re stressed, they’re less likely to be depressed. Karen: We also know that depression is linked to self-injury non-suicidal self-injury, things like cutting. But teens who are more self-compassionate are less likely to [00:11:00] self-injure when they’re depressed. so we see across many studies in many different places all over the world, we see that self-compassion actually acts as a protective factor or a buffer against. Karen: Some of these difficult challenges in the teen years. And we also know when we actually teach teens self-compassion through these different through our mindful self-compassion for teens course and workshops and things like that, we see that teens at the end experience less depression than they did at the beginning. Karen: Less anxiety, less stress. And in our most recent study with teens who had some suicidal ideation going in, that they had significantly less suicidal ideation at the end of the study. Gissele: That’s really, really powerful. I just wanted to clarify. You said driven by females? Gissele: Does that mean that it’s mostly young girls who are experiencing the [00:12:00] depression? Karen: I. Well, what we see is that as girls move from age 11 or 12 to 18 generally they become of course it’s generalization, but overall teen girls become more depressed and by the time they’re 18 or so, 18 or 19, they are twice as likely to be depressed as males of the same age. Karen: And that statistics stays the same stable through adulthood. So, you know, adult women are generally twice as likely to be depressed as adult men. That doesn’t mean that that boys or men aren’t struggling also they are. It’s just that their way of expressing their discontent, dissatisfaction, unhappiness is not through depression. Karen: It’s through other means. Usually external. Usually things like anger comes [00:13:00] out with anger. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that. In this world of COVID, we have young people being more isolated and lonely and with all the school shootings that have happened in America in particular not as much in Canada I’m curious as to the impact of self-compassion on improving relationships for young people. Gissele: Does self-compassion work help them in terms of relationships with one another? Karen: Yeah. Well, we do see we do have a study with young adults that shows and these, these were 18 through 30 that shows decrease in loneliness when these young adults were more self-compassionate. I think what we’re seeing it overall is that obviously through COVID, there’s a lot of isolation, loneliness a lot more turning to social media, turning to technology now, AI and, what [00:14:00] social media does unfortunately is exacerbate this sense of comparing oneself with others, right? Mm-hmm. Gissele: Yeah. Karen: And of course, even though we all know, including teens, that what’s posted in social media is not the full picture of somebody’s life. It’s the curated picture of somebody’s life still. Karen: It exacerbates a sense of, I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy. Look at that person there, you know, they have all this great stuff going on in their lives, and I don’t, you know, so self-compassion can be helpful there. And in fact, in our program, we have a social media exercise and what we teach. Karen: Teens is how to be aware of how they’re feeling when they’re engaging with social media. So we don’t tell them social media’s bad, don’t engage in it because first of all, that’s not gonna work. Second of all, as adults, [00:15:00] we engage with social media. You know, it would be hypocritical of us, us to say not to. Karen: So what we do, which I think is a lot more helpful and also empowering to teens, is to teach them to notice what are you feeling when you’re engaging with social media? What’s coming up for you? Are you feeling this sense of, oh, I’m not good enough, or are you feeling lonely or sad? Or maybe you’re feeling excited, maybe you’re feeling connected. Karen: You know, it’s not all bad. So notice what you’re feeling and then make a choice that’s good for you, that’s healthy for you, you know, take care of yourself. So, so, so self-compassion is all about being good to yourself, supporting yourself, standing up for yourself, you know, doing what’s healthy for yourself.[00:16:00] Karen: It’s all of that. So if you’re noticing that, that something is, makes you feel bad, you have the power to limit it or shut it down completely. And whether that’s social media or you know, a toxic relationship with a friend, you know, you can do that also. But so it’s bringing awareness to what you’re feeling when you’re engaging with them. Gissele: I really appreciate that you said this because I think, I don’t wanna underestimate how powerful what you just said is. Because so many of us are so distractible, we have no idea how we’re feeling in our body. And until we’re present in our body, we can’t really understand how we’re treating ourselves. Gissele: And so to allow young people to just notice how they’re feeling about certain things helps them understand, Hey, wait a minute, is this a positive thing for me or a negative thing for me? And makes them more aware about the choices they’re making and therefore they can choose differently, . They might not choose [00:17:00] differently, but it gives them that awareness of like, how am I being impacted by everything? Gissele: And this is really authentically me, Then they can make that choice. They could take their power back. So I think that’s fantastic. Can you share a little bit about some of the other things that you do in your self-compassion program with teens? Like how do you get them to engage? Gissele: ‘Cause I don’t know if I would see a teen just sitting for hours and hours doing meditation. Karen: Sure. Yeah. Well, we don’t ask them to sit for hours and hours, you know, to practice. Karen: First of all, it’s adapted from Kristen Neff and Chris Gerner’s, mindful self-compassion class for adults. The teen class is different in that it does involve it’s much more activity based. it’s developmentally appropriate. So at the beginning of every class and there are eight classes there’s a little bit of art and it could be mindful drawing. Karen: It could be there’s one class which is. My favorite art activity, which involves playing with UBIC, which if you’re not familiar with Ubic, [00:18:00] it’s like the best slime ever. it comes from the Dr. Seuss book, Barnaby and the Ubik. But it’s, it’s just a wonderful substance and it, and it foreshadow something that we do later in the class. Karen: Each art activity foreshadows something that happens in that class. So we have a little bit of art, like 10 minutes of art at the beginning of every class. we emphasize it’s not about creating some beautiful thing that you’re gonna hang on your wall. It’s about just noticing feeling of a pin in your hand or whatever. Karen: You know, so it’s mindful activity. We have a couple of music meditations with the teens, which the teens absolutely love. We play some games. We introduce informal practices. Mostly we introduce some formal practices, but it’s mostly informal practices, which means things that you can do in the moment. Karen: So you’re starting to feel a little stressed. Notice the feeling of your feet on the floor, you know, that point of contact. and that’s because when we [00:19:00] start to feel stressed, we’re generally in our heads, we’re worrying, we’re anxious. Mm-hmm. It’s all going on in our heads. And when we bring attention to something physical, like the sensation of our feet on the floor, it can be very grounding. Karen: So mostly informal practices. So our regular class is an afterschool class, which is eight sessions, 90 minutes. We also have a school version, which is 16 different sessions, which are 45 minutes long each. Karen: And then we also have have what I’m calling drop in sessions. And this is because school counselors have told us that, you know, sometimes they don’t have a big chunk of time with kids. They have only 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So we have these drop in sessions where they could just go ahead into the class, teach this for 10 minutes, and and so they get a little bit of taste of, of what this is about, or, you know, a number of different drop-in sessions. Gissele: Hmm. [00:20:00] Thank you for sharing that. Gissele: I wanted to mention how important art and music and play are in terms of really reconnecting us with ourselves. Gissele: there’s been so much intergenerational trauma in my family and our history that I’ve had to kind of go back to basics and realize how difficult it was for me to play , how difficult it was for me to sit there and be present with myself. Gissele: Even coloring. I tried coloring and I just kind of rushed through it. Like I had an appointment and I’m like, why am I not allowing myself to be in this moment? But those opportunities, art and music, things that in the school system we haven’t always prioritized , I think is really powerful. Karen: yeah. And I think as adults we don’t play enough by any, by any means, you know? And, in fact, when we train teachers in the program we frequently hear from these adult adults that, you know, they wanna do these activities, you know, because they’re fun. [00:21:00] we need to play more, we need to have more fun, just lighthearted, play. Gissele: Yeah. I’m allowing myself to dance more and twirl more, and play more, even though I do it awkwardly. ’cause there’s always this voice in my head that is like, I have to color it perfectly. Gissele: Right? Like, which is weird because I like to think that I’m pretty compassionate with myself. But as I really am stepping up into Being more connected with my inner child, I can see those little tiny things where I’m like, oh, maybe I should have colored this nicer. Maybe this should have been inside the line. Karen: And teens have those voices also, you know, and which is why we emphasize as they’re, as they’re actually doing the art activity, we say at least several times in that 10 minute period, remember, we don’t care what this looks like. This is not about the product. Karen: It’s not about producing some beautiful thing. It’s about simply noticing, noticing what’s [00:22:00] going on. Noticing noticing the sound of the pencil on the paper. You know, is that making a sound? Notice the feeling when your hand is gripping. You know, the, the pencil is, is there a tightness in your hand? You know, so it’s all about that. Karen: It’s all about noticing, feeling, noticing the process, noticing the sensations that are going on as you’re doing the art. So we’re always emphasizing that as as they’re doing the art and even thoughts noticing, you know, you notice any thoughts coming up in your head like, oh, I don’t like this particular part of the drawing, and can you remember? Karen: That’s just a thought. And notice your thought. And as they’re learning more about the mindfulness piece in the class, will, you know, bring in that notice of thought. It’s just a thought. It doesn’t mean it’s a fact. You can let that thought drift away. Gissele: And that is so powerful. Because personally, having done [00:23:00] self-compassion practices is that you’re teaching. Gissele: reconnection . Right. With yourself, with your body, with your being, as a society, we’re so disconnected from ourselves, from other people. And to just even feel like your fingertips in your body and see how tense we are in the thoughts. Gissele: In my own practice, I’m learning to love my fear and focusing on learning to love everything, Even the challenging moments Can I truly love everything in my life or just even if I can’t, can I just accept it? Can I learn to just allow it? Gissele: And it can feel dynamic, right? So I can imagine for teenagers with their hormones that it must be quite the experience. Mm-hmm. Curious as to your perspectives around how teenagers are doing nowadays. Karen: Yeah. What I am seeing is a lot of struggle. It’s a really hard time and that’s what, you know, the statistics that we’re seeing that there’s high levels of [00:24:00] depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Karen: It’s an overwhelming world that we’re living in. I’m working on a book right now with my wonderful colleague, Marissa Knox. And this is a book for young adults and. We haven’t settled on a title yet, but we are bringing in this idea, and this is, you know, throughout the book and it’s about self-compassion for young adults. Karen: But this idea that we are living in an incredibly challenging world right now. Unbelievably challenging in so many ways, on so many levels. And we have to acknowledge that, you know, and we have to acknowledge that, that things are much harder now than they have been in decades past. And, you know, when I was a young adult, it wasn’t easy either. Karen: You know, there was a huge recession. I mean, I graduated from a good university and couldn’t get a job after, and I was waiting tables, you know, it [00:25:00] wasn’t easy then either, but but it’s a lot more difficult now, you know? The economy is, is even harder and rougher now than it was in the eighties when. Karen: Was waiting tables after graduating. And and you know, I have two young adult children and you know, I hear a lot about their lives and their friends’ lives and how hard it’s, I mean, so we have to acknowledge that. I and you know, when I’m teaching young adults and teens I always bring that in, that, you know, this isn’t your fault. Karen: That you feel all all this huge range of difficult emotions. You know, you’re living at a time when, you know things are really hard, politically, economically on the global stage, everything, you know so. To acknowledge that, to put that out there, to have that be the context in which we [00:26:00] then bring in self-compassion and we talk about how, okay, so now knowing that the world is this way, and guess what, for the moment we can’t do anything about it. Karen: We can in the long run, yes. And we’re working towards that, but right now, in the moment, we’re stuck with it. So how can we take care of ourselves? How can we support ourselves knowing that it’s rough right now and it may not be our fault that we can’t get a job or feel safe in our schools or, Gissele: yeah. Karen: All of that. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think acknowledging is sort of the first step towards saying, okay, where is my power in this moment?Because I think it’s one of the conversations I had with my students is like, you know, in the time when you might feel so powerless, where do you have power? Even if it’s just in terms of how you determine how you feel about the situation. Gissele: Are you gonna let the situation sink you [00:27:00] down and lead you to further depression, Or are you going to choose to say. I’m gonna choose to be kind to myself. I’m gonna choose to do the best I can. I’m gonna choose to allow and do in the moment what I can. And then, you know, if I make a mistake or a trip over over the same rock, I’m gonna pick myself up and keep going. Gissele: Like, or if I can’t, I can’t. Right? So how do we practice that ’cause there’s an element of me that believes that part of the reason why we are in the situation we are in terms of the world, is because of a disconnection, because of a lack of self-compassion and self-love. Gissele: There’s a lack of love in the world in general. And we keep thinking that the way that we’re gonna approach it is have more money and be more successful and do all of these things, but it just breeds separation. Which leads to my next question of how can self-compassion help us create community? Karen: Ah, yeah, so that’s a great [00:28:00] question. Karen: Because of course, as we know, community is absolutely vital. Having community is vital. So I think you know, the first thing that comes to mind is that when we’re more self-compassionate we have less fear of failure because we know we’re not gonna beat ourselves up when we fail. If we fail at something, we’re just gonna say, you know, well, you know, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. Karen: It just means like, that didn’t work for me in, in that particular moment. How this applies to community is that we’re more likely to reach out to others, right? So if we’re not so afraid that of getting rejected by others, we’re more likely to make an attempt move out of our comfort zone and reach out and engage in a conversation with. Karen: Somebody we don’t know, for example, we’re more likely to join a community group or, you know, in the case [00:29:00] of teens, you know, sign up for some new sport or music class or whatever to engage with others more and develop that community when we’re feeling so unqualified, unworthy not enough, we’re much more likely to isolate. Karen: And so in that way you know, obviously that’s how community develops is, where we’re able to reach out and en engage with others in, you know, all different ways. Gissele: Mm. Yeah. And the other thing I found in, especially in my self-compassion practice has been that it’s led me to be more authentically myself. Gissele: Mm-hmm. And you can’t really, you can’t really allow yourself to be seen and to be loved and to find your people if you are not allowing yourself to be authentically yourself or to be vulnerable . And so I think that’s a really key aspect of self-compassion, ’cause that’s really what primarily young people want. Gissele: They just wanna be authentically themselves. But we hear all these [00:30:00] messages. I know, I heard them growing up. You know, all about how we have to look a certain way. We have to be a certain way. There’s a right answer to everything. Gissele: and so I think that’s the beauty of self-compassion, is the allowing of multiple perspectives is the allowing of differences in the discomfort. Karen: when you were talking about that, what I was thinking about was in our our teen class, we have a session where teens have the