Bufnagle: the Podcast

Rafe reviews the USA's foundational document: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, the fledgling nation's statement justifying the USA's dissolution of political bands with Great Britain. Along the way, we will discuss structure and nature of this document, what is says and what it means, why these things were (and still are) important, and what it means today. #bufnagle #d...

Rafe discusses all things surrounding donating blood.  This episode has it all: from understanding your blood and what is in it, to how it moves around your body, to the history of blood donation, to how it is carried out at present, to how wonderful nurses are, to how all this demonstrates the power of human touch. #bufnagle #blood #erythrocytes #leukocytes #thrombocytes #plasma #redcross #willia...

Rafe finally gets around to tackling the third chapter of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The serpent is a dastardly character, using his cunning to trip up the child-like and unassuming Eve and Adam.  They get tricked by his chicanery and violate one of God's first assignments: they eat the forbidden fruit. While Adam's and Eve's sins ar...

Rafe sits down for a conversation with Big Brain Smart Head™ Roland Warren, president and CEO of Care Net, to discuss healing the culture.  In a world filled with material abundance, more people than ever are suffering and despairing, the widows and orphans are being left behind, and we are mired in a culture that produces anything but flourishing.   With Father's Day just around the corner,...

In this redrop of a classic episode from nearly four years ago, Rafe and Harry tackle the question of "Why is the US so  reluctant to embrace the metric system?" To answer this question, they go back to the basics of where the metric system comes from ("There were five definitions of the meter???"), where Imperial units come from ("The Romans did what???"), and how th...

Rafe is fully enjoying the arrival of summer, in particular all the plants producing flowers and leaves and, soon, fruit.  What follows is a discussion of angiosperms (plants that produce flowers and seeds enclosed in fruit) and their wondrously rich variety, which leads to a discussion of the 1981 film Time Bandits in which the Evil One mocks God for producing "43 species of parrots" wh...

With Summer looming, so are summer things like weddings!  In this re-drop of a classic Buf episode from way back in 2023, Rafe, heroically fighting a cold, talks of a wedding he attended in Iowa and the lessons that were learned, most importantly how children and grandchildren are the greatest blessings one can receive and how they fulfill our duty as Imago Dei . #bufnagle #weddings #imagodei #iow...

Rafe discusses thoughts around some snarky twitter posts, some cultural issues plaguing us, lament for old times, the understanding that one cannot go back, the situation with Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, Heinrich Heine, the definitions of belief and conviction, modernist Man's terrible predicament, and what to convict yourself of in order to do your part to turn things around. #bufnagle #pa...

Rafe talks about the coming of summer from solstices and equinoxes to cross-quarter days to Memorial Day and Labor Day.  Learn why 2026 is a special summer that comes around (on average) only once every (approximately) seven years! #bufnagle #calendar #summer #equinox #solstice #quarreterdays #crossquarterdays #memorialday #laborday #threedayweekend #theaverageisnotadatum #microsoftcopilot #ai #ar...

Rafe updates things from last week, in particular, how did the waiting go?  Did God make Good from Bad?  Did the baby arrive?  And have you made any mathematical advances in that time? Spoiler: the waiting went well.  God made Good (as usual); the baby came out just fine (as usual); and I discovered something I probably learned long ago but forgot. #bufnagle #seekthegood #waiting #patience #update...

We do lots of waiting; such is the nature of life in a world moving through space and time.  Is waiting a virtue or is it waiting well ? Let's look at all the waiting that we do and how to deal with it. #wait #waiting #patience #sprinklersystems #searching #grass #seasons #winter #spring #summer #autumn #holidays #birthdays #baseball #basketball #hockey #football #soappantry #nowaiting #froze...

Getting back to our regular Tuesday schedule, America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe to discuss NASA's highly successful Artemis II mission to the far side of the moon and back to earth. Ten days in space and nearly 700,000 miles for the crew of Artemis II ended on Friday evening (PDT) off the coast of California.  The mission was, by nearl...

Happy Easter!  The Buf is still playing with the schedule a bit by re-dropping a classic episode originally from 2022 where Rafe discusses how the passage of time, and its subsequent change in perspective, changes our understanding of the story of our past and our outlook for the story of our future.   Our perspective of where we are now can change dramatically when future events bring us understa...

