Totally Classic

This week, with the removal of Dr. Gay as President having finally transpired (after a month plus of extensive pressure), Andy & Brendan ask whether the theory offered by many that racism was vital in her loss of position.  Specifically, they skip through the presentation of such a thesis by DEI advocate & Northwestern University (where Andy & Brendan met) Professor Alvin B. Tillery to...

In recent weeks, both Colorado & Maine have struck likely Republican Nominee for President, Donald Trump, from their state ballots, on the basis of having been involved in "insurrection." This centers on the activities of the afternoon of January 6 at the Capitol in D.C. in 2021.  Which Brendan would classify as a "nothingburger" & Andy is comfortable with "insurrection."  Today, they'll q...

Andy & Brendan explore what "restorative justice" is, how it's being implemented & how it may or may not have become a straw man for noted recent imbroglios in legal policy. Does it center the perpetrator & abandon the victim OR does it aim to do what justice has always classically been intended to do? Does it reward misbehavior or seek to understand & remedy misbehavior? Is "Resto...

We're back to wax philosophical & engage in dialogue on the subjects many will pretend are impossibly impassable.  This week, Andy bring his experience in the West Bank last year to bear on an interrogation of the Gaza War. He & Brendan ask whether the frequent chant of protestors is even a tenable goal.  Less than 2 hours on a conflict that goes back thousands of years... We hope, in some...

In an era where headlines call Latinos, Muslims, Asian-Americans agents of "white supremacy?" it is naturally incumbent upon us to ascertain A) whether such accusations are true, in specific and B) whether such accusations are true, in the broadest sense. That is, does White Supremacy exist? Is it real? Does it permeate every thread in the fabric of our culture? Or is it a boogieman based in a ble...

Have we reached the next "big switch" re: our two big, cola wars political parties in the United States? The US is a culture built upon the framework of liberalism, generally, but has it reached such a point where our popular moniker for The Left/The Democratic Party is more akin to using "literally" as "figuratively?"  Would the term "liberal" now better describe The Right/The Republican Party? I...

A black and white thinker & a moral relativist walk into a Zoom &... talk about binaries.  As popular as the swap-out of "binary" for "spectrum" has become, does the binary still have a use in our culture? The question below that question is Andy & Brendan's question today - a version of "Do binaries exist?" Is binary thought or binary construct fundamental to the very fabric of things or only (IF...

This week, Andy & Brendan question whether the populist response to incidents of gun violence are relevant or irrelevant... or somewhere in between! When a mass shooting tragedy unfolds AGAIN, the political and personal response seems to have been funneled into a univariate focus of "Gun Control NOW!" Is this a reasonable or unreasonable response, FUNDAMENTALLY (being that it's next to impossible...

Where do babies come from? Okay... when a Helicopter Dad meets a Tiger Mom and they love each other very very much and when they kiss and their bodies figure out from pheromones and saliva that their offspring would be more resistant to disease... Blah blah blah they have a baby!  A baby that's safer than they are. And we've been doing this for eons & getting even more serious about safety in the...

This week, Brendan brings his question to bear with Andy, positing a theory that this Pandemic offers us a glimpse into the multiverse and tells us with stunning accuracy how we would have behaved in, say, Germany in the 1930s... or in Northern California in 1942... or Mississippi in 1955 OR... OR...   In what ways did we fail to live up to our own code of ethics these past three years and what wa...

Andy & Brendan continue their divigation flow through thoughts on technology (intimate & grand) concerns on AI and their own use of technology and how it enhances both the shadow and the light elements of their individual and collective selves.  You are right now using some quite advanced technology to access this podcast.  So... thank you? :)

As we stand on the precipice of an AI-integrated future, Andy & Brendan ruminate on what technology has meant and may yet mean for us as modern vessels of sentience, purpose and utility.  And it all starts with masterful modern miracle that is the #2 pencil. 