opportunity to really reflect on their core values, and we take them through a particular activity to do this so that they’re thinking about what’s really important to me, what do I really value? Karen: You know how do I wanna live my life and what are the things I wanna let go of, you know? Mm-hmm. So it’s not a conclusive activity where they get to the end and they say, okay, this is what I want. You know? But it’s an opportunity for them to really take a few moments to think about and to reflect on, you know, what do I wanna keep [00:31:00] in my life? Karen: What do I want to hold onto? What do I value and what do I, maybe wanna think about letting go of? It’s just the beginning of that conversation with themselves. Gissele: Hmm. And I love that ’cause I’ve had to do this later in my life, realizing that the things I wanted to have were based on somebody else’s perspective of what they thought I should have. Gissele: And I, I went through a really stripping of like, who am I really? And again, I, this is older, right? Like, who am I really, what do I really love? What do I really wanna do? What do I really want my life to look like? And it’s not anything that I would’ve thought would’ve fit the picture, like it’s not. Gissele: Mm-hmm. But it’s so much better . It’s so much greater, it’s so much more me. Karen: Mm-hmm. Gissele: I was curious as to whether in the program there are elements of how to deal with conflict with one another Karen: Yeah. Well we do have a session activity where we talk about conflict with parents. Mm. And, Gissele: mm-hmm. Karen: Why, first of all, [00:32:00] why that occurs. So, you know, why is that happening? And we talk about the developmental stage and the brain changes and we show this video clip actually from the movie Crudes. Karen: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there’s a teen in there and she’s having a conflict with her dad. And the dad just wants to keep her safe and isolated and in the cave, and she wants to go out and explore. And we talk about how the dad is doing what he’s supposed to be doing, and the teen is doing what she’s supposed to be doing. Karen: Neither one of them is wrong. And yet conflict ensues because they have different objectives and what can you do when conflict ensues when this happens? And so first of all, just having that awareness that, this dad’s not trying to be mean and horrible. Karen: He’s just trying to keep his kids safe. And sort of having that awareness and then how self-compassion can support you because when you’re [00:33:00] supporting yourself in that way, you can add through mindfulness also. You can regulate your emotions and which is the first step, you know? Karen: Well awareness is the first step. That would be the second step. And then get to a place where you can actually. Talk about what’s going on and acknowledge what the other person wants and needs also. Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. I I love that you brought the movie up, the crudes. ’cause what I, remember you know, they both the daughter and the father push each other, right? Gissele: they push each other to grow and learn. And I wanted to emphasize as well for my listeners about something that you just said, which is really important, which is dealing with Gissele: conflict. the first part is always awareness. It’s like awareness of how am I feeling? What am I, what am I thinking? You know, what’s happening in my body. And the second one is being able to hold space for those difficult feelings , right? Validating our feelings, holding space for those difficult feelings, having compassion for ourselves so that then we can have [00:34:00] compassion for other people’s, even if their perspective’s completely different, like differ from our own. Gissele: And so I think that’s the, the beauty of self-compassion is that it helps us have compassion for ourselves and other people. Sometimes the, as they called the disliked person, mm-hmm. But it really does start with the awareness because I feel like we don’t really know how to have conversations with people anymore. Gissele: There’s like this global canceling that happens because I think we are just so overwhelmed by our own emotions and we haven’t really been. At least some generations haven’t really been taught the social emotional part of, regulating our emotions so that we can then do the work of listening. Gissele: And you know, when I think about listening, I think about the work of Valerie Kaur who talks about revolutionary love. And she says, you know, listening, if you’re truly listening, you have to be willing to change Mm-hmm. Karen: Mm-hmm. Gissele: And that that’s can feel difficult. [00:35:00] It can, Karen: yeah. Karen: I think that’s, I I think you hit on a really important and very big issue which is that there isn’t a lot of listening going on. You know, there really isn’t. You know, there might be people sitting there waiting for the other person to finish talking so that they can say their piece. Right? Gissele: Yeah. Karen: But, of course, when you’re really listening, that’s not what’s going on. When you’re really listening, you’re open and willing to change your mind. So yes, that’s certainly part of this whole, you know, the program at the very beginning, in our first class, we have a piece called Community Agreements where we all agree on how the class is going to proceed. Karen: And one of the things is deep listening. Really listening, without that judging voice, you know, put that judging voice aside as much as possible. [00:36:00] Gissele: And that takes practice. Karen: Yes, Gissele: it does. Karen: It absolutely does. Gissele: often we go straight to judgment instead of professing observations. The other thing I wanted to mention was listening to the voices of young people is so important, which is why I think also your work is so phenomenal . Historically, we have not viewed young people’s voices as important as adult voices, or especially the voices of, of young children. Gissele: What are your thoughts about our ability to be able to listen to young people and collaborate with them in a way that makes them feel involved? ’cause I know I, that’s, I didn’t feel that way when I was young. Gissele: Young people were not invited to sit at the table with the adults to talk about adult things and talk about the world, How can we, emphasize more listening to young people? Karen: Yeah. It’s interesting. I too remember being a teen and clearly thinking, you know what, I know what I’m talking about here. Karen: I have ideas. Gissele: Yeah. Karen: You know, [00:37:00] and I actually did have the opportunity as a teen to be on an adult board of, mm-hmm. Of a nonprofit organization. It was a theater organization that we were involved with. and it was a great opportunity, we need to hear teen’s, voices, you know, we need to hear what they have to say. Karen: That doesn’t mean thatwe’re going to make decisions based on everything that they say or, because obviously we’ve been on the planet for longer and we have a certain amount of wisdom coming from our experience, but truly they know what they need and giving them the opportunity to talk about it and to express it and to listen. Karen: You know, I think what teens want more than anything is really to be listened to. Is to be heard. And maybe that’s what we all want more than every [00:38:00] anything is to be heard. Right. Particularly in the teen years, it’s really the first time when they are aware that they have some opinions and values and things to contribute to the conversation. Karen: And as adults I think it’s our responsibility to listen and to hear their input Gissele: Yeah. Karen: As much as we can again, that doesn’t mean we’re gonna make decisions based on, what they suggest. I remember my daughter as a 15-year-old, went through a stage where she just felt like she didn’t need to wear her seatbelt in the car. Karen: And I was like that’s not happening. Like, now I Gissele: got Karen: this. Nope. Gissele: Yeah. Karen: No. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Karen: So it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t mean we go with everything that they, that they wanna do by any stretch, but, but to listen, I think is important. Gissele: Yeah. And they, that’s a great example. I’m curious as to her perspective as to why she felt in [00:39:00] that moment she didn’t need seat belts anymore. Karen: You know, I can ask her. I don’t remember. I think she was just exercising herperceived right. as an individual, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Obviously when it comes to safety, you know, we have to, Gissele: there’s a history there as to how we got seat belts. Gissele: Yeah. And so engaging in that conversation as you were talking, I was thinking about the generations and how sometimes it’s difficult for parents to hear the perspectives of their young people. if it, ignites shame and guilt, right. I’ve had conversations with my parents about the impact of my childhood and there’s been lots of like deflecting because it was difficult for them to hold some of these things that I was claiming. Gissele: And I’ve been on the other end as well in terms of like my children when they say stuff and you’re like, I hurt you. And so being able to apologize for me has been really important as a parent to emphasize to my kids that I’m not perfect. You know, we’re, Karen: we’re winging it out here [00:40:00] Gissele: and, and how much forgiveness and how much apologizing needs to happen and how much communication needs to happen when mistakes are made on both sides, right? Gissele: Mm-hmm. And how sometimes those mistakes and those conversations bring us closer together . But I can relate to my parents’ experience ’cause we all wanna be. At least from my perspective, I wanna be a good mom. I wanna be a loving parent. I wanna be the best parent that I can be. Gissele: And sometimes despite your best intense, you make mistakes. you hurt them. you do things like maybe that are based on your own fear. And so I find the practice of self-compassion really helps me be kind to myself and so that I can listen to that feedback and say, you know what? Gissele: I’m gonna sit with this. But it can feel difficult. Gissele: self-compassion really helped me sit with those difficult feelings because I wasn’t judging myself. A bad parent. Karen: yeah. You know, I think being a parent has been so good for my self and compassion practice just because of [00:41:00] everything that you said. Karen: My daughters are now 31 and 33, and you know, of course I made lots and lots of mistakes, I was one of those moms that I prioritized being a good mom. It was so important to me, you know, to be a good mom. And yet I made mistakes. And recently even I, maybe, I don’t know, six, eight months ago I was talking to my older daughter and there was something that I did when she was a teen that I felt, you know, I wish I could have. Karen: Not done what I did. And I felt really bad about what I did. And I, you know, I was talking to her about it and I said, I’m so sorry that I, put my foot down. I know what you really needed was a big hug. I wish I had, you know, done it differently. And she said, you know, mom, don’t worry about it. Karen: You can let that go. You know, I’m fine, But it helped me, first of all to be able to say that. And I think I was able to say that part at least in part, if not, [00:42:00] if not solely because of my self-compassion practice. And I think part of what self-compassion does for us is, is to remind us that we don’t have to be perfect and we’re not going to be any way. Karen: We’re not going to be perfect. We’re gonna make mistakes. So can we forgive ourselves? Gissele: Yeah. Karen: When we make mistakes, you know? And then if we can, and if it’s appropriate or if we want to or whatever, go to that person, you know, like go to our kid and say, look, I am really sorry that I did that and at the time I thought that was best. Karen: And now I see that’s not what you needed. Yeah. And I’m really sorry. Gissele: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s so interesting, and I think it’s important for us to have this conversation for two reasons. Number one is we think we have to be perfect at being compassionate or none at all. Gissele: none of us are perfect. And I think that’s the problem . We expect ourselves to be truly compassionate, the pinnacle of love [00:43:00] and really just, can you just be a little bit better than yesterday? That’s all that requires. Can you be a little bit more loving? Can you be a little bit more kind? Gissele: That’s all that is really required. And the second thing, which I think you emphasize, which is so important, It’s that we think that being compassionate, it’s gonna be like, well, I’m just gonna, allow my crappy behavior. It is so difficult to be loving and compassionate towards yourself when you don’t feel you deserve it. And what I found in my own practice is it actually enabled me to sit. More. Gissele: With all those aspects that I didn’t like about myself, the more that I was compassionate with myself, I didn’t let myself off the hook, I was able to see how my behavior could have been hurtful , was able to see how there was times when I wasn’t living my values, but if I hadn’t been compassionate, I would’ve deflected. Gissele: I would’ve like invalidated. I would’ve been like, no, no. It’s their problem. It’s not me. And so this is why the practice of compassion is so important, especially starting younger. [00:44:00] So a few more questions. I say youngest that you have done work on it. And are there groups that are helping our, really young people practice compassion? Karen: Yeah, absolutely. So I work with teens and as young as 11 or so. Gissele: Mm. Karen: There are people who work with younger, with younger kids. My colleague Jamie Lynn Tartera works with kids age about seven to 10 or so. And then my colleague Catherine Lovewell in the UK works with kids who are younger and she has a wonderful book out and stuffed animals and and all this really wonderful wonderful stuff for younger kids. Karen: And it’s just adorable. I have some of her things right here. I know you’re not gonna be able to see it over audio, but some of her, so these are her [00:45:00] stuffies that go with her, with her. I like Gissele: the rainbow one. Karen: Yeah. Well, this is actually, so her book is about the inner critic and Yeah, this is Crusher, which is your inner critic, and this is Booster. Karen: Who is your self-compassionate. So the Rainbow Guide is, oh, that’s beautiful, but she just has an unbelievably wonderful program. So yes, there are people working with younger kids and yeah, it’s so important to start early. Gissele: Thanks. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. But I absolutely appreciate that you’re working with teens ’cause that can be a difficult population, but definitely, definitely needed. Gissele: I think sometimes we make it more acceptable to do those kinds of things, like self-compassion, self-kindness practices with young kids, and then for some reason it just kind of drops off the face of the earth and we’re not continuing that practice. So I think it’s wonderful that you are doing that work. Gissele: Two more questions. I’m asking all of my, guests what their definition of self-love is. Karen: Definition of [00:46:00] self-love accepting yourself for who you are. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Karen: With all your so-called challenges and securities. Because really that’s, that’s what makes us who we are, is the whole package. Karen: You know, the things we like about ourselves and the things we’re not as comfortable with about ourselves and when we can. And you used this word earlier, which I think is, is really great. Allow the word allow when we can allow those parts of ourselves to be there, to be present and to accept them. Karen: Say, you know what, you know, I’m not the most patient person in the world. I know that about myself. And you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m not gonna be perfect and I’m not gonna be good at everything. I. And that’s okay. It’s okay not to be good at everything. So I, you know, my definition of self-love would be [00:47:00] just to, you know, be able to allow all those parts of your, of yourself, you know, to be present and to be there and maybe eventually move towards embracing them. Gissele: Hmm. I love that. So last question. Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? Where can they find your books? Please share. Karen: there’s two websites. There’s my website, which is my name http://www.karenbluth.com. And so you’ll find out about me about my work. On that website, we have a new website, which I really would like to promote. Karen: it’s a website, for teens teens, and that’s http://www.self-compassionforteens.org. And self-compassion is hyphenated. And so that is a recent website that we’ve just launched in the last couple of months which has all kinds of resources for teens, videos, short videos about explaining what self-compassion [00:48:00] is, you know, what the inner critic is, how can we deal with the inner critic. Karen: There’s there’s a quiz on there. See how self-compassionate you are. There’s video, there’s some videos that. Teams who have learned taken our courses, have talked about their experience with self-compassion. And then there’s section about taking a deeper dive. Anyway, I really would like teens everywhere to, to know about this website and have access to it. Karen: And it’s a great place to start to learn about how to be nicer to yourself. Gissele: Beautiful. There’ll be a link on our site. So thank you very much, Karen, for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom with us and for the work that you’re doing, which is so, so important and so needed at this time. And thank you for everyone that tuned into another episode of Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Gissele: See you soon.
