Dear Hank & John - 74: The Kindness Muscle

Episode Date: December 28, 2016

How do I deal with finals stress? What building would you haunt? How do I teach my kid not to bully? And more! NerdCon: Nerdfighteria: www.nerdconnerdfighteria.com/ Email your questions: [e-mail]

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Dores, I've heard of the Dear John and Hank. It's a comedy podcast for me and my brother John. We answer your questions. We give you to be of advice. And we bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon. How you doing, John? I'm doing well.

It's the end of the year here in the United States, and in much of the world. And I have to say, I am happy that this year is ending. It's been a good year in many ways. AFC Wimbledon became a third tier soccer team, but I do not believe that I'm going to look back on 2016, either personally or in a larger sense as the time of my life. I'm hoping that 2017 will somehow manage to be better.

Yes, well, don't count your chickens before the days done hatching. I got a baby out of 2016, so that's not nothing. And it's- And what a cute baby, by the way. Last night, Sarah was showing me pictures of your son, and he's so much cuter than our children were as infants. But, you know, the arc of history is long, and it's too soon to declare winners.

That's right. That's right. But I'm glad that we agree that we're having a competition. The sun, the sun came out today in Montana, which is, I forgot that it existed because we had not seen it in a while. And I, I realized the reason why I didn't want to go outside for so long, it was because it was terrible. But now I feel like I need to go, also I threw my back out bouncing my giant baby. He came out big, John. And he is a giant, he's a large child. And I, yeah.

So I'm glad to be feeling that way, though I have a bunch of work to do, so I probably won't be able to do much outside stuff, which is a bummer. Also I haven't seen Rogue One or Arrival or Fantastic Beasts or a number of other movies that have come out that I've heard are very, very good. And- Can I tell you the two best movies of the year in my opinion?

I'm incredibly fortunate, Hank. I get most of the major Oscar contenders sent to my house in DVD for free. Oh, God, send me. I feel bad about how great it is. It is really great, and I'm very grateful to the people who do that. But anyway, having watched most of the major best picture contenders, I have to say

there are a lot of really good movies this year. But to me, far and away, the two best films of the year are Hidden Figures, which is about some of the African-American women who did a lot of the calculations that allowed Alan Shepherd to go into space. And Moonlight, which is maybe the best movie I've seen in like 10 years.

I haven't seen a movie like Moonlight in a long, long time. It's a very special film. And so Rogue One is awesome. Arrival is awesome. I hope you get to see both those movies, but I really hope you get to see hidden figures in Moonlight. All right, well, if I could suggest any movie to anybody this year, it would be Independence Day Resurgence.

Because I heard that one did really well. Hey, would you like a short poem for today? I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. Yeah, let's do it, do it, John. Hank, do you know what today's poem is about? Is it about death? No, do you know what it's called? Oh, does it call death?

No, do you know what it's called? No, I don't. It's called The Chipmunk by Ogden Nash. It's about Chipmunks. I almost got there. If he would give me one more, I would have been like, is it about the Wikipedia of Chipmunks' Moncapedia?

No, the Great American Moncapedia poem is still yet to be written, but the Great American Chipmunk poem has been written. It was written by Ogden Nash, and it goes like this. My friends all know that I am shy, but the Chipmunk is twice as shy as I. He moves with flickering indecision like stripes across the television. He's like the shadow of a cloud, or Emily Dickinson read aloud. Yet his ultimate purpose is obvious is obvious very to get back to his chip monastery The chipmunk by Ogden Nash America's great chipmunk poem Your own man, it makes it makes me think that that chipmunks are called chipmunks because they build giant buildings out of potato chips

And they worship chips. Yeah. You know, Ogden Nashank, he's also responsible for such clever couplets as candy, as dandy, but liquor is quicker. Correct. Though that is not actually accurate because no matter how much candy you eat, you ain't going to get drunk. That's true.

It's a good point. Hey, let's answer some questions from our listeners. That sounds like a fine idea. Do you not want to point out that the Monkopedia Twitter tweeted us to let us know that we had gotten some facts wrong about Simon's glasses? Listen, if we spend the rest of the podcast

correcting all the mistakes that we made about Simon's glasses, this is going to become a full-time Simon's glasses podcast. We need to get to the questions from our listeners. We had the chipmunk call back. It was beautiful. It was brilliant. We need to move on. Okay. Okay, John. Our first question is from Sarah, who asks, Dear Hank and John, I was thinking about Hank's ice-breaking question, What's Your Favorite Bridge? Which I Stand By. And I was trying to come up with my own unusual question to post a new acquaintances. I have finally come up with my own out-of-the-box

question, so I pose this query to you. If you were a ghost, what building would you haunt? Think about it carefully, because no one knows if ghosts are allotted two weeks vacation per year, 40-hour work week, you will be expected to work overtime indefinitely. Happy haunting Sarah. Have you thought about this question, John, or should I go first? You can go first, I do have an answer. I would like to haunt the haunted mansion at Disney World. Oh, that's just a terrible idea.