As it is Good Friday, the Buf is messing up the schedule a bit by re-dropping a classic episode originally from 2023 where Rafe takes a short solo episode to discuss the Passion and how it is the oldest and most common story in history: power is threatened by Truth so Truth gets killed.  But Truth has that odd little habit of coming back, which gives us Easter. Technology may advance but Man stays...

Rafe hosts Big Brain Smart Head™ Fr Elliot Zak, Associate Pastor and Pastoral Vicar at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Carmel, Indiana, and peppers him with questions on the difference between licitness and validity, on the sinful nature of failing to forgive, on accounting the days within Lent, on how one can interpret what Hell is like, on how to love God, and all sorts of other thin...

In this fan favorite from way back in 2023, Rafe discusses the 1976 Academy Award Winning Movie Rocky and how it shows that to fulfill your calling to become what you were made to become, you must discipline yourself to practice virtue.   Rocky is a story of a good man who could be Great, if he would only practice discipline and virtue.  In it we learn to see that we must work to fulfill the natur...

The Buf celebrates St. Patrick's Day with a discussion of Ireland's most famous saint and a number of other things.   Born in Scotland but then captured and sold into slavery in Ireland, St. Patrick came to love Ireland and the Irish and returned to the Emerald Isle after his ordination to convert her people. Rafe looks at St. Patrick's Day, Irish names and naming, St. Patrick'...

Pi Day is March 14, due to its 3.14 notation.  This week on the Buf, we discuss all things pi-related, including interesting pie words, the history of the precision of estimates of pi, how to think about radians, and why thinking about a different circle constant (namely tau := 2*pi) might help get your head around some of these ideas. #pi #pie #piday #tauday #3.14 #6.28 #shepherdspie #magpie #rup...

Rafe discusses the 1969 Ryder Cup and Jack Nicklaus' concession of Tony Jacklin's final putt.  A discussion of the Ryder Cup competition and some Latin-based words starting with com- or col- or con- or cor- or just co- reveals that this event is a grand example of the real meaning of "competition", not the "conflict" into which so many sports, on all levels from littl...

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe for the second time this month to update the Buf on some interesting activities with Artemis II and Starliner. While Episode 277 was on the Buf pad still waiting to drop, NASA attempted a wet dress rehearsal of the Artemis II mission but was unable to overcome pesky hydrogen problems and now the next set of...

Springtime brings Lent and with it come all the wonderful and wacky ways people prep for 40 days of preparation.  In this fan favorite from 2023, Harry and Rafe discuss Shrove Tuesday traditions and how they bring us to understanding the balance between feasting and fasting and staying in the the middle of the highway of virtue. #shrovetuesday #shrove #shrive #shriven #shriving #lent #pancakeday #...

Rafe looks forward to (St.) Valentine's Day and what it means from the Romans' Lupercalia, to multiple Saints (and a pope) Valentine, to shoeboxes with pink construction paper, to candy hearts, to philia , eros , and agape , to feelings and choices, to others as others, to St. Paul and the Corinthians (not those who made the famed Corinthian leather), to patience, kindness, bearing, beli...

America's Favorite Rocket Scientist™ and Big Brain Smart Head™ Bob Luzenski joins Rafe to discuss NASA's official remembrances during this time of year and hopes and aspirations for the upcoming Artemis II launch.   After some solemn discussions of the fallen astronauts from the Apollo 1 fire of 1967, the Challenger accident of 1986, and the Columbia accident of 2003, discussion turns to...

Rafe discusses the Feast of Candlemas, the use of animals in the prediction in the timing of Spring, and the underlying themes of the movie Groundhog Day . ***** As always, you can reach the Buf at bufnagle@bufnagle.com ***** As you know, this is an independent podcast so your hosts also carry all the expenses of running this podcast.  As such, some of you have asked how you can help out.  Well, h...

The Buf welcomes Big Brain Smart Head™ Derek Hales, founder of naplab.com, to discuss the nature of mattresses, what they are made of, how they are tested, what they should cost, how they impact your sleep, and much much more.   How much should you pay for your next mattress?  Learn how to get that answer for a man at the forefront of mattress testing! To find out how your mattress tested out, go...