Ready for some Greg & Alex live action? Well look know more...Taskmaster Live on Stage in Washington, D.C. took place on January 21, 2026, at the Warner Theatre. On the Podcast this week you can listen to the Q&A part of the show which was hosted by the brilliant Josh Gondelman. Listen to Greg Alex talk about all things TM plus some updates on their US trip! To catch up on Taskmaster visit channel4.com For all your latest Taskmaster news visit Taskmaster.tv
Episode 096 welcomes three-headed prog-tronic hydra lespecial, plus enigmatic bass-wizard Yheti, for an expansive deep dive into their mind-bending collaborative portal - LIMINOID. Framed through the lens of "A Year in the Life of lespecial," the conversations chronicle a monumental run from Jam Cruise 21 in Feb.2025, thru the LIMINOID experience, then NYE marking their 20th anniversary since forming as high-schoolers in the woods of Connecticut, before looking towards the future. This episode orbits LIMINOID's debut The Outernet, an idiosyncratic sonic tapestry and brilliantly-bizarre concept album where the searing precision of Rory Dolan, Luke Bemand, and Jonny G is masterfully manipulated by the surgical, mad scientist sound design of Yheti. Ep.096 finishes with Tales of a Tour Manager featuring Bret Peretz [Pigeons Playing Ping Pong]. 00:00 - Ep.096 preview 03:30 - check out Four Peaks Medicinals 04:30 - Golden Road Gathering 05:45 - The Upful Update 09:15 - Intro: a year in the life of lespecial Interviews 13:15 - Rory Dolan, Luke Bemand, Jonny G - Jam Cruise, Feb‘25 52:15 - Yheti & Jonny G - December '25 1:17:00 - Rory - Feb '26 1:39:45 - Luke - Feb '26 2:03:30 - Jonny G - Feb '26 2:28:30 - Tales of a TM ft. Bret Peretz (P4) - July '25 lespecial: A Year In The Life begins on the ragey open seas, as B.Getz connects with all three members of lespecial while aboard Jam Cruise in Feb. 2025. This Day 5 cabin summit at the tail end of this floating carnival captures the fellas [Rory Dolan - drums/vox, Luke Bemand - bass/synths, Jonny G - guitar/synths, vox] reflecting on the boat's bombastic musical escapades, playing with (friends of the pod) Alex Wasily, Mike Dillon and Skerik, Rory's Primus audition, introducing new music onstage, revisiting “Cannibal Holocaust”, spotlighting their relationship with Yheti and a forthcoming collaboration at the time still in its infancy. The narrative shifts to a focused deep dive in early December 2025 with Yheti, plus a little more color from Jonny G. Since it was always his baby, BG looks to Tyler Yheti to properly unpack the modus operandi behind the LIMINOID endeavor. Explore the creation of The Outernet, how they navigated the "liminal space" between organic instrumentation and avant-garde electronics. This segment highlights the brilliance of the concept, recalls initial challenges performing this project live (see - Mishawaka in May 2025), the tricks and tools required to bring this genre-schitzo robot to life - both in studio and then onstage, and creating a new hybrid strain of intoxicating, brain-splattering sound art that exists beyond traditional boundaries. The saga continues: a series of individual conversations with Rory, Luke, and Jonny from early Feb. 2026. We complete this podcast revolution around the sun, honor 20 years of hometown buddies who made good, and look towards their mighty bright immediate future. These one-on-one sessions allow for a more granular peek into personal growth, interband dynamics, and creative philosophies as they recognize a brotherhood that has kept them bonded since teenage garage band glory. We amp the stoke for lespecial's long-awaited return to West Coast's burnin' shores on the cryptically-titled Tentacle Difficulties tour. Behold this monumental, DIY evolution from small-town Connecticut proggy power trio to a genre-blurring, frontal-lobe leviathan known to us mere mortals as lespecial. For an episode chaser B.Getz checks in with an old friend in Bret Peretz, a connection rooted at Spirit of Suwannee Music Park years ago. The longtime Tour Manager for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong has worked many jobs behind the scenes over the course of a decade-plus. Several months back, Bret opened up about his beautiful journey from the hotel hospitality industry and nearly joining the Coast Guard, humble backstage beginnings all the way to the P4 gig at the heart of contemporary jam scene success. ViBE Junkie Jam lespecial - "Boundary Dissolution” Suwannee Hulaween 2023 lespecial's signature blend of “heavy future groove” combines headbanging metal riffage and surgical rhythmic precision with bone shaking 808s, sub synths and ethereal vocal stylings for a dance floor that welcomes moshing, dancing and hip swaying alike. Listeners are taken on a journey to the musical netherworld through esoteric soundscapes punctuated by raw, primal power. LIMINOID is a musical entity formed through the integration of data streams from Yheti and lespecial, two distinct sonic architects. Yheti orchestrates the sonic experiment while lespecial contributes live instrumentation encoded with rhythmic complexity. Analysis of live performance recordings reveals high variability and dynamic modulation of energy states. Audience response patterns indicate elevated engagement during improvisational sequences. Conclusion: LIMINOID functions as a high-intensity auditory experiment, optimized for real-time adaptation and multi-genre convergence without reliance on predefined constraints. System recommends further observation. Their debut live performance was May 2025 at Mishawaka Amphitheater in Bellvue, CO. 2025 debut LP ‘The Outernet' is a 12 track concept album that explores the liminal space between humanity and technology. The group performed at several festivals and a short tour in November 2025. RORY DOLAN Interview w/ BG about Primus audition. March 2025 Upful LIFE 2025: Favorite Records & More! [LIMINOID review inside] Jonny G on The Upful LIFE Podcast - Ep.40 Slaytanic Panic: lespecial's Wet ‘N' Wild NorCal Debut CHECK OUT OUR SPONSORS Four Peaks Medicinals Golden Road Gathering BISS LIST AARON SCHWARTZ ART LAZYMOON DESIGN for promo/poster art needs Support! Send B.G. a coupla' dollas 4 makin U holla! Upful LIFE Patreon EMAIL the SHOW PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW on Apple Podcasts Listen/Comment on Spotify Theme Song: "Mazel Tov"- CALVIN VALENTINE
Is it really possible for one person to make a dent in the suffering of the world? In this episode Thom explains why the most powerful contribution begins with ending our own suffering and aligning with the Unified Field through Vedic Meditation. He traces the way everyday gossip, blame and negativity ripple out into global conflict, and how twenty four hour bliss quietly reverses that trend from the inside out. Listen in for a radically practical reframing of peace, responsibility and your role in the evolution of consciousness.Episode Highlights[00:45] Q - How can individuals relieve world suffering?[01:11] A - Ending Personal Suffering to Help the World[04:05] Living in Twenty Four Hour Bliss[07:10] The Seagull and the Stolen Eggs[10:00] Where Global Conflict Really Begins[13:30] Why War Never Delivers Real Peace[16:49] Ending Gossip with Dignity and Silence[20:22] Choosing Beauty and Generosity Over Hate[23:22] Silent Presence as a Gift to PeaceYou can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/EqbrHWEtwakUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/ Registration is now open for Thom's only rounding retreat for 2026, in Sedona from May 21-25.This is your one and only opportunity this year for deep rest, stress release and consciousness expansion through industrial-strength meditation, along with twice-daily knowledge sessions with Thom.You'll enjoy delicious retreat-friendly meals and the beauty and healing powers of the Red Rocks of Sedona. Register before February 28th and you'll save $500 on your retreat fee. You can find out more at thomknoles.com/sedona.
A estas alturas, después de seis temporadas de "El cuento de la criada" quizá estemos algo hartos de los egotirps de Elizabeth Moss, no? Pues aquí va otro, una intensísima cinta en la que interpreta a una especie de Courtney Love que no es Courtney Love pero sí, dando una lección magistral de como ser una hija de puta internacional (TM)
Et ungdomsforhold som utenfra kunne se uskyldig ut, utviklet seg til en situasjon preget av frykt, kontroll og seksuelle overgrep. I denne episoden av Bak fasaden forteller gjesten sin historie om å være 14 år da hun møtte en 17-åring på Tinder, og hvordan forholdet gradvis ble preget av isolasjon, psykisk vold og sosial kontroll og flere seksuelle overgrep. Dette er en alvorlig og viktig samtale, også for foreldre: om tegnene som kan være lette å overse, hvorfor det kan være så vanskelig å si ifra, og hva voksne kan gjøre for å fange opp og beskytte tidlig.Episoden er sponset av TM klinikken og TM legetjenester Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This book has many merits and if you like it will likely depend on your feelings on secret secrets(TM)
We are going all the way back to series 3 and in this Epsiode Ed is joined by comedian, podcaster and TM Uber fan, the brilliant Al Murray! Al discusses his TM expenses on the show, why it's good to have a 'Gong Man' and what it is he loves about the programme. He also reveals that he wishes he held out for a 10 episode series! You can catch up on all of Taskmaster at channel4.com Get all the latest TM news at Taskmaster.tv
Tm shares the latest on Husker football recruiting.