Why not? Everybody's like, oh, it's so spooky and then I'll be like, no, I'm for real. Hi, I'm Hank. I was famous on the internet back in the early 2000s. I mean, here's my issue with that Hank. On a practical level, do you really want to haunt a building where the exact same thing happens all day long. Eight minutes after eight minutes after eight minutes for eternity. I mean, that's as close to hell as you can possibly get without being in hell.

Well, you know, it's changed over the years a little bit. And I like the idea of, I'm just a people watcher, I enjoy looking at people and I like the idea of, I'm just a people watcher, I enjoy looking at people and I like the idea of seeing the sort of the changing demographics of the haunted mansion over the millennia, that there's this consistency in the building itself and in the experience, but it difference in the people who attend and the experiences that they have based on their own life experience. I think that that has a lot going for it. Also, you know, I don't want to scare people too bad. So I kind of wanted to be ready to be haunted.

I mean, what's so interesting to be about your answer is that my answer is very nearly the opposite answer, which is as follows. The most remote island, a toll in the world is called Suwaro. And it's in the South Pacific. Of course you know that. Halfway between South America and Australia, truly in the middle of nowhere, extremely

hard to get to. And this guy, Tom Neal, lived alone in the single building on Anchorage Island in that toll for like 30 years in two separate trips. He lived there once alone for 17 years where he was visited like 10 times by yachts and other people traveling over the course that 17 years. And then he went back for like another decade plus and he ended up almost dying on the island. But when he had stomach cancer,

he got brought back to the Cook Islands for treatment. He died there. So anyway, there is a single building on the island on Anchorage Island in this Suoro toll. And that is the building that I would like to haunt because I would be living in so far as, you know, you're living after your dead in a beautiful beachy, incredible, great weather, just everything perfect and best of all, I would be alone, so I wouldn't have to haunt anyone. You know what, John, I honestly thought that you were gonna say your own house,

but that before you died, if you knew you were gonna be a ghost, you'd say I'm gonna haunt my house, and also it's gonna be held in forever trust by this, you know, some kind of, some kind of, I don't know what kind of financial institution would just own your house forever, but that, and then you would just continue

to haunt your own home forever, because you do like it at home. Yeah, I mean, that's appealing, except I don't want to spend eternity in Indianapolis. What? Are you got another question, John? I do. This question comes from Ali who writes,

dear John and Hank, I'm very confused by the US government deficit. Well, I'm glad you've come to your favorite advice podcast, Ali. Great choice. Everyone on the left keeps saying the deficit is going down. Well, everyone on the right says it is going up. Please help shed some light on this topic.

Well, I think that the problem is the word going. We're no good at words. And we sure do like to obfuscate one of my favorite words. I don't actually think that's the problem because the deficit is only going in one direction, which is down, it's just that it's still much greater than zero, which means that it is continuing to add to the overall size of the national debt,

which is going up and has gone up, pretty consistently for like 35 years. Yeah, the budget deficit is gone down every year. John, John, I think the thing you need to explain is what is the deficit because it is confusing the difference between the debt and the deficit. Okay, great. Yeah, so the deficit is the difference between the amount of money that the federal government spends on roads and bridges and prisons and schools and whatever else.

And the amount of money it takes in mostly in the form of taxes. And any given year, in any given year. So if we spend a trillion dollars, but we only take in 900 billion dollars, we would have a 100 billion dollar deficit. In fact, we spend and take in much more than that. But anyway, so the debt is the overall amount of money that the US government owes. Weirdly, a lot of the money that the US government owes

it owes to itself, which is a little bit different from how household debt functions. But also a lot of it is held by individuals who purchase government bonds or T-bills, and then a lot of it is also held by foreign governments. But we also own a lot of foreign government debt. It's a little complicated, but the deficit is the amount of money that we are coming up short each year in our budget and the debt is the overall like size of our outstanding obligations as a government. Right, so the deficit has gone down every year since 2011. It has gone down again this year. So when you hear people, so when you hear people on the left saying

the deficit is going down, that's true. When you hear people on the right say the deficit is going up, they're probably actually saying that the debt is going up, which is also true. As usual, it's complicated and it really depends on your perspective whether the size of our debt, let me say one other thing, heck. The only other thing I want to say is that smart people with PhDs and economics disagree about how much debt is safe to have. And I do not know the answer to that question.

