Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Janet Jackson on Michael, and Omicron Updates With Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay answer a Thought Warrior’s Very Serious Question (2:26) and get excited about the upcoming Janet Jackson documentary (26:06). Plus, epidemiologist and health economist��Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding joins to discuss the rise of COVID cases and better ways to prevent and detect the virus (49:40).  Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Hard learning is on. Is I, Van Lathan, Jr. Why are you moving around so much? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay, you've got so much noise going on to the background. What's going on over there? I'm excited.

I'm an excitable person. You are kind of excited today. Today is... Happy New Year's Thought Warriors. Happy New Year's thought warriors to you. Y'all know he's in a good mood when he can't stop singing. It's today's the Texas Bowl, LSU. Oh.

Yeah, LSU goes into the Texas Bowl tonight with 39 scholarship players. Hey, you know what, man? Y'all made a bowl. Yeah, you know, I made a ball. So we didn't. You guys got a lot to be looking forward to. You guys got Quini Ewers coming out of the transfer portal. I've been singing.

Donnie, how many? How many Transfer Portal songs would you say I've made up since I've been waiting in the waiting room there to do the podcast? How many songs have I saying about the NCAA transfer portal? Donnie, jump on. Answer the question. It's somewhere between four and six. I think like two of them were pretty similar. But yeah.

Poor Donnie. The fact that he has to even keep track of that. Notice how he got in some Hayden. As he should. Donnie, not a great songwriter like myself. So you know, Donnie, he gets one song. He gets all of this praise with the Melbag song, and he thinks he can just keep going and going and going.

You're a one hit wonder van. You're a one hit wonder. It's not true. It's not true. I just have, number one, I have a very strong song, and then I have other great songs. You know what I mean? Like I have.

Sound like your twin. There are people that, uh, no, he has a lot of, lot of great songs. No, as in nothing you do is bad. Everything you do is great. I got one great song and then I got other songs that are cool, little bops. I got good timing. Whatever.

So look, you guys, I know you guys are excited for Trudy's Corner, but we're going to do something different with Trudy's Corner today. We have a question from a thought warrior. You know what? We're going to go ahead and do it right now. Why not? Let's go. Let's get it.

said, still advanced very serious question. We're going to read a question that a thought warrior posted on the Reddit. Happy New Year to everybody on the Reddit. I saw those numbers going up. I appreciate you guys. Still didn't do what I asked. Still a lot of people didn't get on it.

But it's fine. It's fine. I want to get to this question. It's a thought warrior's very serious question for the group. I want Trudy to answer first. This is from Education 100, 100. All right.

This is question on the Reddit. We're going to get to the topics pretty soon. We got a lot of stuff in the show for you today. We got to start it with the juicy tea. Can tea be juicy? Isn't it all juicy? Isn't that the point? Can something be juicy that can orange juice be juicy?

Yes. I don't think he can. I think something can only be juicy if it's not. Like a steak can be juicy because a steak is meat first. juice second. So the definition of juicy is full of juice. I think that would qualify as but if you are juice, are you full of juice? Yeah. See what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I hear you. If you are juice, are you full of juice? Yes. I'm going to go with yes. I don't know. I think juicy is reserved for something that's juice second because we're talking about the juice content

of it. Read the read the question. Okay. Okay. Okay, hire learning thought warriors. I need advice and some thoughts. I'm just out of a seven-year relationship, and she finally got all of her stuff out. A couple of days ago, I was taking lights down. Side note, last relationship, she was seven years younger than me. Okay. So to make this quick, I have a single neighbor three houses down, and we always talk when I'm walking myself or with the kiddo.

Well, New Year's night, she invited me over for a drink, and she had company over too. It wasn't even 10 p.m. And everyone was leaving. She asked me to stay. By the way, I find this woman to be so sexy. So question, we are having dinner in a couple of nights. Do I go for it? Is it too soon?

I'll be hoisted from a 26-year-old to a 43-year-old. And no lie, I want to know how it is with a very beautiful woman that's older. And if she's a little more freaky, compared to a younger woman who just wasn't into exploring. I'm leaning towards making my move, and I think it will be mind-blowing and check off a bucket list. So any tips, suggestions, or thoughts? Thought warriors, I want to make her feel amazing.