It's very fashionable to talk about boundaries, especially in the context of relationships or expectations of others. One could argue that boundaries are useful, but once they become a cage, they become a problem.In this episode, Thom unpacks the difference between living inside sharp routines and cultivating real unboundedness, the kind that actually refreshes the nervous system and expands your capacity to meet the need of the time.Thom also explains why “control” is a false strategy in relationships, what it really means to meet another person's conscious receptivity, and how empathy becomes a practical tool for clearer expectations, cleaner communication, and less suffering.Episode Highlights[00:45] The Problem With Sharp Boundaries [04:19] Why Classic Approaches To Freedom Fail [07:34] The Shocking Truth About Repetitive Thinking [10:56] How To Break Free From Boundaries [15:10] Making Unboundedness A Daily Routine [19:17] The Goal Is Not Permanent Meditation [20:11] Q - How do we show up differently in relationships as we expand consciousness? [20:45] A - Meeting The Conscious Receptivity Of Others [24:48] The Illusion Of Control In Relationships [29:19] Using The Inner-net For True Connection [31:14] Q - How do you explain boundaries in toxic relationships? [31:42] A - Sharing Accurate Expectations With Others [32:54] Q - What about when there's resistance to clear expectations? [33:29] A - When To Use Dhanurveda PrinciplesYou can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/TufGThQ8qD4Useful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/ Registration is now open for Thom's only rounding retreat for 2026, in Sedona from May 21-25.This is your one and only opportunity this year for deep rest, stress release and consciousness expansion through industrial-strength meditation, along with twice-daily knowledge sessions with Thom.You'll enjoy delicious retreat-friendly meals and the beauty and healing powers of the Red Rocks of Sedona. Register before February 28th and you'll save $500 on your retreat fee. You can find out more at thomknoles.com/sedona.
Episode 277-Three-Round Burst of GOFU’s Also Available OnSearchable Podcast Transcript Gun Lawyer — Episode Transcript Page – 1 – of 11 Gun Lawyer — Episode 277 Transcript SUMMARY KEYWORDS GOFUs, New Jersey gun laws, vampire rule, sensitive places, unlawful possession, pretrial detention, federal injunction, carry permit, gun transport, Second Amendment, gun rights, legal advice, gun ownership, gun regulations, gun safety, gun culture. 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 00:21 And welcome to Gun Lawyer. So, you know our show here, one of the things that is very, very famous about our show are GOFUs. And GOFUs, as my listeners know, are Gun Owner Fuck Ups. The idea with GOFUs is these are real cases, actual things that happened. They are expensive lessons that people learn, and that you, the listener, get to learn for free. And of course, we always do the GOFU at the end of the show, whatever this week’s GOFU may be. But suddenly I’ve been pounded with GOFUs, and they’re very important. And I said, you know what? We’re going to do a three round burst here of some really important GOFUs, including what I want to begin with by telling you about this actual case. It illustrates just how insane New Jersey is and what every law-abiding gun owner could, in fact, face. Evan Nappen 01:32 Of course, I’m not using any names, but this is an actual situation that occurred. And some things, looking at the situation that the, and not just necessarily a mistake that the gun owner did, but something that hit me as extremely important for every New Jersey gun owner to make sure they do. There’s a very simple thing that is very important that could be critical between whether or not they hold you in jail or release you. We’re going to get to that from this story so you’ll learn this secret, so that you don’t end up in this GOFU situation. Spending days or weeks incarcerated for nothing, because that’s what the Gulag does, as you know. This is a case that wraps it all up into that. Evan Nappen 02:39 So, here’s this guy who comes into New Jersey, and he’s at a mall. Now, as you may know, the mall is not, in and of itself, a sensitive place, right? Those of us who have familiarized ourself, which hopefully all of you have, with these “sensitive places”. A mall is not, per se, a sensitive place. Now, there can be rules regarding malls where they say, hey, no guns in the mall. We don’t want guns, you know. And any Page – 2 – of 11 private property, whether open to the public or not, can have a prohibition privately saying we don’t want any guns here. In the same way they could say, we don’t want any dogs. We don’t want any bare feet. You know, things like that. The property owner has certain control. But if there is such a sign, if there is such a statement by a property owner, then if you come on to that property and they don’t want you on that property for a reason such as that. They can’t say, hey, we don’t allow minorities on our property. You know, they can’t. You can’t have racial discrimination in a place open to the public. But you can have other restrictions. Evan Nappen 04:07 Now, I happen to personally think that firearms should be viewed as a civil right and in the same category as discrimination, because it is a civil right. But that’s not currently how the law is. So, if a private entity prohibits gun, says no guns, then if you still go on that property and you’re specifically told to leave and don’t, then you’re what’s known as a defiant trespasser. So, what we’re talking about is trespassing, but trespassing is not a sensitive place violation. Sensitive place violations are specific gun law violations that create a certain place that becomes a prohibited area under the law to carry a gun, even if you have a permit to carry. So, this person is in the mall and apparently gets approached by mall security, who has allegedly dogs that can sniff gunpowder. Believe it or not, they’re out there. Apparently, he’s approached and they say, we think you have a gun. Please leave. And he does. No problem. He was asked to leave, and he leaves. Evan Nappen 05:30 After leaving, while in his car, driving, he gets stopped by police. More than even one because, oh, there’s a gun, right? Because, obviously, security called it in, I guess, at some point, and he was stopped. He is stopped for violating, in their minds, the sensitive place prohibition under Section 24 under Chapter 58 of the sensitive places. And what is that? What is that sensitive place that they believe he’s in violation of? Oh, New Jersey’s version of the vampire rule. The vampire rule is that you need permission before you go onto any private property. That is the issue that’s before the United States Supreme Court. The Hawaii, you know, the Woolford case in front of SCOTUS. We’re waiting for a decision. Evan Nappen 06:43 Now, Hawaii had the law just like New Jersey. The only difference is New Jersey’s vampire rule case saying that you can’t go on to private property, whether open to the public or not open to the public, you cannot go on any private property in New Jersey unless you first have permission to carry your gun there. In other words, they needed to have a sign, you know, that says we love guns. You know, basically, guns welcome. You know, guns permitted. Essentially, a sign. Or you got specific permission from the property owner before you enter the property. Hence the vampire rule. You know, as long as you don’t invite the vampire in to your place. That’s where that comes from. Evan Nappen 07:34 Well, New Jersey’s vampire rule, to impose this, you need permission first, before you can go on private property, even private property open to the public, has been found and was found unconstitutional in the Koons versus Platkin case. In Koons. And in that case, as you may recall, Judge Bump found it was unconstitutional and put an injunction on that section, saying it is unenforceable. It’s Page – 3 – of 11 unconstitutional. That any private property that is open to the public, you’re allowed to bring your gun on unless it’s otherwise a sensitive place. So, you know, if you want to go into a 7-11 with your carry gun, you can. It’s open to the public, even though it’s privately owned by 7-11. Now, if you want to go to a private residence, a private place that’s not open to the public, then you do need advanced permission for that. If you go into even your friend’s house, your friend needs to be able to say, yeah, you have permission to have your gun at my house. But not open to the public. Evan Nappen 09:00 So, the mall is open to the public. The mall is not a per se sensitive place. Yet, in this case, the basis for stopping and arresting this man or woman, I won’t even tell you what the sex is, the basis for the arrest is an alleged violation of the sensitive place section for which there is a federal injunction against enforcement. Then because somehow there’s this belief that if you are in violation of sensitive place, you’re also unlawfully carrying even though you have a carry permit, which makes absolutely no sense. There’s no logic to that. He’s charged with unlawful possession of a handgun without a carry permit, even though he has a carry permit. And, of course, with those gun charges, off to the Gulag you go. So, you are arrested, and you are put in jail. Evan Nappen 10:16 Now, the Gulag kicks in, where there’s 48 hours in which the prosecutor gets to decide whether to seek pretrial detention. It is solely within the discretion of the prosecutor. And if the prosecutor decides to seek pretrial detention, you’re going to be held for another five days before there’s a hearing when we can actually argue to get you out. And with the new law that was just signed by Murphy, they can get an additional five days to make sure that the gun is operable, to get an operability report, which is irrelevant to the charges anyway. So, by this arrest, you actually have the opportunity to be incarcerated basically for two weeks, guilty of nothing. Evan Nappen 11:08 What happened? Well, luckily, I got a call very quickly. When this person was in jail, loved ones got a hold of me. And this is on a Saturday, my friends, on a Saturday. Yeah. They do these on Saturday. They just hired me in time that I was able to get onto the court hearing 15 minutes before that first 48 hour time period, for that very first hearing where there’s no argument. The prosecutor either is going to say we’re seeking pretrial detention or not, but at least I could get on. And, lo and behold, I get on, and the prosecutor, big shock, is seeking pretrial detention, which means he’s going to be held or she is going to be held another five days or so, to have that hearing. It may be longer if they’re going to go for the operability nonsense, too. Teddy Nappen 12:11 Doesn’t Bergen County always seek pretrial detention? Evan Nappen 12:16 Well, it’s not just Bergen. And let me say this isn’t necessarily even Bergen, by the way, Teddy. But most counties have a policy of just automatically seeking pretrial detention on most gun cases. So, that’s not a big surprise. But what happens is, in this 48 hour period here, we still have the court appearance. But there’s nothing an attorney officially can do, because the prosecutor is given the sole Page – 4 – of 11 discretion. The prosecutor says, well, it’s gun charges with the Graves Act. Because, of course, the seriousness of the charge is second degree. You’re looking up to 10 years in State Prison. You’ve got a minimum mandatory three and a half years with no chance of parole. So, because of the seriousness of that offense and the Graves Act and it’s guns, we’re going to seek pretrial detention. Evan Nappen 13:13 And the court says, you know, Mr. Nappen, do you have anything that you want to add? And I say, and here’s exactly what I did them. I said, look, I understand how much discretion the prosecutor has here. Normally, we just have to wait until the hearing in order to argue. But I have to say, and I make it clear here. I say, look, my client not only had a permit to carry and why the state can’t access it, you know, they took his wallet and he can’t get to his wallet. And for whatever reason, there’s some glitch in them trying to get it out of the State Police. I don’t know why, but the very basis for his arrest was for a law for which there is an injunction, a federal injunction, that’s been upheld even by the Appeals Court. So, you have law enforcement violating a federal court injunction and charging and utilizing a statute that is enjoined from being enforced. Evan Nappen 14:19 So, in complete violation of that injunction, I make it clear that that is what is going on here with someone who has a permit, who has the lowest scores on the PSA of a one, one, that’s the lowest you can get. The PSAs are your flight risk and danger risk that they calculate into whether you’re to be released. Now they’re looking to hold them for another five to 10 days to even try to get them argued out. And at that point, the court officer actually says, well, counselor, there’s no argument here at this level. You’ll have to argue, you know, at the hearing when it gets scheduled. And I said, look, I’m not arguing anything. I said, do you know what I’m doing? I’m putting the State on notice as to the civil rights violation taking place on my client. At which time, the prosecutor says, look, we haven’t even had a chance to talk, and I said, no, we haven’t. I just got hired and got on here 15 minutes ago. Well, let’s talk. I said, okay. Evan Nappen 15:24 We had a private conference, and when we came back, I’m happy to say that the prosecutor withdrew their motion for pretrial detention. My client got out of jail that day, and now we will fight these charges. I’m extremely confident in how that fight is going to go as well. So, folks, what are the takeaways? Look at the risk you’re running. Look at the utter and complete failure of the Attorney General of New Jersey to inform law enforcement as to the changes in the law by these court actions. Why are the police charging an offense which has been enjoined? Police should know better, but I’ll tell you what else. The Attorney General should be instructing, the way they’ve done so many other times on so many other things, to all law enforcement, explaining how that sensitive place has been enjoined. And how on public property, it is not a sensitive place where you need prior permission under the vampire rule. This hasn’t been done. So, you have what is essentially a false arrest taking place. Evan Nappen 17:06 You have a system designed to incarcerate gun owners. It is outrageous, and you need to know that this what you’re up against. So, what do you need to do to protect yourself? Where’s the GOFU aspect? Well, let me tell you something that would be really important. Here’s what everybody should Page – 5 – of 11 do. Make sure your carry permit, make sure your gun licenses, are also, copies are given to your loved ones. People you can count on. Because if you get incarcerated and your wife or your parents or your brother is calling me and if they can get me copies of your carry permit or gun license that you otherwise can’t access, I can get that to the prosecutor. There doesn’t have to be a dependency for somehow getting it out of the State Police in time. Or finding it in some wallet that’s been confiscated and held in evidence in some other place, in some other room, somewhere else. That can be of great assistance, immediate assistance, in addressing your arrest and avoiding further gulaging of you. So, make sure. The takeaway is to make sure that