And I think neither does anyone. Really. I think that there is an amount which is too much. And there is an amount which is too little. But there is, yeah. There is an amount that is too little. And there is an amount that is too little and there is an amount that's too much the problem with the amount that's too much is that you don't really know Until you hit it and once you hit it it is almost impossible to do anything To stop a debt spiral that The level of catastrophe that that would involve is Genuinely unimaginable. Let's move on to another question. This one comes from Barbara who writes, Coach, I'm gonna take, as I'm a working mom of two, I rarely have time to myself.

So I have started to consume social media and YouTube videos mainly on the toilet or in the tub. Since then, I've been wondering how YouTubers feel about people taking them to these places. Are you okay with it? Or would you rather fans wouldn't do that? Uh, I don't need to know, necessarily, but you can consume my content wherever you like. other fans wouldn't do that. Uh, I don't need to know necessarily,

but you can consume my content wherever you like. I, Ed, yeah, that's how I feel too, Barbara, as long as you're watching ads, I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. It's fine if you don't have an ad blocker on your toilet phone. Ha, ha, yeah.

No, I think it's very hard to be, it's so hard to be a working parent. It's so hard to find time for yourself, for the media that you like. And if the toilet is the place for that, totally cool with it. Thank you for including me in your life. However you do it.

Here's another question, John. It's from RJ. Dear Hank and John, I am a freshman. Finals are coming and I am a burned out candle. How do I get a nice little reset that I need so I can successfully cram all the information I need for the tests? Thank you for sharing your advice on how to deal with stress

and general candle feelings. All right, RJ. We're gonna take, just take right now. We're gonna have a suck, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,

it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it This is the whole town. It's often times a lot of energy here on Dear Hankajampa for you. We're going to take it down a notch. We're going to chill out a little bit, and we're just going to say, RJ, you're doing good. You're doing fine. You're working hard. You care. You're passionate. You know that you need to work hard. You're going to do that hard work.

And then you're going to take a couple breaths with me. You're just going to go in. I don't know what, go. Keep going in. In, in, in, in, in, and out, out, take a nice long breath, now I've been out, get back to work, RJ! That is exactly what Hank does.

He allows himself three breaths, and then he starts screaming at himself again. I'm gonna have slightly different advice, which is that if you feel like a burnt out candle, you need two things, right? You need some wax so that you can refill the candle and then you need a source of light like a spark or you need a source of light, like a spark, or you need to, basically RJ, I think what you need to do is go to the target and buy some paraffin wax and a lighter,

and you're gonna be back in business. So, it's such great advice, John. I should never even try to answer these questions. I know. Do you wanna give us another question? I know. God, I mean give us another question? I know. God, I mean, we've been doing this for a year and a half Hank, and I finally feel like we're properly, properly

dubious. Like, we've finally gotten bad. We were never good at podcasting, but this is the first time when I felt like we've been genuinely bad. This question comes from anonymous who writes, Dear John and Hank, my brother's birthday is coming up, and I am stumped as to what to get him.

He's turning 21 and I just got him the dad's podcast perk from the project for Austin, Indiegogo, but I feel like it's necessary to get him something to go along with it. He listens to dear Hank and John. So ideally, don't mention my name or anything. You can call me whatever you please. All right, Francine, listen up.

The number one thing you should have done was let us know in your question what your brother's name is so that we could wish him a happy birthday. Also, can we go back to RJ's question and just acknowledge that finals are over? And so whatever piece of advice we gave RJ is completely useless that just occurred to me.

But like, that's in the past now. That's a great part. As is this person's 24th birthday. I'm sorry, I'm sure for Ancene's brother. If you recently had a 21st birthday and you love the pod, maybe your sibling wishes you a happy birthday for us, but maybe not, we have no way of telling because the question is from anonymous

and they did not list your name. So I kind of, is it, is your 21 year old brother a recent father or did you just get them to fatherhood podcast because like, can you tell us anything about this guy? We need to know something. Yeah, I feel very under informed about Francine's brother. Yeah. If he's a recent father, I can tell you what you should acquire

because the only thing that is necessary is blankets, things to mop things up with. Just wash cloths, towels, cloths, just everything is covered in sticky and I'm pretty sure that I've got a thin film of spit up and poop covering my entire body despite the fact that I literally just got out of the shower. Not literally, I mean, you've been podcasting for several minutes.