It is hard to enjoy anything these days.  It has become very haute to not simply appreciate art & entertainment but do seek to divine and judge the worldview the creator is setting forth. Have we all become Neo-fundamentalists, seeing "the work of the DEVIL!!" everywhere or have we begun to enact a pre-technocratic synchronicity with the virtual world and we are finally seeing the binary flow ever...

Within the swirl of winter, within the season for giving, within the happy holiday vacation run... how much attention to we pay to actual rest?  Do we give ourselves... rest? And what is rest?  As a culture, what are we lacking? Are we OBSESSED with rest or with productivity? What are we, individually, lacking? OR should we be turning our focus away from lack altogether? This week, Andy & Brendan,...

Can we find our way to an amnesty for the pandemic thus far? Does that question even make sense to you? Do you wonder what an amnesty is already being proposed for? Do you wonder if it's a legitimate claim? And can one have amnesty without first trial and conviction? What are the crimes we're talking about!? This week, Andy & Brendan ask and answer and re-question all that and more. You're welcome...

The Atlantic published a think piece that launched a thousand think pieces with the title "LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY." What does this statement mean? What would an amnesty require beforehand? What crimes would be forgiven? What criminals would be acquitted? Are we trying to skip accountability and jump straight to forgiveness without apology or are we trying to find a path of healing out of...

Do we have more to fear than fear itself? This week Andy & Brendan seek to navigate how to move away from fear and disgust towards empathy, how quickly one can become convinced to fear, whether or not your intuition has affirmed this response... and where fear becomes concrete reality. What do you think? IS fear dangerous?

This week and next, Andy & Brendan were wondering... Is Fear Dangerous? Is fear simply an essential emotion, a fundamental survival instinct? Or was Mr. New Deal spot on when he spoke "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" They question this question and try to find the line were fear goes from damage control to damage creation.  What do YOU think? 

This week, Andy & Brendan further range into the quagmire of presupposition, science, ethics, semantics, kindness & niceness AND "WHY AREN'T WE ALL TALKING THIS THROUGH?" of whether pronouns (or gender itself, for that matter) are subjective/malleable. Have these noun simplifiers ceased to simplify? Have these ceased to correspond with material reality as we understand it? All this and more on thi...

In light of the recent imprisonment of a teacher in Ireland over accusations of “misgendering” and recent Twitter addition of “misgendering” as HATE SPEECH, it appears a moral and legal battleground has been established and shots are being fired on a daily basis over not only speech, but a basis upon which truth is established. And it all circles the drain of pronouns.    Who knew a noun simplifie...

In this week's episode, Andy & Brendan use speech to talk about speech, words and pauses and verbal punctuation to talk about the same.   How free is speech? How important is free speech to our, or any, society? What are the limits on free speech? What SHOULD the limits be? What are the harms of speech? Of restricted speech? Where are we at right now with censored speech a daily occurrence and sel...

A continuation of the previous conversation (see Episode 14) on this topic, this week Andy & Brendan look more closely at the Power & Privilege claims popularized by modern Intersectionality ideology & look back to the origins of the term from within the nest of Critical Race Theory & other Critical pedagogies.  And try to figure out if white people exist:) 

"Intersectionality" was coined in 1989 in regards to discrimination lawsuits that could be regarded as overlapping in the Venn diagram of mere SEX and RACE discrimination. Flash forward decades and now it's a comprehensive theory relating to myriad aspects of purported identity.  This week, Andy & Brendan try to examine whether this way of viewing discrimination allegations OR EVEN THE WHOLE WORLD...

Spoiler Alert: This is the first episode where Andy & I actually have the same answer to the question, when all the conversation is through. Which is remarkable. Hence this remarking upon it. Now the remarks have been delivered and re-remarked, here's what we're trying to ascertain - is Woke a Religion? It obviously satisfies some of the metrics. But does it satisfy enough that it would be helpful...

A very special episode (yes, like an after-school special vibe) where Andy has Covid and so he & Brendan talk through questioning the reality of the situation, the reality of Covid itself and the reality of the Covid response. A true panoply of pandemic pontification!