folks that care about you, that would be the people you would go to if you had a problem, that they can provide and have access to copies of your gun licenses. That would be incredibly important. The other thing is make sure you have an attorney that you can get a hold of right away. An attorney that can come to your aid, argue, to get you out on a Saturday where time is of the essence. Those are the takeaways that are critical from this experience. Evan Nappen 19:08 Let me tell you, the GOFU has taken on a life of its own, and I’m glad about it. I have here a listener who sent a GOFU that they wanted to make our other listeners aware of, and I appreciate that. They asked that I not use a name, but here’s the GOFU letter. It says, I have a GOFU for you. It’s important for people to know to do this, so please share it on your show. This past fall, I planned a trip to Western New York to visit my family. I have a New Jersey PTC, also a PA PTC. I really like to have my gun along on trips with the highway driving. So, I asked a few guys at the shooting range what I should do with the gun when I got to New York state line. They told me to stop at a rest stop before I enter the state, put the unloaded gun in a car safe, and I should be good. That’s what I did. When I reached my destination, I told my family I had brought it, since they like guns, and they absolutely freaked out. They told me, the police would arrest me. It was illegal to bring a gun into a destination in New York. I better bring it in the house and keep it hidden. And hide it really well on the drive back. They really got me worried. So worried, in fact, I couldn’t get to sleep. So, I checked New York gun laws, and sure enough, she was correct. I was scared and felt terrible. I was incriminating my family members. Needless to say, the gun and the safe box and its cable were very hidden on the way back. I was careful not to break any speed limits. You can sum it up this way, but my takeaway is you have to do your own research before you take your gun out of state. Otherwise, you might end up in jail, and I’m very thankful that I didn’t. Evan Nappen 20:50 This is very true. State lines mean something. Now, here’s where the GOFU was. The GOFU was not following Title, 18, 926A thoroughly. That’s the federal preemption that lets you transport interstate. You have to be going from one place where you lawfully can possess and carry to another place. Your end destination has to be a place where you can lawfully possess and carry. Since New York does not recognize New Jersey’s permit or Pennsylvania’s permit, and unless you have a New York non-resident permit, that will not cover you. So, bringing your cased and unloaded gun into New York, now you’re possessing a handgun in New York, and you don’t have the protection of federal preemption. That’s the problem. Page – 6 – of 11 Evan Nappen 21:42 And it is a GOFU. This person is absolutely right. Make sure you know the laws. Make sure you clear it with counsel, so that you do not end up a GOFU. Because if that person had been stopped in New York with that handgun while in New York, they would face dire consequences. So, know the gun laws. Know the state laws. Do your research. Best bet? Well, you can always ask me, that’s one thing you want to do. Get my book, New Jersey Gun Law. I’ll shamelessly plug my book right now, because right in my book is a chapter on how to properly interstate transport, right in there on transportation of guns. What you need to know. Go to EvanNappen.com and get your copy of my book, New Jersey Gun Law. It’s the bible of New Jersey gun law. That’s the kind of stuff you need. That’s the kind of information you must have. That’s what you need to do. You cannot take these things lightly, because the consequences can be dire, and we see it. So, I appreciate this GOFU. I appreciate it being pointed out. These are real people experiencing the horrors of gun laws that are designed to ruin people’s lives and to turn law-abiding citizens into criminals. To oppress our Second Amendment rights. That’s all these laws do. You’ve got to protect yourself, folks. Learn from these tips and learn from these cases so you don’t become the next GOFU. Evan Nappen 23:16 Hey, let me tell you about our friends at WeShoot. WeShoot is an range indoor range in Lakewood, New Jersey. The range where Teddy and I both shoot. We love WeShoot. Great training. Great range facilities. Great pro shop, and a great bunch of folks. This week they’re running some great specials. They have the Chiappa Rhino 60DS, which is a futuristic revolver with its low bore access design. It’s kind of cool. It delivers, you know, reduced recoil because of that and fast follow up shots. They’ve got a Mossberg Gold Reserve Sporting shotgun. It’s an over and under, built for clay and field. It has engraving, premium walnut, and it’s competition ready. It’s a beautiful gun. Check out the Mossberg Gold Reserve Sporting. They also have a Springfield Prodigy Comp gun, comp gun. A modern double-stack 1911-style performer. It has an integrated compensator, and it’s optics ready. It has serious speed for duty or competition. Check out that Springfield. And you can also check out Sarah Sablom. She is on the hunt for a perfect carry gun. You can check out one of these WeShoot girls there. Go to weshootusa.com for their great website with amazing photography. They’re running great deals. They look forward to helping you and making you part of the WeShoot family. Go to weshootusa.com. Evan Nappen 25:05 Let me also mention our friends at The Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, who just recently, through my friend and colleague, Dan Schmutter, argued in the Coons case at the Appellate level. And we’re looking good. I’m cautiously optimistic. And that’s your Association at work in the courts, fighting the Carry Killer bill. They’re also fighting the assault firearm ban and the large capacity magazine ban. You need to be a member. Go to anjrpc.org. Make sure you belong to your state Association. They are the gun rights defenders for New Jersey. You’ll get a great emails of what’s going on. You’ll get the alerts. You’ll know that you’re part of the solution and helping to fight the gun rights oppressors in New Jersey. Go to anjrpc.org and join today. Teddy, what do you have for us today in Press Checks? Page – 7 – of 11 Teddy Nappen 26:08 Well, as you know, Press Checks are always free, and this is something I want people to understand. We cannot take our foot off the gas when it comes to fighting the good fight for our rights. Because, look, we have had a lot of great victories when it comes to Second Amendment, to the conservative movement, and to getting the word out there, thanks to Alternative tech. But the Left are slowly trying to crawl back their power. What do I mean by that? Well, our friends at Bearing Arms did an article. Cam Edwards says, NBC decided to give a platform to the anti-gun activists. (https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2026/02/10/nbcs-today-show-gives-anti-2a-activist-platform-for-propaganda-n1231508) Oh, gee, what a shocker! Teddy Nappen 26:59 It was Nicole Hockley out of the Sandy Hook Promise. You know, another one of Bloomberg’s groups who called in to demonetize online influencers in the 2A space. You know, someone like you and I, Dad. You know, people like a Brandon Herrera or Grantham, Mr. Gunzing. You know, any individual who is a pro-gun influencer they want to demonetize. That’s their call to action. I love the framework that she abuses in this. Sandy Hook and the group called Untargeting Kids, a call for platform transparency, putting parents back in charge of firearm safety. You know, whenever I hear the Democrats try to say, we need to stand on parents rights, it’s always comes down to oh, when it comes to firearm safety. But, you know, when it is hardcore pornography being offered to children, oh, that’s fine. Or, you know, a drag queen story hour. Oh, that’s fine. But oh no, when it comes to firearms, we need to give it back to the parents. So, they were trying to, yeah, they were trying to run this experiment, testing YouTube accounts mimicking a nine to 14 year old. Evan Nappen 28:21 Wait. Are you telling me that the Left are hypocrites? Teddy Nappen 28:26 Oh, well, as the saying goes. Evan Nappen 28:28 I don’t know about that. Teddy Nappen 28:30 As the saying goes, they only have double standards, or they would not have any standards at all. Evan Nappen 28:37 Exactly. Teddy Nappen 28:39 That’s how it always is with them. Whenever you see the term parental rights, you can see in the very corner, TM. It’s their version. Not when it comes to gender ideology, not when it comes to abortion, not when it comes to any other thing, but parents rights, TM. That’s their abuse of the language. Did you ever hear the word Democracy, TM. Or Second Amendment, TM. That is their version. Not what we know to be fact and truth. It’s their version. But anyways. So, they ran this experiment, which, you Page – 8 – of 11 know, these experiments can easily be debunked just by the abuse of algorithms. But whatever. We will say, for the sake of argument, we will say this data is true. So, they ran this experiment, and then 14 year old received 1300 firearm-related video recommendations after watching video games and movies that included firearm content. So, you know, a kid watches a bunch of Let’s Plays on Call of Duty, and then all a sudden, he gets a breakdown of an unboxing of a ACOG scope or something stupid. It’s one of those where they’re trying to make this argument, this very weak argument, on saying, oh, these videos are being monetized to target advertising, targeting our children. So, if a kid is interested in firearms, what is the problem with that? Why? He gets bombarded with tons of movies on all forms of graphic violence that goes into that. Then all of a sudden, it comes up with ad on any other influencer regarding firearm breakdown, because that’s the goal. They want you to get engagement. That’s it. And then I love this one. 54% of boys from 10 to 17 report sexually charged firearm content. Now, they do not define what sexually charged firearm content is. Evan Nappen 30:40 What is sexually charged firearm content? What is that? Teddy Nappen 30:43 It’s called we made it up! Because they love to just define terms. Evan Nappen 30:52 They just threw sex with guns, and don’t define it. Teddy Nappen 30:55 Correct. It’s just, and by the way, they don’t list any of the materials that was reviewed by the bots. Evan Nappen 31:02 Wait, it sounds like ammosexuality. Teddy Nappen 31:05 I know. Yeah, it is the hopalosexual all over again. Evan Nappen 31:10 What is that? That’s really interesting. Teddy Nappen 31:12 Yeah, and they don’t list any of the video game content that was reviewed. It doesn’t list any of the movies reviewed or the TV shows. Oh, because they don’t want to show the sexually graphic material that is pushed by the Left. You know, that’s why, you know, ask them. Evan Nappen 31:28 They should list it. They should list all that so that we could carefully review it, Teddy. Teddy Nappen 31:32 Well, unfortunately. Page – 9 – of 11 Evan Nappen 31:34 All these sexual . . . Teddy Nappen 31:37 I know, right? I love, and then she goes on where they’re forming the sense of self-identity that the get, that getting, they’re getting content that is talking about firearms makes you powerful. Firearms makes you sexually attractive. Firearms are the way to solve your conflict. Firearms are used to solve very certain conflicts. You know, when defending yourself against a rapist or a pedophile. You know, in certain situations, it’s a very good solution. It’s not a magic wand, but it solves certain issues. But there’s more. They like to always equate, like, oh, why do you need a gun? Because your penis is small? Like, it’s one of the small ones. Like, it’s that. They always do that. We’re like, what does that have to do with the aspect of your rights to defend yourself? Like that is the goal that they always try to play. And then she goes off on this whole thing of, we need to demonetize this. We need to review this content and look at the algorithms of YouTube transparency on firearms. And there must be. We need to sense. It goes. This long-winded conversation is just, we need to have time to deletion for videos for unsafe handling of firearms. What’s unsafe? Oh, there’s a firearm in the video. It’s just that. It’s just we need it. That censorship is not our goal, though. Yes, it is. Evan Nappen 33:06 I’ll tell you what. Here’s where I’ll take them up on it. Before any movie or TV show where a gun is improperly handled, you know, shows produced by all these major media producers, just have a warning. Just the way they warn about profanity, and they warn about smoking. Put a warning that says “unsafe firearm use is in this movie”. Unsafe firearm use. Do you know how many times we’ll see that? Because the Left media is the largest actual demonstrator of unsafe and unlawful use of firearms. It’s not conservatives. It’s the opposite. And so, let’s see those warnings. That way people suddenly say, wow, look how many times firearms are abused, used improperly and used illegally in the movies? I mean, if you can warn about smoking, you should be able to warn about that. Just put it. Don’t, don’t, don’t suppress it. Don’t try to have prior restraint or ban it, the showing of any of these movies. Just put the warning up front, and let people see just what’s being promoted by Hollyweird. Teddy Nappen 34:33 Well, and also, Hollyweird promotes all the sexual deviancies, where they push it on children. Where you have, you know, children have access to now hardcore pornography all across the internet, thanks to YouTube. Thanks to social media. Like, the level of it’s so disingenuous. Making this argument that we need to protect our children. Except when it comes to the LGBTQAI+ in schools, when it comes to all the other things that they want to sexually groom children. But, oh, firearm content, that’s the issue. When you get down to it, this is what they want. They want the 2019, they want the Biden Administration censorship. Where, right here, out of the House Judiciary Committee where the chairman approves and shows, oh, Google was pressured by the Biden administration to censor Americans. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/zuckerberg-says-the-white-house-pressured-facebook-to-censor-some-covid-19-content-during-the-pandemic) Page – 10 – of 11 Evan Nappen 35:30 That’s right. This is a really good point. They went after our First Amendment rights, just like the Second Amendment, and we lived through a period of Government censorship attempts that, when you look back, it was, it’s absolutely disgusting, what they pulled and what they were able to accomplish, even in achieving it, Teddy. It’s just insane. You would never think that could happen in America, because originally, the Left was for free speech. The Free Speech Movement was the Left, and now that’s no longer the case. They want the opposite. They don’t want free speech. Oh, hell no. But it used to be part of what true liberals, not today’s progressive, totalitarian liberals want, so-called. No, the classic liberal was absolute free speech, true, and they’ve abandoned that. They’ve abandoned it. Teddy Nappen 36:41 Well, it comes back to the idea of what the Left always does. They have no moral framework. The idea of, oh, what feels good? What is the cultural shift? What is the shifting ideology currently? Where you now have these massive purity tests on the Left, and that’s why they’re in a shooting war against each other as to who controls the party. But to even highlight this fact, Mark Zuckerberg said and admitted to the White House, yeah, I was pressured by the White House to censor people during Covid, over Covid 19 content. Doctors admitting all the false information that was out there. Bring that up. Completely censored off of Facebook, off of YouTube, all these platforms. X. You remember, you remember the Twitter files. Musk is releasing them weekly, showing the insidious combination of Government and censorship on the public square. This is what the Left wants. They are so upset that they have lost their ministry of truth. You remember that push? Evan Nappen 37:51 And they want to, right, and they want to use the same techniques to oppress the Second Amendment. It’s all part of the game plan. Teddy Nappen 38:02 Yeah. Evan Nappen 38:03 Well, Teddy, I appreciate you pointing this out, and I’m sure our listeners do as well. Let me tell you, we had a three round burst for GOFUs, and we only got two of the rounds out. Let me end here with the GOFU number three. And again, we saw this in action. These are actual cases, actual realities. I had a fellow client give me a call and say, hey, they were in court and they didn’t have counsel. Their guns were taken in an allegation of a so-called domestic violence, in which everything got dismissed. But there was an outstanding criminal charge that’s unfounded and going to the court. The so-called victim does not want to proceed. Does not want to proceed. So, what does the prosecutor do? The prosecutor tells this person, look, we’re going to downgrade this to a noise ordinance. Okay? So, it’s no longer in the category of domestic violence. If it stayed in that DV category, it makes you the equivalent of a convicted felon under federal law, and you’re banned from guns. The prosecutor said this way, with it as a noise ordinance, you’re fine. You’ll be perfectly fine. This will not affect your gun rights. Page – 11 – of 11 Evan Nappen 39:52 Now, this is a person who doesn’t have a lawyer. Who’s listening to the prosecutor, who is telling them they can plead this down to an ordinance. When the State’s key witness does not want to proceed and knows that the allegations that were made were not true and knows that it needs to be dropped. So, normally, the thing is, dismiss it straight out, because the complainant, the complaining witness, is not going to be real good for your case here. Okay? We all kind of see that, and it needs to go. But instead, the prosecutor is trying to convince this person to take this ordinance and pay a fine, get an ordinance hit, and saying that it won’t affect their gun rights. Evan Nappen 41:02 Here’s the deal, folks. It does affect your gun rights. You see, when a prosecutor says it doesn’t affect gun rights, that prosecutor is not representing you. They’re representing the State. They’re representing the Government. And if you don’t have counsel to explain to you the actual ramifications and you try to believe this, you know, however well intentioned it may have been, they failed to mention here that, yeah, it’s not a per se disqualifier, meaning, like being a convicted felon or having a conviction for domestic violence, sure, where you’re just out of the box. You’re done. But the reality in New Jersey is that if you plead to even this dopey ordinance for noise, you now have a conviction for an ordinance that started out as a domestic violence charge. Then when you try to apply to get a new pistol purchase permit or renew your carry permit or do a change of address on your Firearm’s ID Card, they go, oh, public health, safety, and welfare. That’s what they’re going to use to deny your application. Public health, safety, and welfare. Based on character, temperament. You know, I call that disqualifier the all-inclusive miscellaneous weasel clause, because that’s where the abuse of discretion comes in. And if you were to fall for this, oh, plead to the ordinance, it won’t affect your gun rights. Wait and see. Because now that comes up on your record and it links to the original charges, those police reports and all. And you ended up taking a plea, which has this appearance that you were guilty of something, and that’s why you pled. It sure as hell can affect your gun rights. So, friends, the takeaway is this. The GOFU is when you’re dealing on any criminal charge, make sure you have counsel that understands the gun laws and don’t try to rely on what a prosecutor may be telling you about how your rights will or won’t be affected. Evan Nappen 43:20 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 43:30 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 E277_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. 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In this bonus episode, we're giving you a window into one of Thom's recent retreats. You'll hear right away that the atmosphere with Thom is intimate, warm, and wonderfully jovial. On retreat, you get to explore subjects that go far beyond what we cover on the podcast, and you'll hear stories from Thom that you simply won't hear anywhere else. We would love for you to join us at Thom's only rounding retreat of 2026, in Sedona, May 21 to 25.Please sit back and enjoy this taste test of the retreat experience, then find out how you can join us in person at thomknoles.com/sedona Registration is now open for Thom's only rounding retreat for 2026, in Sedona from May 21-25.This is your one and only opportunity this year for deep rest, stress release and consciousness expansion through industrial-strength meditation, along with twice-daily knowledge sessions with Thom.You'll enjoy delicious retreat-friendly meals and the beauty and healing powers of the Red Rocks of Sedona. Register before February 28th and you'll save $500 on your retreat fee. You can find out more at thomknoles.com/sedona.
なんでもメッセージくださいね!アファメーションが嘘に聞こえる。自己肯定感が上がらない。変わりたいのに変われない。それ、あなたの性格ではなく脳の仕組みが原因かもしれません。この回では、✔ ニューロプラスティシティ(脳の可塑性)✔ ニューロジェネシス(神経新生)✔ 潜在意識の書き換え✔ アファメーションが効かない理由✔ 脳の上書きメカニズムを、わかりやすく解説しています。脳科学 × アファメーション × 自己変容。40代・50代からでも遅くない。脳は、いくつからでも変わります。Arisaへの質問やご感想はこちらから
Studium biblijne (sezon 60) z 14 lutego 2026 r., pt. „Niebiańskie obywatelstwo”. Jest to swobodna dyskusja na podstawie kwartalnika „Lekcje Biblijne 1/2026: Zjednoczenie nieba i ziemi - Chrystus w Liście do Filipian i Liście do Kolosan”. Tytuł oryginału: „Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide 1/2026: Uniting Heaven and Earth: Christ in Philippians and Colossians” autorstwa Clintona Wahlena. ▶️ STUDIUM BIEŻĄCEGO ODCINKA: Flp 3,17-4,23; 1 Kor 15,42-44; J 14,27; Ps 119,165; Hi 1,21; 1 Tm 6,7. ▶️ TEKST PRZEWODNI: „Nie troszczcie się o nic, ale we wszystkim w modlitwie i błaganiach z dziękczynieniem powierzcie prośby wasze Bogu” (Flp 4,6). ▶️ W STUDIUM BIORĄ UDZIAŁ: Adam Grześkowiak (prowadzący), Konrad Pasikowski, Mateusz Krzesiński. Zarejestrowano staraniem Kościoła Adwentystów Dnia Siódmego w RP, zbór w Podkowie Leśnej, 27 stycznia 2026 r. w Wyższej Szkole Teologiczno-Humanistycznej (WSTH) im. Michała Beliny-Czechowskiego, w koprodukcji z WSTH oraz Hope Media Polska (telewizja). Copyright © 2026 www.nadzieja.tv. Creative Commons Attribution, BY-NC-ND 4.0 PL, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.pl.
This week we revisit our first episode with the Bosh Queen, Kerry Godliman! Ed spoke with Kerry back in 2021 before the CofC was decided and before Richard Herring took the trophy! On this Epsiode they discussed the laminator prize task, sausage or finger, human tapas and how Kerry might feel about filling in for Greg! Catch up on Taskmaster on Channel4.com For all your TM news visit Tasmaster.tv
In spiritual circles it's very trendy to speak of “raising frequency” or accessing “higher vibrations,” but what if higher vibration isn't mystical at all, but a precise description of physics at work?In this episode, Thom explores how order, coherence, and peace naturally emerge when we reduce excitation, rather than seek to raise it.Drawing on the laws of thermodynamics, Thom demystifies the subject and explains the fundamentals of sustainable change.Episode Highlights[00:45] Q – What Is “Higher Vibration”?[01:16] A – Excitation and Thermodynamics[03:46] Why You Can't Force Peace[06:29] Superfluid Helium Seeks Unboundedness[08:45] Superconductivity in Simple Terms[10:05] Meditation and Society[13:41] The Meissner EffectYou can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/8KUIB4PlifkUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/ Registration is now open for Thom's only rounding retreat for 2026, in Sedona from May 21-25.This is your one and only opportunity this year for deep rest, stress release and consciousness expansion through industrial-strength meditation, along with twice-daily knowledge sessions with Thom.You'll enjoy delicious retreat-friendly meals and the beauty and healing powers of the Red Rocks of Sedona. Register before February 28th and you'll save $500 on your retreat fee. You can find out more at thomknoles.com/sedona.
Zapraszamy do wysłuchania dzisiejszego rozważania ks. Piotra Gasia, w którym dzieli się refleksją na temat Bożego miłosierdzia Jakub powiedział: Panie, niegodny jestem wszystkich dowodów łaski i wszystkich objawów wierności, jakie okazałeś słudze twemu. 1 Mż 32,10 Paweł napisał: Miłosierdzia dostąpiłem, aby na mnie pierwszym Jezus Chrystus okazał wszelką cierpliwość dla przykładu tym, którzy mają weń uwierzyć ku żywotowi wiecznemu. 1 Tm 1,16 Okazano mi miłosierdzie, miłosierdzie, którego nie jestem godzien; cudowna łaska, o której nawet nie śniło moje pyszne serce. Poznawszy je, cieszę się i wielbię to miłosierdzie. Philipp Friedrich Hiller †1769
In just five years, BROCKHAMPTON became a Hip-Hop comet, shooting by with seven albums and it could've been more! With those works, they went from free-wheeling Mixtape-sounding albums to more mature works lyrically and sonically. Its obvious that they couldn't have existed in previous eras but could it be done ever again?TIMESTAMPS:Weekly Music Roundup - (1:06)Ben:Don Toliver - OctaneLord Jah Monte Ogbon - As of NowLooking at Birds - Living RoomBy Storm x Injury Reserve - My Ghosts go GhostJordan Ward - BACKWARDWale the Sage - Hug Me As If We Were To Die TomorrowNafe Smallz - It's Not You It's MeThe Game x DJ Drama - Gangsta Grillz EMNTZu - Ferrum SidereumSkrillex - KoraLabrinth - COSMIC OPERA ACT ICharlie:Terrace Martin - PASSIONPJ - Why Do Feelings Matter AnywayLabrinth - COSMIC OPERA ACT ITeeZandos - STILL ODDNija - What I Didn't SayXV & MIKE SUMMERS - The Kid With The Green BackpackTopic Intro/Ben's Research House - (15:00)Saturation - (20:26)Saturation II - (26:45)Saturation III - (36:18)Iridescence - (46:00)Ginger - (53:54)Roadrunner: New Light, New Machine - (1:00:26)The Family - (1:05:41)TM - (1:09:48)Lighter Note - (1:18:34)Thanks for listening. Below are the Social accounts for all parties involved.Music - "Pizza And Video Games" by Bonus Points (Thanks to Chillhop Music for the right to use)HHBTN (Twitter & IG) - @HipHopNumbers5E (Twitter & IG) - @The5thElementUKChillHop (Twitter) - @ChillhopdotcomBonus Points (Twitter) - @BonusPoints92Other Podcasts Under The 5EPN:"What's Good?" W/ Charlie TaylorIn Search of SauceBlack Women Watch...5EPN RadioThe Beauty Of Independence
Productivity is often seen as the holy grail of business success. Though organizations obsess over productivity gains, often they miss the fact that these gains come with a hidden cost.In this episode, Thom explores why healthy mission, creativity, and inner stillness are not distractions from productivity, but its deepest source.When work feels meaningful, participation becomes voluntary, effort becomes effortless, and productivity takes care of itself.Episode Highlights00:45 Productivity is an Illusion04:01 Making Participation Attractive06:23 Great Output Comes from Healthy Process10:17 The Four Aspects of Organizational Mission14:15 Make Everybody a Believer of the Mission18:48 The Role of Vedic Meditation in Organizational Productivity23:02 Q: Are Corporate Missions Manipulative?23:23 A: Use Your Discrimination Capability25:07 Q: How do we reconcile ease with being productive?25:23 A: Frictionless Flow Feels Effortless26:03 Q: Can we trade off being productive for stillness?26:46 A: Get corporate support or choose personal control31:26 Q: How can we remove the pressure to feel productive in life?32:01 A: I Get To...You can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/plvJKA1k_zkUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
We're taking a short break from our homework this week to hypothesise on who would find themselves on a Taskmaster 'Loser of Losers' episode, plus a deep dive into the most chaotic contestants, and it brings up many questions.We also hear from a listener about a ‘redemption episode' idea. Next week we're watching the finale of series 1.Send all your goofs, bloops and homework suggestions to: fans@taskmaster.tv.If you're in the UK you can watch all of Taskmaster on All 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterAnywhere else, it's the Taskmaster YouTubeyoutube.com/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com
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";
Hello Taskmaster Podcast fans! We are rewinding back to 2021 when Ed talked to Alex Horne about the very early days of Taskmaster as well as the first ever episode (that transmitted!) They discuss Edinburgh, show formatting, how they got their first legendary line up - Frank Skinner, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty, Romesh Ranganathan and Tim Key! Tasks include, painting a horse while on a horse, empty the bath AND eat the most watermelon... Catch up on all of Taskmaster at channel4.com and for all the latest TM news visit Taskmaster.tv
Delayed gratification is often touted as one of the secrets to a fulfilling life. The famous marshmallow experiment concluded that children who were able to delay the reward of a marshmallow for a larger reward of more marshmallows had better outcomes later in life.But is this really the case? Are we actually better off favoring long-term good over short-term pleasure?In this episode, Thom explains that this is more than just a philosophical question, it's actually a question that has implications for evolution of the species.And the answer might surprise you…Episode Highlights00:45 It's All About Knowledge03:26 Evolution is Not a Straight Line07:41 We Have to Have a Blend12:07 There's No Such Thing as Perfection in the Relative World14:19 Disruption Causes Adaptation to Occur17:46 Q: What can you tell us about freeze reactivity?17:58 A: Catatonia is the Extreme20:38 Practice Vedic Meditation to Remove Irrelevant NeurochemistryYou can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/B3a7BvY50TwUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
This week Jenny and Jack explore another classic episode, as recommended by a listener. Jack poses as the usual trusty Taskmaster guide as Jenny queries Asim's controversial candle strategy, the infamous third task, and all the logistics that come with sitting on a cake.Next week we're taking a little detour from our homework and hypothesising on a 'Loser of Loser's scenario, with a few swearing stats to boot.Send all your goofs, bloops and homework suggestions to: fans@taskmaster.tv.If you're in the UK you can watch all of Taskmaster on All 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterAnywhere else, it's the Taskmaster YouTubeyoutube.com/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com
Beidh an comórtas náisiúnta Amhrán Nua- Cumtha Pan Ceilteacha ar bun i gCeatharlach ag an deireadh seachtaine. Tá Méabh ag glacadh páirte sa gcomórtas i mbliana.