Well, just is subjective, John. Well then why add the literally answer to call attention to the just hair is still wet. I can pot in the justice of it. Hey, hair is still wet. I can pot in the shower, John. You don't know. You know what I'm thinking right now, Hank, to be totally honest with you, I'm thinking that we need to go back to Moncapedia for some inspiration, because this is weak sauce.

So obviously, Chipmunks paraphernalia is good for any one of any age of any gender of any nationality. Oh my God, I have to tell you something related to chipmunks paraphernalia, two things actually first. A couple days ago, you tweeted with a picture of a glass of an Alvin in the chipmunks glass that you had and you were like, this is my Alvin in the chipmunks glass, I can't believe I didn't bring it up earlier. And you and I both know that that is my Alvin in the chipmunks glass from our shared jobs. You know John, I don't know that that's true because I had one that I got from home and then I bought a set.

I bought the other two on eBay. So I'm not sure if it was Theodore that we had or if it was Alvin and Simon. It may have been Alvin in which case, in which case I have examples of similar to how you sold my baseball cards on eBay. It is just another example of how when I leave the house for five seconds, you assume that all of my possessions suddenly belong to you. Anyway, secondly, the other thing I forgot to mention about Alvin and the Chipmunks is that my children, whom I love, have recently acquired three animatronic Chipmunks, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore,

dressed as Santas, and you push a button, and they sing, like, at least nine minutes of Christmas carols, and what the the kids do because I don't, like they have a different relationship with sensation than I do is they push all three buttons. So Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are singing Christmas carols at each other in chipmunk voices while the music is clashing

and the kids are jumping up and down and screaming and singing along to this song and that song and the level of sensory input is such that a man could wish to become a ghost haunting Anchorage Island in Suarro. So a couple of things to add to our conversation. One, I said that I had bad news regarding the Alvin Glass. It's gone. It's it's perished Secondly, did you know I found this out as doing a little bit of research that Alvin and the chipmunks are actually

Hamsters. No No way Yes, the actors who play Alvin and the chipmunks are hamsters There are no actors. It's an animated television program. It can't, like what actors? The actors who play them. There's our hamsters. They're the work cheaper.

They're less expensive. Did you read this at snopes.com? And did it say false as the first word of the story? What do you mean the actors are hamsters? Which actors are referring? I read it in the onion in my brain. I have a brain onion. It's just like stories that my brain has.

It's like not as fun as the real onion, but it's always delivering. Okay, can we really quickly, before we get back to questions from our listeners, can we swap all time favorite onion headlines? Oh, probably not. Because I don't like store onion headlines in my brain. Oh, I do. I do.

I have like a top 30. Okay, so it's possible that we've done enough chipmunk stuff we should answer another question. Okay, yeah, let's move on away from chipmunks. Okay, this question is from Anna. And I know that it's Anna because it says, at the end of this, it says, Anna, like the princess.

So, honestly, it's good. Oh man, if I could just correct you really quickly. Oh, how's the house pronounce? How's the house pronounce? She dresses up as Princess Anna almost every day. She either dresses up as Princess Elsa or Princess Anna every day. And whenever I look at her and she's dressed in her Princess Anna costume, I always say Princess Anna of Erin Dale, it's so nice to see you. And do you know what Alice says? What? She says, I'm going to have to get away from the microphone to recreate Alice's voice because she does not speak. She only screams. And this is what You know what Alice says? What? She says, I'm gonna have to get away from the microphone

to recreate Alice's voice because she does not speak. She only screams and this is what she says. It's Emma Daddy! Ha ha ha ha ha! Is it? And I'm always like, well not, I mean not in the movies in the movie, it's Princess Anna. And then she just, I'll be like, Alice, I think it is actually

Ana. It's Ana Daddy! Wow, I've got some things to look forward to. Ana asks, dear Hank and John, I would very much like to be a kind person. I believe and hope that kindness is a choice rather than an innate talent. But for all my trying, I feel I am very bad at it.