Her past relationship was not good at all. Hashtag pound down or not. I mean, I was like all for this and then it just got worse and worse and worse. First of all, I'll ask Trudy first. Is this an appropriate message to sit to the Reddit? This is wild as hell. Like I started off when you put it in a group chat, I think I read like a couple lines and was like, oh, Van will read it tomorrow. It's a lot going on.

think in the entire message. I mean, if he likes it, I love it. Like, if he wants to experiment and date somebody older and as long as she consents to doing quote unquote freaky things, it's more power to you. But I think he just probably was in a seven year relationship and he was locked away and he just wants to experience a bunch of people. So I think maybe he should try like a dating app or something to meet a bunch of people. Like, it just sounds like a lot to me. Now, why would he try a dating app when he's already met someone the old-fashioned way? He's asking about this one specific situation. So he can for sure hit this one situation.

But judging by his description in this message, it sounds like he just wants to experience and try a lot of different things. So go ahead and go try a lot of different things. I don't know if he's going to find it in this one person. Rachel, what are your thoughts? This is all wrong. Okay. unless this woman wants to consent to the exact same thing that he wants, he is basically admitting that he wants to use her

because he's curious about her because it's nothing he's ever had before. And that might not be what she wants. So the fact that he's going in there, like if they have a discussion and it's like, look, this is what it's about and that's it, then fine. But otherwise, this sounds like a potentially messy situation if they're not on the same page. And let's not forget, guys,

their neighbors. So you're going to have this messy situation with someone who lives three doors down. It's like you don't shit where you eat type situation. And that's exactly what's going to happen if these two aren't on the same page. So the safer thing to do is what Trudy was saying and go on a dating app or maybe meet someone out and about,

whatever it may be, but not on the same street. That has nothing to do with any of this stuff to me. Look, here's the thing. Number one, we're looking at this. negatively. We don't know. Hashtack pound town. I mean, come on. But what I'm saying is, what's wrong with that, though?

I think it might be, I think it's a little juvenile. I'm not wrong. It has negative likes. And now it's completely removed from the Thought Warriors page. I just checked. That's why we, because it really, I'll tell you, so I'll tell you why it was removed from the thought warriors page had nothing to do with the topic of what was going on. Like literally had nothing to do with the. topic. I can't remember what the topic was. The topic might have been, hey, I like Rachel's hair or something like that. And then he drops this long thing in there. Nothing to do with the

topic. So I knew that it was going to get removed. It probably also has negative likes from the juvenile way to which it was stated. So you got out of a seven-year relationship. First of all, also, I would say this, that's spicy for the Reddit in terms of, yo, man, I really want to fuck this older chick that lives on my block. I don't know if I should try to take her to pound time. I can tell that this guy was in a seven year relationship because you can't really like things

have changed. You can't really come at it like that anymore Chief. No. All right. Now as far as the central question about whether or not he should have this relationship with his hot 43-year-old

neighbor, I'm going to say go for it. Why not? I mean, why? Because you're just thinking. thinking for in the moment. You're not thinking of the aftermath. Well, I don't think in the negative. I don't, it's not negative. It's realistic. I don't look at the negative. It's like, okay, let's go into every situation considering

what could go wrong, you know. Well, when they're a neighbor, you kind of have to consider more than like, because this guy's looking for a one night stand. A one way ticket, a one way ticket to pound town. But he didn't say for how long. Let's just be clear. I'm not sure who left too in this situation because if you're using terms like pound town, I just, it's so, it's so whack. Forget, forget, it's whack. Sorry, it is. Look, I look at positives from this, okay?

I look at the positive. Number one, education 100, 100 was taking lights down, you know, from his house, which is a very responsible thing to do, number one. Number two, he was invited over. He didn't invite himself over. So I'm looking at some personality traits here. He was invited over and then even asked to stay. My question is, who's trying to take who to Pound Town here?