Consciousness is spoken of in many different ways and contexts. Usually when we speak of consciousness, we know the meaning that's being conveyed. But what exactly is consciousness?It's both a philosophical and scientific question at the same time. In this episode, Thom cuts through the philosophy to give us a pragmatic answer to the question. It's an answer that lets us get on with the business of being conscious with ever-increasing capacity. Episode Highlights00:45 Consciousness is That Which Makes Existence Relevant 04:15 Is-ness, Am-ness, I-ness, My-ness 07:38 Repertoires of Consciousness 11:24 Everything is a Response to Observation 14:57 Maximizing Capability 19:49 Q: Where was the one thing before it became many? 20:04 A: Everywhereness Inside of It 23:36 Once Upon a Time 26:26 The Variety that Creates Storyline 29:17 Lesha Avidya: The Faint Remains of Ignorance 32:09 A Blend of Ignorance and Consciousness 34:42 Q - Is more consciousness better? 35:13 A: The Animal Kingdom is More Violent Than the Human Kingdom 37:32 Content vs Context 42:15 The Ability of EnlightenmentYou can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/Hj3SxekBMOMUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
In this podcast, the Brian, Tm and David Einstein discuss the EMBARK study and its implications for patients with biochemically relapsed prostate cancer. They explore the criteria for high-risk patients, the role of PSMA PET imaging, and the findings related to metastasis-free survival and overall survival. The conversation also delves into treatment strategies, adverse events, and patient perspectives on treatment decisions, ultimately highlighting the need for future research in this evolving field.
This week we're making our way through some homework suggestions, starting with episode 2 of the first ever Champion of Champions. Along the way, Jenny makes a case for toothpaste, Jack makes a case for the nation's carpets, and Jenny and Jack both get an education from Australia about the Taskmaster loft. We're back next week with Series 6, Episode 10.Send all your goofs, bloops and homework suggestions to: fans@taskmaster.tv.If you're in the UK you can watch all of Taskmaster on All 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterAnywhere else, it's the Taskmaster YouTubeyoutube.com/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com
Lured Up Podcast 378 Live Streamed on - 1/12/2026 Publish Date - 1/15/2026 This week didn't finish too strong with some Trainers in the Community. While Pinch Perfect and its rotating Timed Research was a blast, Kyurem Fusion Raid Day left a bad taste in some Trainers' mouths. The inclusion of Reshiram and Zekrom in the Raid rotation hurt Trainers with less developed gameboards, as some reports saying that all the Raids in some rotations were not White or Black Kyurem, making the event fall flat until the opportunity arises to try it again during the next rotation. Adam brought up a great idea of putting Fusion Energy in Field Research for defeating Reshiram or Zekrom. This week brings High Zaptitude and a double release. Wattrel and Shiny Tadbulb make their debut during the event, giving two different Pokémon to chase that are available in different ways. You'll have to work to unlock Wattrel, as it is a Level 2 Reward of a Global Challenge, which confused some Trainers that didn't read the fine print. In all, this is a solid double header and a fun Electric event. Precious Pals and Precious Pals Taken Over will keep us busy in the week ahead, with Giovanni bringing Shadow Incarnate Forme Thundurus. We also have boosted Shinies for catching Goldeen, and hatching Espurr or Fidough. Make sure you remember to TM away Frustration before the event ends! Weekly Challenges added matchmaking and a bigger invite list this week. With the leveling grind being so popular, Weekly Challenges are a great way to fast track to Forever Friends. The Challenges themselves however, pose little to no actual challenge for moderate to hardcore Trainers. We spitball some ideas of how this mechanic can be developed to provide a tougher challenge while targeting Trainers of different skill and dedication levels. Finally we drop our top 5 gameplay loop lists and talk it through. From the Friendship Grind to Adam's Max Battle obsession, we dig into what keeps us engaged with the game and coming back for more. Pinch Perfect Kyurem Fusion Raid Day High Zaptitude Grookey Community Day Precious Pals Weekly Challenges LuredUp@PokemonProfessor.com Voicemail and SMS: 732-835-8639 Grab some merch: https://crowdmade.com/collections/professornetwork Connect with us on multiple platforms! https://linktr.ee/PokemonProfessorNetwork Hosts Ken Pescatore Adam Tuttle Writer and Producer Ken Pescatore Executive Producer Xander Show music provided by GameChops and licensed through Creative Commons ▾ FOLLOW GAMECHOPS ▾ http://instagram.com/GameChops http://twitter.com/GameChops http://soundcloud.com/GameChops http://facebook.com/GameChops http://youtube.com/GameChops http://www.gamechops.com Intro Music Lake Verity (Drum & Bass Remix) Tetracase GameChops - Ultraball http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ https://soundcloud.com/tetracase https://soundcloud.com/MegaFlare0 Break Music National Park Mikel & GameChops GameChops - Poké & Chill http://smarturl.it/pokechill https://twitter.com/mikel_beats Outro Music Vast Poni Canyon CG5 & GlitchxCity (Future Bass Remix) GameChops - Ultraball http://gamechops.com/ultraball/ http://soundcloud.com/cg5-beats https://soundcloud.com/glitchxcity Pokémon And All Respective Names are Trademark and © of Nintendo 1996-2025 Pokémon GO is Trademark and © of Niantic, Inc.Lured Up and the Pokémon Professor Network are not affiliated with Niantic Inc., The Pokémon Company, Game Freak or Nintendo. #pokemon #pokemongo #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
E19 - In the wake of Renee Nicole Good's murder, we've seen a terrible number of bad takes: from the events of that day, the overall purpose of I.C.E., and what the law says about where we go from here. Matt, Thomas, and Lydia come together to start with perhaps the biggest douchebag in the United States as part of our amuse douche (TM), followed by a pair of articles touching on why the Left was wrong about ICE in 2018 and is apparently at fault to this day for all horrors committed by ICE (eyeroll). Finally, we finish it up with questions from our amazing patrons! Watch this episode on YouTube! "Abolishing ICE is a very bad idea" (Nate Bruggeman & Ben Rohrbaugh, The Philadelphia Inquirer), 3/23/2018 "The Problem Isn't ICE. It's ICE Watch." (Dan McLaughlin, National Review), 1/10/2026 Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
We're joining the People's Pod this week, as Jenny and Jack discuss part two of the 2026 New Years Treat - asking the questions no one else has yet asked; what would it be like to holiday with this cast? Is a moth-eaten squirrel exotic? Is it time to stop the 'thing inside a thing' Taskmaster trend?And we've had Champion of Champions, but should we follow Sweden in hosting a 'Loser of Losers'? A listener writes in to discuss. Next week we're back to our 'classic Taskmaster' homework, watching another part two - this time of Champion of Champions 1. Keep an eye out one the podcast feed for Taskmaster news and Series 21 updates!Catch up on Channel4.comVisit Taskmaster.tv for all your TM news
How do children really experience their parents' separation? In this episode, Thom explores why children are often far more adaptive to a family separation than adults assume, and how they unconsciously mirror the emotional state of their parents. Drawing on the Vedic worldview, Thom explains why change is evolutionary, why staying together “for the children” can be harmful, and how honoring the other parent protects a child's sense of self. A compassionate and clarifying perspective for any parent navigating relationship change.You can also watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/YRsKT1togKwEpisode Highlights[00:45] Children Tend to be Peacekeepers[03:28] Involve a Third Party for the Child to Speak With[07:01] Protecting Children's Emotions[09:26] Don't Stay Together “For the Children”[12:57] Change is Evolutionary[15:18] Avoid Speaking Ill of Each Other[18:00] Honor the Other ParentUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
Jenny and Jack discuss part two of the 2026 New Years Treat asking the questions no one else has yet asked, such as; what would it be like to holiday with this cast? Is a moth-eaten squirrel exotic? Is it time to stop the 'thing inside a thing' Taskmaster trend?And we've had Champion of Champions, but should we follow Sweden in hosting a 'Loser of Losers'? A listener writes in to discuss. Next week we're back to our homework, watching another part two - this time of Champion of Champions 1. Send all your goofs, bloops and homework suggestions to: fans@taskmaster.tv.If you're in the UK you can watch all of Taskmaster on All 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterAnywhere else, it's the Taskmaster YouTubeyoutube.com/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com
Send us a textA recurring theme on Dem Bois Podcast is the importance of friendship and chosen family. And in this episode, I sit down with two friends who have become family. Today I talk to Jota and Calvin, and we discuss the impact of community, the intersections of race and gender, and the importance of representation and self-acceptance in the trans community. Jota and Calvin also share their personal journeys and experiences, including the creation of workdatcxnt.We talk:11:58 - Visibility and self-identity23:44 - Reflections on masculinity and gender experiences36:34 - Building community and chosen family40:02 - Personal journeys into Ballroom51:11 - Work Dat CuntClick here for episode references!Read more about Jota in his bio below:Jota Kayodê Ramos is a Brazilian transmasculine multidisciplinary artist and activist based in Berlin. Holding a master's degree in Applied Social Sciences, his practice in performance, installation video and poetry is deeply informed by academic research. An active member of the Ballroom scene since 2019, he walks in AA Runway and TM Realness categories and has walked internationally in cities such as New York, Paris, Brussels, and across Brazil and Germany. Ramos is also one of the heads of Workdatcxnt and a member of the Brazilian Institute of Transmasculinity (IBRAT).IG - jotakayodeRead more about Calvin in his bio below:My name is Calvin - I'm 31 y/o and based in Berlin. I entered ballroom in spring 2023, walking TM Realness so far. By the end of 2023 I joined workdatcxnt and found this to be the perfect place for me to discover different categories in a masculine space. I started my transition in 2014 in an area with little to no queer BIPOC representation, so the workshops are also an amazing opportunity to just connect with fellow TM's and watch the transmasc community grow.IG - cal.crmCelebrate 10 years of Dem Bois Inc.! 2026 marks ten years of Dem Bois Inc. To honor this milestone, we invite you to join our 10 for 10 campaign by giving $10 a month to help sustain the care, leadership, and visibility that trans men of color deserve. Your support helps build a future rooted in care, visibility, and possibility. Donate today! Donate today to support Transmasc Gender Affirming Grants and Community Wellness Packages for Trans Men of Color! The Visibility = Possibility™️ Merch is here! - Not just merch, but a movement! Dem Bois Community Voices Facebook Group is a safe, moderated sanctuary where trans men of color can connect authentically, discuss podcast episodes, share powerful experiences, and build support networks. Dem Bois YouTube Channel! - @demboisinc - Exclusive content you won't find anywhere else!