I am not bad at it. I am not very emotionally intelligent, and while I have strong general feelings about kindness, I'm not clear on the exact details of what it entails. I don't know how. Could you please give me some practical advice on how to be genuinely kind to people, kind regards, Anna, like the princess.

That's a great sign off kind regards. It's almost as good as in case. Yeah, especially with the quote, there was some quotation marks for kind of the kind regards. Oh, I didn't even get the pun. I'm not very clever. I don't know, Hank, you're kinder than I am, so maybe you should answer this question.

You highlighted this question, so I thought you had a good answer, but I'll take a go. It's definitely a muscle that gets stronger with flexing. It requires a great deal of giving of the benefit of the doubt and assuming that people are basically good and also realizing that when you feel as if you are the, at this short end of the world's stick, that there is a lot of bias that goes into that.

And I say this as a person who is at the longest end of the world's stick. But the, and I really do think that like that has helped me be a kinder person that like I have had lots of really great experiences and have been around a lot of really good people. But to me, it is about exercising thoughtfulness and empathy and also taking time to like consider the interactions you've had that day and whether you in the end had a positive impact on the people that you interacted with. And that doesn't have to be like, oh, they thought that I was so cool and funny

because that's like ego-feeding. It's like, did they feel better after they were hanging out with you after they spent time with you? That's to me what you're going for and what kindness is kind of about is how can I interact with people in a way that they feel better afterward because that's the only way that everybody's going to feel better in the end. Right, but that is very hard to do practically. It can't be. Sometimes I'm struggling with a virtue or trying to work on something in my own life. It helps to reframe it into language, like into different language sometimes.

So I often try to think of kindness as generosity. Like is there a way that I could be more generous in my responses to people in my daily interactions, in my professional relationships, in my personal relationships? And the answer is almost always, you know, yes, there are lots of ways that I can very straightforwardly and easily be more generous.

So that's what I need to be doing. But I agree that it's something that gets better. The more you do it, it is very hard practically to be kind because practically most of the time you respond or I respond, and I think most people respond to anger with anger or to frustration with frustration. It's almost impossible to respond to anger with generosity, but if you can flip that script, there's a great episode of Invisibilio about this. If you can flip that script, it can be sort of miraculous. And I've had people flip that script on me when I've had been having such a bad day. Like I recently made a video about this woman named Carmen who, when I didn't get to see Hamilton, and I was completely devastated, totally flipped the script on me and reminded me of all the great things in my life and the fact

that I've got the basics covered. And when people can do that for you, it's such a gift. And so I think noticing generosity in your own life can maybe also help you reflect it back to other people. Right, and there's also something to be said for, like, if you, if like, it's very hard to respond to anger or frustration with kindness, but it's easier to respond to indifference with kindness. Yeah.

And so just doing something nice to someone who like otherwise, you maybe wouldn't have had an interaction with it all. And like feeling, the feeling that that gives you. And also like, I really think that there is a lot to be said for spending a little bit of time thinking about what happened that day and the things that you did, the interactions that you had, and how you could have done them better.

I don't think that it can be really hard to find time to do that with, and also it's really important to not try and have that time be the moments before you go to sleep because that can cost a good deal of insomnia, but giving yourself a little bit of space to be like, if you can write that stuff down, like journal writing or blogging or whatever, because I have a, it's so hard for me to think all of the thoughts that I need with the space that's in my head and having a piece of paper or a blank screen

Let's me have a little bit more like ram like space in which to think and like go back and see But I was just thinking this but I had forgotten that I'd been thinking that kind of thing and self-reflection is very important And we have less and less space for it in our lives right now And I think that it's a really big part of kindness And also practice, especially practice talking to strangers and being kind to strangers, because a lot of times it can just be anxiety and doosing, and it's taken me 35 years to be able to do it without being like,

oh God, I'm gonna screw this up. Did I say 35, because I'm 36 years old? Yeah, I was gonna correct you, but that wouldn't have been very kind of me. Ah! You know, and it's somewhat related, but mostly 10-general thing. Every year, Sarah and I write two letters.

We write a letter back to ourselves at the beginning of the year about everything that happened that year. And, you know, I go back and look through my Google calendar and through the videos that we made and through lots of other stuff to talk about what happened that year, what went well, what went poorly, what were the unexpected challenges.