Or she's just, did they go to Poundown that night? No, maybe she just wanted to get to know. They didn't. She just might have wanted to get to know him alone. Tell him to lead with Poundown with her and see how far it goes. But let me be honest. You never lead with. pound town but didn't pound town the thing though you never lead with it but didn't he's just

talking to us i'm not saying he would say that to her he's just talking to us like trudy yes so question to you let's say you're in the group chat you meet this guy you like him okay uh he's got a strong hair line and all of that stuff whatever man whatever you're on trudy And you're going to go out with him. And then you Google search him and you find his Reddit. And you find that he's left a message like this and read it about you. You already like the guy. Would you still go out with him?

Abort mission immediately. Like immediately. And actually, every friend should have a friend who's a little bit crazier than you and has software. So I have a friend who has software. where I give her people's names. She puts that junk in there. She could tell me everything to how much your parents' house costs to if you have a police report filed on you.

And I just feel like it's one part funny, two parts crazy in a sign of the times because these jokers are nuts. Okay. So we all have that friend, Trudy. Yes, we do. Absolutely. I'll be honest with you guys.

You know what I call that? What? Searching for unhappiness. No, the hell it's not. It's cause 80. It's called searching for unhappiness. You go in there, you see that a man has had a criminal record, right? Like a real criminal record.

And then you see that he's had a criminal record. Okay, cool. But you don't know that that was when he was a kid and now he works with children and he's great. You would know that you would know if it was when he was a kid. No. I mean, it'd probably be sealed if he was a kid. No, no. I'm talking about a kid like 19, 20.

You would know the year. You would know the year. I know. but now you're judging him based off that. But now what happens is he's a great guy and has learned. He's being rehabilitated. He's rededicated his life. But because you went looking for bad stuff, you found what you were looking for.

See, that's not actually true. Go ahead, Trudy. Or you find out, because I think like, you know, like a petty crime or whatever, that sort of thing, like that's a whole separate issue. I'm talking about finding out that you were arrested because you hit your ex-girlfriend or something like that. Those to me are things that I need to know before I go ahead and meet you out or whatever. My friends have my location.

I let them know I'm about to go up with this floor. We're going to be here. This is Instagram. Like, and I think the difference is the way you view it versus me and Rachel is honestly like being a man in 2022 and being a woman in 2020. Oh, let them know. So you're looking at these things for safety purposes. So you also said because you said safety, but you also said your parents,

house credit score all that stuff it's just all the whole thing and my friend really told me about it was somebody that she was dating I already know what software she's using last question I'll ask about this there's another question that was asked in Trudy's corner I think this is a good question for you Trudy you talked about hat fishing and how that makes you feel you know you can't trust the way the guy looks because he's wearing a hat All right, cool. I said I have laser vision. I can see the hair a lot.

That's fine. So question asked on the Reddit about the wearing of makeup, about the wearing of wigs, about different things that women do to enhance their appearance. Would it be fair or would it be in any way shallow or acceptable if a guy was like, hey, I don't want a woman that wears any makeup? I don't want a woman that's in a wig. If he sees you the next morning and you have your makeup off and he's like, eh, like, how does that tickle your fancy?

So I did see this. And I think it's funny because I think people don't even understand like how wigs work. Wigs are protective style. And so if you're somebody that's on TV every day or you're somebody that's always on the go, having to just like change your face, whatever, it's just very convenient. and it's also a protective style. So underneath a lot of wigs is a lot of long, luscious, amazing hair.

Sometimes, sometimes it's Samuel Jackson under there. Let's keep against it. Like, sometimes don't skirt the issue. The issue ain't about whether or not you. I have a big head. I couldn't pull it off.

Well, what I'm telling you, I'm not talking about whether or not you could pull it off. I'm talking about, and let's compare apples to apples. If you're wearing the hat, it's to protect their hair line. so people don't see it.

Let's say somebody is wearing a wig because they ain't got no hair. Is it, is it kosher? And by the way, women have a lot of struggles with their hair sometimes. And I personally don't think that I personally look at this and say, hey, you got a wig, you look nice, you feel good. That's great. I feel the same way about the hat. Is it six and one, half dozen another was good for the goose is good for the gander with the wigs? Should fellas be more discerning about women who wear wigs?

Well, I think it's a preference. It's a preference either way. However, I will say they're both shallow. Like, let's just call it. Like, let's just call a spade of spade. It's a shallow thought. It's a shallow thought to talk about a hairline. It's a shallow thought to call somebody out, like, just like based on their weave or their wigs or whatever.