Trivia Hall of Famer Jay Borsom of Liquid Kourage Entertainment joined the Bench for the first time making BTP an OFFICIAL trivia podcast (TM). During this game, neither Josh could stop thinking about Charles in Charge (though maybe for different reasons #nicoleeggert), Bohmbach had an answer to a wrestling question before Dave, and we all pondered the question "Are you ready to throw 30 guys over the top rope?" #oopsallberries #hof #official #tm #charlesincharge #30guys https://dobosdelights.com/ Promo Code: CheckYourTaint https://www.patreon.com/benchwarmerstp https://www.facebook.com/benchwarmerstp https://www.twitter.com/benchwarmerstp https://www.instagram.com/benchwarmerstp/ https://www.teepublic.com/stores/benchwarmers-trivia-podcast
Are events in life symbolic, or are they simply expressive moments within a vast, intelligent universe? We humans love to make meaning of things, especially unusual events or mysterious dreams. Are we justified in doing so, or are we possibly distracting ourselves from what's really going on around us. Once again, Thom offers a profound reframing of symbolism, dreaming, and the role of unbounded awareness in everyday life.You can also watch this episode in two parts on YouTube, here https://youtu.be/ExUj9fmAeVU and here https://youtu.be/gkEwft6ST-0. Episode Highlights[00:45] Q - To what extent is everything symbolic?[01:18] A - Coincidences Are a Continuum of Reality[06:24] What You See Is What You Get[08:29] Assembly Theory and Abiogenesis[12:08] Leftover Star Stuff Arguing About the Dishes[15:32] Q - What Is the Vedic Perspective on Dreams and Dreaming?[15:46] A - Dreams Aren't Dreams[18:44] A Disjointed Story[22:17] Nighttime Cognitions[25:39] Remembering Is Overrated[29:14] Crossing Thresholds of Unboundedness[32:11] Vedic Meditators Lose the Need to DreamUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
New year, new New Years Treat! Welcome to the first part of 2026's festive offerings, and the reason Jenny and Jack have so much to discuss; including their love for 'Little Baby Big Zu,' why Jenny won't eat chocolate, politically, how Sam was giving 'shades of Zaltzman,' and Jenny's loft theories. Plus the pair get excited for the newly announced series 21 cast! We'll be back next week to digest the second part of the New Years Treat so be sure to get all your thoughts and questions (or future homework suggestions!) in to fans@taskmaster.tv. If you're in the UK you can watch all of Taskmaster on All 4 www.channel4.com/programmes/taskmasterAnywhere else, it's the Taskmaster YouTubeyoutube.com/taskmasterVisit the Taskmaster Store for all your TM goodies!taskmasterstore.com
Two episodes of Taskmaster in two days! We really are being spoilt (and inspired!) For the second part of the Festive Treat, Ed is joined by the winner to chat all about what went down in the house and in the studio! Enjoy all the BTS and more! Keep an eye out one the podcast feed for any news AND for Series 21 deets! Catch up on Channel4.com Visit Taskmaster.tv for all your TM news
What a lovely way to celebrate the New Year! Greg and Alex return with a star studded line up. This year they are joined by Big Zuu, Jill Scott, Sam Ryder, Susie Dent and Rose Ayling-Ellis. Sam joins Ed in the caravan to talk about all the regrettable decisions he made in the TM house and so much more! Come back to the podcast at the same time tomorrow and listen to Ed talk to the winner! catch up on channel4.com For all your latest TM news visit taskmaster.tv
One of the biggest causes of suffering in our lives is the fact that nothing lasts forever. It's not only true that all good things must come to an end, but all things must come to an end. In this episode, Thom reminds us that Nature has the final say on what is, and what no longer is relevant in the natural process of evolution. Rather than resisting Nature's timing, our suffering is reduced or eliminated if we embrace Nature's timing.Once again, Vedic meditators have a natural edge in putting this into practice. Listen to the full episode to explore the complete teaching, or watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/99fcBENajAsEpisode Highlights00:45 Evolve03:58 You Are a Production06:03 A Universe That Wants a Story07:48 Constant Atomic Exchange11:26 Identifying Irrelevancy Through Vedic Meditation14:14 Constant Relevance Refreshment17:15 The Dangers of the Ever-Repeating Known20:19 Disruption and Relevance23:13 Letting Go of Rigid Attachment25:45 Contextualizing Pain30:34 Welcome to the Solution to All ProblemsUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
It's Champion of Champions time! Who will reign supreme and who will join Ed Gamble in the Taskmaster caravan? Andy Zaltzman, John Robins, Maisie Adam, Mathew Baynton and Sam Campbell are all contenders but tune in to the pod to get the full run down from the overall champ! Taskmaster the Podcast returns on January 2nd after the first instalment of the festive treat! For all your TM news visit taskmaster.tv and visit channel4.com to catch up or rewatch your favourite episodes!
In this episode, Thom shares the inspiration and urgency behind the creation of the recently launched Vyasanand Foundation. He explains why preserving the purity of Vedic Meditation, while making it accessible at scale, is essential for meeting the demands of our time. Thom outlines the foundation's twin priorities of teacher scholarships and scientific research, and reflects on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's vision of multiplying enlightened leadership for future generations.If you'd like to contribute to the Vyasanand Foundation, please visit the website for details on how you can do so: https://www.vyasanandfoundation.org/ Episode Highlights[01:28] The Inspiration Behind the Vyasanand Foundation[03:22] Why Now?[06:47] Meeting the Demands of the Time[14:51] What Would the World Look Like if More People Practiced Vedic Meditation?[19:57] What Will Vyasanand Foundation Funds Be Used For?[23:47] Multiplying Maharishi[28:13] Big, Important, Urgent[30:57] GratitudeUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
Is it possible to escape the cycle of desire that keeps us bound? In this episode, Thom explores the subtle mechanics of kaṛma and the paradox of fulfillment, blending ancient wisdom with contemporary dilemmas. Move beyond the myth of desire-free enlightenment and discover the true role desires play in moving us, often mysteriously, right where we need to be. Prepare to step into a new understanding of fulfillment, agency, and the playful nature of wants.Episode Highlights[00:45] Kaṛma: Action that Binds[03:30] The Danger Zone[06:44] Kṛiya: Action that Doesn't Bind[09:33] The Power of a Pink Shirt[13:13] A Literal Bucket List[15:48] The Desirability of a Desire-free State[18:42] Q - Does attachment to the desire for enlightenment keep you bound?[18:50] A - The Hypnosis of Social Conditioning[21:37] Enlightenment's an Acquisition[24:38] Desires Just Move Me AroundUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
Spontaneous Memories of Past Lives with Kelvin Chin Kelvin H. Chin is a longtime meditation teacher, executive, and author whose career spans law, business leadership, contemplative practice, and afterlife studies. A graduate of Dartmouth, Yale, and Boston College Law School, he worked for decades in senior corporate and legal roles before founding his nonprofits Turning Within and the Overcoming the Fear of Death Foundation. He is the author of Overcoming the Fear of Death: Through Each of the Four Main Belief Systems and After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives, detailing spontaneous recall of multiple lifetimes across millennia. His website is https://www.turningwithin.org/ Kelvin Chin discusses his spontaneous memories of past lives, describing how these experiences emerged naturally over decades through meditation and deep relaxation. He explains how these memories span multiple eras, cultures, and even non-human forms, offering insights into consciousness, the afterlife, and the continuity of mind. Kelvin also emphasizes the practical value of such experiences for reducing fear, cultivating clarity, and navigating the challenges of modern life. 00:00:01 – Introduction 00:01:47 – Spontaneous reincarnation memories begin 00:04:00 – Meditation origins and early TM journey 00:07:16 – First spontaneous past life experiences 00:13:40 – Interpreting subjective memories 00:23:17 – Carthaginian slave lifetime 00:31:01 – Lessons carried into the present 00:33:24 – Ancient memories thousands of years old 00:38:19 – Nonhuman and off-planet experiences 01:00:14 – Conclusion New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on November 18, 2025) For a short video on How to Get the Most From New Thinking Allowed, go to https://youtu.be/aVbfPFGxv9o For a complete, updated list with links to all of our videos, see https://newthinkingallowed.com/Listings.htm. Check out the New Thinking Allowed Foundation website at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as opportunities to shop and to support our video productions – plus, this is where people can subscribe to our FREE, weekly Newsletter and can download a FREE .pdf copy of our quarterly magazine. To order high-quality, printed copies of our quarterly magazine: NTA-Magazine.MagCloud.com Check out New Thinking Allowed’s AI chatbot. You can create a free account at awakin.ai/open/jeffreymishlove. When you enter the space, you will see that our chatbot is one of several you can interact with. While it is still a work in progress, it has been trained on 1,600 NTA transcripts. It can provide intelligent answers about the contents of our interviews. It’s almost like having a conversation with Jeffrey Mishlove. If you would like to join our team of volunteers, helping to promote the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel on social media, editing and translating videos, creating short video trailers based on our interviews, helping to upgrade our website, or contributing in other ways (we may not even have thought of), please send an email to friends@newthinkingallowed.com. To join the NTA Psi Experience Community on Facebook, see https://www.facebook.com/groups/1953031791426543/ To download and listen to audio versions of the New Thinking Allowed videos, please visit our new podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/new-thinking-allowed-audio-podcast/id1435178031. Download and read Jeffrey Mishlove’s Grand Prize essay in the Bigelow Institute competition, Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death, go to https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/docs/1st.pdf. You can help support our video productions while enjoying a good book. To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Is There Life After Death? click on https://amzn.to/3LzLA7Y (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) To order the second book in the New Thinking Allowed Dialogues series, Russell Targ: Ninety Years of ESP, Remote Viewing, and Timeless Awareness, go to https://amzn.to/4aw2iyr To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: UFOs and UAP – Are We Really Alone?, go to https://amzn.to/3Y0VOVh To order After the Afterlife: Memories of My Past Lives, by Kelvin Chin, go to https://amzn.to/4p0W7u2 To order Overcoming the Fear of Death, by Kelvin Chin, https://amzn.to/48v6kZL
What makes a thought or experience negative? And is it “bad” to have a negative thought or experience?Thom gives us food for thought in this episode, in response to a question from a guest at a recent retreat. Using his own unusual childhood as a case study, Thom explains the distinction between content and context, and the role consciousness and Vedic Meditation have in helping us negate the negative.Episode Highlights[00:45] Q - How Can My Thoughts Be Negative?[01:44] I'm a Strange Guy[03:38] Learning My ABCs[06:33] Nothing Negates the Forward Movement of Evolution[07:48] Going Back in Time[10:48] A Little Snapshot of Time Is Never Pretty[12:43] Consciousness Contextualizes Content[14:22] The Dangers of Irrelevancy[18:02] Recycling Stress[21:28] Let It Go and Move On[22:47] It's All OkayUseful Linksinfo@thomknoles.com https://thomknoles.com/https://www.instagram.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.facebook.com/thethomknoleshttps://www.youtube.com/c/thomknoleshttps://thomknoles.com/ask-thom-anything/
Tyler answers a listener email about what he'd do differently if he were starting his business today, beyond just setting up insurance, lawyers, and an LLC. He digs into why chasing "sexy" high-end projects can crush your margins, how T&M and paid pre-con changed his business, and why the less you work, the more you can actually make when your systems and numbers are dialed. The Preconstruction Course: Click Here Show Notes: 00:00 What I'd Do Differently Starting Today 03:59 Chasing Sexy Projects Instead Of Profit 08:42 Scaling Back And Resetting The Business 12:30 Dialing In Pre Con Overhead And Job Type 21:56 Forty Hours Vs Eighty Hours For The Same Pay 27:00 The Three Levers Of Profit In A Small Shop 30:28 Learn To Walk Before You Run Your Company Video Version: https://youtu.be/kpu9RmFKCwQ Partners: Andersen Windows Buildertrend Harnish Workwear Use code H1025 and get 10% off their H-label gear The Modern Craftsman: linktr.ee/moderncraftsmanpodcast Find Our Hosts: Nick Schiffer Tyler Grace Podcast Produced By: Motif Media