And then we write a letter to our kind of like cells at the end of that year, outlining our goals and priorities and what we want to focus on this year. And that's been so helpful. Like if everything I've ever done in my life, it's like gross and therapy-ish. And I do a lot of that stuff, even though I dislike it, because it works. Of all that stuff, that's been the thing that's most helpful is looking back, celebrating

accomplished months and the journey that you've had over the last that's most helpful is looking back, celebrating accomplishments and the journey that you've had over the last year and then also looking forward and making achievable goals that are well-defined and it's really worked for us. That's a great idea. I think that that's a really practical and achievable thing that once a year and we have more time around the holidays often to do that kind of thing, not everybody, but... Puh.

I don't know. I don't know. Truly spoken like somebody who just became a father. Right now my child needs very little from me. Mostly cuddles. So, any who? Yeah, no. It's in a way parenting an infant is the hardest because, oh my god, it's so hard. But in another way, it's so straightforward. All they need is cuddles and occasional like food and diaper changes. Actually now that I think about it,

it is really hard. This is way more fun. Once they can talk to you and read Harry Potter books, it's so much, so much more fun. Yeah, we started to have been able to have like some interactions with or and where it feels like we do something and he responds and it's like, that's so cool. Like in a positive way, I could always make him cry if I needed to. She sounds like an awful thing. Why did I say that? So let me explain myself. Sometimes he falls asleep and he needs to continue eating.

I have cold hands most of the time because it's Montana and it's the winter and I will put my hand on his head so that he will wake up a little bit and I'm like, well, I can at least make, you will respond to negative stimulus, but now he will respond to positive stimulus, and that's like, oh, neat.

So, I apologize for making it sound like. Oh, I'm not seeing the pictures of him smiling, or just, they're just, they just make me melt inside. Which reminds me that today's podcast is brought to you by Beggars Babies. Quite a lot of work. Yes indeed. Today's podcast was also brought to you by the Paraphan and Lighter section at your local target department store,

which is not what they call targets. I don't know why that's what they're doing now. They're calling them department stores. I changed my mind. There's departments and it's a store. Your local target department store has a department just for un-burning out your candles with paraffinandlighters.com. And of course today's podcast is also brought to you

by the haunted mansion ride at Disney World, the haunted mansion ride at Disney World, so fun that apparently Hank wants to spend eternity there. And finally, this podcast is brought to you by the Chipmunk Glass that we got probably at a fast food restaurant in the 1980s that John and I apparently still co-own. Mm, I mean, I would say that it's mine because it is,

but it is currently in your house. What? What, how is it yours? Here's mine. How is it yours? It is mine if for no other reason than you have without permission or consultation, taking it from our ancestral home

and put it in your home, rather than consulting with me about who cares more about that chipmunk glass, which is obviously me since I just made my annual pledge to Moncapedia, the number number one chip monk Wikipedia source on the internet Okay, John I actually did it and I know that now the Moncapedia editors are listening and they're probably like where's that donation check Listen up Moncapedia if you're registered 501 c3 contact me about a small very small Extremely small donation and I and I will hook you up if and only if Hank returns

that glass to me. Oh wow, wow, wow, now we're getting into the thing. So really, if you don't get a check from me, that's on Hank. Okay. Well, I will say that I cared enough to take these glasses that were probably from Wendy's and were definitely from 1985 and get the other two so that I could have a complete set. Well, I mean, I would love to have even one of the three, but unfortunately, that opportunity was the only thing.

It turns out there were four. There is in true, in true, you know, 1985 American fashion, there's one for Alvin, one for Simon, one for Theodore, and one for all three of the chipets. They have to share it cup. You know what I just discovered, and this is a surprise to me. Those 1985, that full set of the 1985 Alvin and the Chipmunks, Wendy's glasses are available on eBay for $12. Yeah, no, they were not expensive.

So maybe I should stop whining and just put that $12 out into the world and enjoy the glasses that, by the way, Sarah would never went into our kitchen cabinets. I'm really disturbed by the fact that it appears more and more like these chipmunks glasses are from hardies. That doesn't seem possible. I don't know what I want to do when I was a child. No, I don't know that we have them. Oh man, you know what's most distressing about hardies Hank is that their CEO is gonna be our next labor secretary. Let's move on to a question from our listeners. Okay.

