Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill

The boys drink and review Stocking Stuffer, a holiday cream ale from 1623, then ask whether psychiatry is helping or hurting. Although we've certainly come a long way from Medieval "remedies" like induced vomiting and bloodletting, the stats aren't so good on modern psychiatry. The consensus is that we're over-medicating people to benefit the pharmaceutical industry. There ar...

The boys start the show with a glass of "off dry hard cider," then dive right in to your questions and comments. We got a lot of reactions to our show on Catcher in the Rye. Raven and Pentamom don't like the book, while Heathen Abbey loved it. They had very different opinions on whether reading it would make kids want to read or make them never want to pick up another book. A related...

Are we heading to a time where everybody has a disability? Or, if you don't have one, you're pretty stupid? The boys drink and review Trail of Crumbs gingerbread stout from Seven Locks Brewing, then discuss the Americans with Disabilities Act and how many college students are now considered disabled. It's impossible to accommodate every disability, so there will always be some fuzzines...

The boys drink and review Old Fezziwig Ale from Sam Adams, then ask why English isn't the official language of the United States. Most countries have an official language. About 20 percent don't. What's the reason for the difference? Generally speaking, a country needs a common culture, and a common culture usually requires a common language. Language is the deepest carrier of culture...

The boys drink and review a Mexican lager, then discuss the developing story about the U.S. conflict with Venezuela. Was the U.S. justified in sinking Venezuelan drug boats? What about seizing oil tankers? And then sending in a team to capture the Venezuelan president? Did we go too far, or is this a legit response to a threat in our hemisphere? And why is the U.S. so worried about Venezuela all o...

The boys drink and review Mad Elf, a strong holiday ale, then discuss the idea that college kids are getting dumber. Is that true? We've gone from a time when high schools taught Greek and Latin to a time when colleges teach remedial math. Comedians love to poke fun at the stupidity of our college students with "man on the street" interviews, where college kids can't identify the...

The boys drink and review Awkward Silence, a black lager from Flying Dog, then discuss a conversation between Milo Yiannopoulos and Tucker Carlson about homosexuality, gay rights, and related issues. A 2012 clip from Ugandan TV went viral after the host asked his guest, "Why are you gay?" To American audiences the question itself was hilarious. But why is it hilarious? Tucker explores th...

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review a Christmas ale from Great Lakes Brewing, then discuss stoicism. It's not what you think. It doesn't mean that you go through life with no emotions. There are two classic sources for Stoicism: Greek and Roman. But the Greek version only comes second hand. We don't have any of the original sources. We do have primary sources for the...

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review a raspberry cookie stout from Great Lakes Brewing, then discuss a famous American novel. It's not quite a Christmas book, but Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of his prep school just before Christmas, so it's close enough. Longinus starts off with some biographical info on Salinger, then the boys dive into the novel. The book is writte...

From the archives, the boys drink and review Crowhill's 2020 Christmas braggot (an ale with honey), then discuss the secularization of Christmas. P&C love the holiday festivities, but notice that the religious side of Christmas seems to be losing out to Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, and such. What's the balance between the penitential season of Advent and the ho ho silliness in the snow? And...

The boys drink and review Jubelale from Deschutes brewery then discuss Candace Owens. Candace is a very intelligent, very articulate woman. She's the type who has done her homework and has her facts ready. She used to be with Prager U, Turning Point USA, and Daily Wire. She's testified before Congress. After the October 7 attacks on Israel the cracks started to show. She left the Daily Wir...

The boys drink and review Brother Joseph's Belgian-style Double Ale from Straight To Ale then discuss the war on beauty. Pigweed wonders why everything is so ugly. Older buildings -- even sewage plants -- were beautiful. They were built to lift the human spirit. Modern buildings are built to be hideous. Why? It's so cheap to make things beautiful these days. Why don't we? It's almo...