But it's also a preference. So I think I think that that post is a little valid. I think that if you like a more natural-looking woman than you have the right, I one time was with a man who asked me to take off my makeup before anything and because he wanted to see what my face looked like without makeup

and I and I was very young at the time and I said and I got offended and because I wasn't even wearing that much makeup and I got offended and he was like no I just feel like you would look so much more beautiful with your makeup off and I said oh my

my God. And I took off my makeup and he goes, see, I was right. Huh. So, I mean, it's a preference. I'll never forget a story that I saw at TMZ one time with this guy over in Asia, Sue the lady. Oh, yes. Remember that?

Yes. He met her and she looked one way, but she had had a bunch of work done. Then they were having kids that had kids. and the kids don't get the post-op genetics. The kids get the other genetics, the natural genetics, and he's like, wait a minute. Like, I didn't know that this was post-opt or whatever, and he sued her.

And it was a very funny lawsuit, but I remember Harvey took the point was, it kind of makes sense a little bit. I don't think that it does. I think it's exceedingly shallow, but that's why I keep telling people. once you dip your toe into these waters, women can't possibly,

possibly be as shallow and as pedantic and as they can't, like men are so much worse than women. That's why I'm like, why are we play this game with hats and stuff? It's going to go too far. It is. Wait, can I say something?

Because somebody in like my own person like brought this up to me and they asked me this question and I feel like I would. So apples to apples, if a guy had a, you know, a less than perfect hairline or extremely less than perfect, would you date a guy that wore a male weave? And I think that if you did something to fix your hairline and personally all that's mess, all that stuff mixed, I think I would. Like, who would I be to, you know, not date you with a newly constructed hairline?

And I clip an extension in and out my head every now and that. like, Get out of here, Trudy. It's enough of this. Can I just bring something up, like not to turn it serious, but I definitely want to touch on this because we have been tagged in this. And this goes back to one of the conversations that we just had about Trudy having the friend who can look stuff up on people,

Trudy giving her location when she goes out on dates with people from an app or maybe she just met how important this is, especially as black woman when we know that if something does happen to us, it's not on the radar in public. it is for the others. Lauren Smith Fields was found unresponsive inside her Plymouth Street apartment on December 12th, and she later died. Her family, the Bridgeport family, they're still not getting answers. They want answers from the police.

Their daughter was 23 years old. She was a black woman. She was the last known thing they knew about her is that she went on a date with an older white man that she met on a bumble lap. And after that, she was found unresponsive and then later passed away. police aren't doing anything about it. It's not on any national news. There's no GoFundMe page or anything like that.

So like there is a serious, we're joking around, but in all seriousness, like women have to protect themselves out here. And I'm also saying that because we need to bring awareness to what happens to Lawrence Smithfields. May she rest in peace. And hopefully her family can find some answers that they need in regards to her case. Yeah, fantastic. To point that out, not fantastic that happened, but, you know, to bring that

home that makes a lot of sense. Also, you guys, as an audience, we realize that this stuff is shallow. Sometimes we just need to take mental breaks. This is the shallow into the pool. That's what we'll call it. The shallow into the pool. Spearheaded by Trudy. I love it. All right.

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Louisiana judge Michelle Odenette, the same judge that called Black People Roaches. I don't know why I said. Among other things. Among other things. Roaches, the N-word. I contend that Roaches is worse, but at that point, who's really litigating it? She resigned. She has resigned from her position, her elected position, as a Lafayette City Court judge,

and she is asking for your forgiveness in a statement, Michelle O'Donette said, I take full responsibility for the hurtful words I use to describe the individual who burglarized the vehicles at my home. I am sorry for the pain that I have caused my community and ask for your forgiveness as my words did not foster the public's confidence and integrity for the judiciary. She also said, after much reflection and prayer, in order to facilitate healing to the community, she is resigning. Rachel, can you ever find it in your heart to forgive Judge Michelle O'Donette? I mean, sure. I can forgive.