This question comes from Brokku writes, Dear John and Hank, I'm a parent to three children. My oldest is in second grade, and yesterday her teacher contacted me to let me know that she's been bullying another student. I was and still am in shock. What can I do to help her understand that bullying is not acceptable? I want to stop this behavior before it gets any worse and make sure that my other two children don't follow a similar path. I was bullied as a child and could give advice for days on how to deal with that, but I'm at loss at how to deal with the

other side of this awful coin. Well, first of all, I have to thank you for the question, and also for taking it seriously, there is a problem where a lot of parents will hear that their child from a school or in some other way that their child has been building people and automatically look for reasons why it wasn't their child's fault or indeed the child probably has reasons why it wasn't their fault, even if it's a second grader, people are really good at explaining all of their actions, even if they are unkind. So thank you.

And we call a lot of attention to like the difficulties of the people who are being bullied, but they're, you know, the way, and you might say to, like, the person who's doing the bullying, why don't you just stop doing that? and You know like the only people who can stop the bullying are the people doing the bullying and so we need to figure them out and understand that and also figure out how to like have good conversations with them. I My child is two months old, so I have no idea Practically, but I think that I have managed humans. They are not second graders. So take this with all of the grains of salt, but I would say that you have to do your best to understand

the situation, the particular situation, and so you can talk about that particular practical situation, whether you're able to talk about that with the teacher who called you, or even some of the other children involved, that would be really great, so that you can have a frank conversation with your child about like what they did, why they did it, and why it was wrong. And like this isn't something that's necessarily like going to come naturally, like empathy is hard and it's a complicated process. And we all mess up. Like, no one correctly interprets fairness 100% of the time. Sometimes we think that what someone has done to us

is disproportionate to what we did to them would, in fact, it wasn't, and sometimes we don't realize that our reaction to someone else was extraordinarily disproportionate, especially if we are a second grader. So I think that there is, that it's a chance to have maybe a little bit difficult conversation, but a conversation about how to be kind to people and to think about them in a more complex way. And that's going to be like a lifelong learning experience for your child,

just like it was for you, just like it was for everyone. But I think that you clearly have come out of this, like are coming at this from a compassionate place. You need to be an example of compassion for your children, but that's not always going to be everything. You also have to create those moments for talking and reflecting about that stuff. I just hit a microphone, I'm sorry.

And then of course, if this behavior continues, there are places you can go, people you can talk to, and there's the stop-billing, our website is a really good website, where you can read things that are from people who are experts and are not, just podcasters who mostly talk about chipmunks and death. Yes, I agree, especially with the last thing that you said, but in general, I think that was a great advice. I mean, dubious, but for you, good. To chat.

Do you know that the Eastern Chipmunk of the United States only lives about three years before dying? Well, I mean, you can say that the Eastern Chipmunk of the United States only lives about three years before dying. But I think we all know that Simon and the Chipmunks are eternal. Hank, it's time to move on. Like that you just put Simon in charge of the Chipmunks.

You're like, Simon's in charge of all. Yeah, it's no more Alvin. Now, it's Simon's show. It's Simon and to a lesser extent, Alvin and Theodore. That is my understanding of the way it's gonna work for me here on out now that we have totally changed the history of the Chipmunks franchise via our podcast. Hank, let us move on now to the all-important news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon.

Oh gosh, I don't even know where to start. Well, I was gone so much happened on Mars that it is difficult to do. Oh, did it. There's just all kinds of radical changes. Shut up! It's unbelievable. I mean, it's a vastly different place than it was two weeks ago.

So the big news right now is about these geographical formations that happen in the polar region where they're basically, it appears like some kind of carbon dioxide erosion and they come in, like they form in these spider-webby looking things and they have called them colloquially the spiders. And people right now today, the day we're recording this, they're kind of freaking out and they're like the spiders, the spiders on Mars, like Ziggy Stardust, which is indeed. But the thing that I didn't get to talk about

that is just so cool, so cool. While I was on paternity leave, is that curiosity, driving across the surface of Mars, it's like, boop-bop-bop, awesome robot on Mars. And they spot on the ground a weird-looking rock. And it turns out that they have found on the surface of Mars this foreign planet that we have covered, we have looked at tiny, tiny, percent of a percent of a percent of, and it comes across what is a meteorite, a piece of space junk that fell to the surface of Mars, like a fraction of a meteorite, like the kind of thing that would be extraordinarily rare to find here on Earth,

easier to find on Mars because there's less geological process, or less, you know, I guess geological process covering those things up. But they were able to like take a look at it, it's a, you know, the media right on the surface of Mars. So like a piece, like, on like on this foreign planet, there's another piece of rock that is foreign to that foreign planet. And we were able to take a pretty dope picture of it and study it and learn something about its composition, which is that it's pretty common type of meteorite. And then move on and be like, wait, we can