The boys drink and review Sam Adams winter white ale, then smoke their pipes and discuss the origin and history of smoking. When you sit around the fire, you don't want the smoke coming your way. It's annoying. So who came up with the idea of intentionally breathing smoke into your lungs? People in Africa, the near east, and in China did smoke some cannibis-like weeds, but smoking really t...

The boys drink and review a Kolsch from Sky Blue Brewing, then discuss the influence of an old sociology paper by Cloward and Piven. These 60s-era "intellectuals" lamented that not enough eligible people had signed up for welfare benefits. They proposed overwhelming the welfare system by deploying an army of activists and troublemakers to (1) get more people to sign up for benefits, and...

The boys drink and review two imperial stouts, then discuss the possible relationship between Tylenol and autism. RFK Jr. has announced a relationship between pregnant women taking Tylenol and autism in their children. There is some evidence for that claim, but there are a lot of confounding issues as well. Is autism really on the rise? It seems so, but some people say it's just that we're...

P&C drink and review a Heineken Zero, then discuss some holiday themes. Contrary to popular opinion, Columbus didn't show that the world was round. Every educated person knew the world was a globe. Columbus mistakenly believed the world was smaller than it is, and that it would be an easy trip from Europe to Asia. His mistake led to the discovery of the Americas, but it took a long time be...

The boys drink and review Lost Rhino's Marzen, then discuss conversion therapy. The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on a ban on "conversion therapy," which is alleged to cure people of unwanted sexual attractions. Is this a ban on free speech? Is SCOTUS going to tell therapists what they can and can't say to their clients? Some people don't believe that their homosexual at...

P&C review La Chouffe, a strong Belgian Blonde ale, then discuss changing ideas about the self -- what it is, and how we think about it. In the ancient world, your "self" was more tied to your community and group. Augustine updated the sense of self as a reflective, moral agent. You don't just think, you think about what you're thinking. In the Protestant Reformation, the sel...

The boys drink and review Forgotten Lore American lager from Nepenthe, then discuss food stamps. A lot of people were concerned that the recent government shutdown was interfering with the funding for food stamps (SNAP), but it brought up another issue. People started to wonder how we got to the point that one in eight Americans are getting food stamps. Food stamps started out as a relatively mode...

The boys drink and review Raison Dêtre, a Belgian brown ale from Dogfish, then discuss the Charlie Kirk assassination and his legacy. Charlie Kirk was an amazing man. He could go into enemy territory and take on all comers. When he took questions from a crowd, he would invite the people who disagreed with him to the front of the line. Is there anyone like that on the left? What did the Charlie Kir...

The boys drink and review a Helles lager from Sam Adams, then discuss the Mississippi miracle. They've moved from the bottom to near the top in reading. How did they do it? They abandoned the failed modern educational ideas, like whole language, that have been destroying education for decades, and went back to phonics and strict standards. Modern ideas confuse how a proficient reader reads wit...

The boys drink and review a supercharged pumpkin ale and wonder what people mean when they say we should abolish ICE. If we assume they haven't gone completely into a "no borders" position, then how do we make sense of this? We have borders, and we have rules for who can cross them. Somebody needs to enforce that. If it's not ICE, who's going to do it? This is, once again, on...

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Samuel Adams' Jack-O Pumpkin Ale, then wonder why dragons show up in so many cultures around the world. Spanning the east, the west, and the Americas, the boys discuss dragon stories -- what they have in common and how they diverge. * Are they always mean? * Do they always hoard treasure? * Do they always want to eat virgins? * Were they al...

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review Southern Tier's imperial pumpkin ale, then -- to celebrate Halloween -- review a series of scary stories from Shirley Jackson. In this episode we dive into the eerie, unsettling world of Shirley Jackson. Best known for The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, Jackson was a master of psychological tension, small-town menace, and the dark...

The boys drink and review Jailbreak's Citra Lady Friend then discuss the implications of a million year old skull from China. P&C start with a review of the prevailing views on human evolution, including the "out of Africa" hypothesis. A little while ago, scientists in China found that a find from a few decades ago was older than expected, and more modern than expected. It's...