come back to that. Whatever we actually, when some humans are here, they could be like, ah, this is that thing that the first meteorite ever found on Mars, it could put it in a museum and I believe in humanity is what I'm trying to say. Well, that all sounds very promising. I'm glad that there are meteorites on Mars and that curiosity has found them and I hope that humans do go back to that place and pick up that meteorite and bring it home to Earth as soon as 2029. I think the museum's gonna be on Mars, John. Well, that is not out of the question,

as long as it's in 2028 or later. Hank AFC Wimbledon, after losing to Milton Keynes in difficult loss, absolutely pummeled. Port Vale. One of those English towns that sounds like a made up place. Port Vale lost that game 4-0. They could have lost 8-0. Their goalkeeper had an extremely good game as much as you can in a 4-0 loss. And it was just, I mean, the thing, this season hank in League 1, where everybody expected all the preseason picks where AFC Wimbledon was going to finish last or second to last. They were definitely going to get relegated back down to League 2.

Right now they're in ninth, almost exactly halfway through the season. Dom Paulion scored his 12th halfway through the season. Dom Paulion scored his twelfth goal of the season. During that win, AFC Wimbledon, they've looked not great defensively at times, but man, they look good going up front. Like Tom Elliott scored. Lyle Taylor started that game, got to, got to play and had a big impact. Tyrone Barnett scored a goal. It's just really, really good performance.

And AFC Wimbledon have scored more goals than almost any team in League 1 this season. They are just flying offensively. And it's, you know, I mean, halfway through the season in ninth place, like I think the goal is definitely still to avoid relegation. You need 52 points on average from previous seasons. If you get 52 points, you'll probably almost,

well, almost definitely escape relegation. Right now, AFC Wimbledon has 32 points, so they're 20. They would need only 20 points from their last 24 games to ensure another season in league one. But why not dream at this point? You know, only three points out of the last playoff position, almost halfway into the season, pretty extraordinary stuff from AFC Wimbledon. Congratulations to that sports team. They are the best. They are the best. That was my favorite thing about 2016, Hank, being able to go straight from the 100th running of the Indy 500 to see AFC Wimbledon win at Wembley with our dad and Rosiana and my friend Stewart and Meredith. It was just magical. What was your favorite part of 2016 Hank?

It's gonna be a tough call for you, but I'm going to encourage you to pick the birth of your child Think I may go with that. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly something to do with the child. The birth was, I don't know if I can call it favorite because boy was it a lot. It was pretty intense. Yeah. But the existence of my child is definitely my favorite part. Well, I hope that 2017 brings even more wonderful things into the world

for you personally and for all of the listeners out there. We're going to take a couple weeks off here at the beginning of the year to celebrate the holiday and also to work on some other stuff. But we'll be back soon. You won't even notice that we're gone. I'm trying to work together with some helpers to get a best of 2016 episode of Dear Hank and John Up, so hopefully that will come into your iTunes box or wherever you get podcasts sometime during the holiday season. Catherine and I are gonna record an episode together,

so be looking out for that one as well. Oh, so maybe we aren't gonna take any weeks off. You're just gonna have guest hosts. Hank, what did we learn today? John, we learned that it's Ella! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. We learned that somebody had a 21st birthday and we wish them a very happy birthday,

even though we don't quite know who they are. Hey, we learned the difference between the US government deficit and the US government debt, because that's what happens on advice podcasts. And of course we learn that it is okay with YouTubers if you watch YouTubers on the toilet. Pop away my friends! Door P, whatever. Whatever.

That's your business. Whatever's coming out. That's your- that's right. That's absolutely correct. Finally, I apologize to everybody who's cookies burned during this podcast, John, take us out. Oh my God, it's burning. You can email us at hankandjohnatgmail.com. That's the place to send your questions,

or use the hashtag, deerhankandjohn, on the Twitter, where you can follow us on John Green. Hank is Hank Green. deerhankandjohn is produced by Rosie on a Halsey Rollhuss and shared. Gibson, our editor is Nicholas Jenkins. Victoria von Jornos, our head of community and communications. We should say that you can always find lots of great stuff,

including an opportunity to donate to Dear Hank and John at patreon.com slash Dear Hank and John. Our music is by the great Gunnarola. Thank you so much to Gunnarola for providing the theme music, Hank. Thanks you so much to Gunnarola for providing the theme music Hank. Thanks for another great year of potting and as we say in our hometown. Don't forget to be awesome.