But, you know, as they say, it's not about the forgiveness isn't for her. It's for yourself. So you can move on. But we will never forget. And let's just be honest as well. This is just a first step. There's still work to be done because she did a lot of damage over the years. She held that position and other positions, other government positions, I should say.

So the word, this is just step one. This is just step one. I would have liked to have seen her fired. She, remember we talked about it. It's too tough of a deal. I know, I know. But I just, I know. But like, just the fact that it was on her terms.

She, I mean, yes, she was forced out, but still, I just would have liked to have seen just the hammer laid on her. I'm just saying. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, people were saying that on my Instagram and it's there's, you can't fire. She's an elected official. I know. Right.

Right. But just some kind of extreme measure to show we're not going to. Take this shit. I can forgive her. Cannot? I can. I can forgive her. I can forgive her.

She's got to, like, earn the forgiveness. First of all, I don't really have nothing to forgive her for. Like, she should be talking to, she should be, she should do what she has to do to make her community figure of her. And that means she should be the one to spearhead the look into her past cases. She should want to figure out. Michelle Odenette. Just listen, hear me out. Michelle Odenette, who probably doesn't think she's a racist.

I would say she probably doesn't think she's a racist. She throws around the nigger word, the roach word. But she, if you ask her, she's going to say, I'm no racist. Exactly. She's going to say, whatever, whatever. However, being that those words came out of her mouth so easily, if she said, maybe, which is wild, maybe there's some subconscious racism that I haven't quite attacked in my life and I would like to take a completely cooperate in looking back at the cases that I

tried as a DA and the decisions I made as a judge, you know, as recent as they were, and say, is there a possibility that I was less than fair and be a part of the solution? Forgiveness can't come from words. I'm learning this right now in my own relationship. forgiveness has to come from actions. You have to do stuff. Okay. So for her, of course, there's a road to forgiveness, but it's a fucking tough one.

And you got to walk it with no shoes. Yeah. You have to walk it with no shoes on your feet like roaches do. Yeah. Oh. So Vena's asking for a miracle because if she could do that, if racist could do that, especially the ones who don't know they're racist, we wouldn't have racism. I'm just saying we wouldn't.

Well, hold on for a second. I get that. I'm saying, I'm not saying she's going to do it. No, I know. I know that's what you would want. And I'm just saying like, man, that's because again, she does it. Remember her medication made her do it. She asked for forgiveness and that's the way she can do it.

That's all we got to say about Michelle Odenette today. So we have one million Americans that were diagnosed with COVID over the long holiday weekend. That's a lot. We are going to talk to Dr. Eric Figel Ding from Twitter about COVID a little later. That's coming up on a rundown, so hold tight for that. We're going to ask and hopefully get answered all of your Omicron questions. You know the questions out there.

Is it true that Omicoran could actually end the pandemic? How daily is Omicron? The CDC, all of these questions that you want to know, not from Twitter to get this answer from a doctor. So that's going to be a little bit later. Jan Jackson has a new documentary coming out about her. Are you excited about this? Thrilled. I didn't even know this was happening.

We covered it on our show and I was like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. This was coming out. Of course, I remember the article that came out, I believe, in the New York Times. But I had no idea that this was happening. I don't know where I've been. But I'm glad it is. I'll be the first one watching, or one of the hopefully millions of people watching it, January 28th, I believe. Yeah, I want to hear from Janet.

Janet is someone we don't see anymore. We don't really hear from her. And we know that the Jackson family is very private. So there are a lot of questions that we have for Janet that other members of the Jackson family can't necessarily speak on anymore. So I'm very curious. And you know what? I thought about this too.

I wonder if she feels more comfortable doing a documentary now that Joe Jackson has passed away. I really thought about that. And I think the answer is yes, because even her mother's involved in this documentary. Even Reby. We never hear from Reby. Centipede. Oldest, oldest.

Yes, Cepie. I'm not getting it. Don't front on Cinepe. No, I would never front on any Jackson song. Don't front on Cinepe. But for those who don't know,

that's, that's Reedy's one hit. And he's the oldest daughter of the Jackson, the Jackson family. But I'm just saying, let people know. I just laugh because you threw it out there. And I was like,

I love, I love Cinepe. I'm ready for Cinepe. I love Cineepede. Cineep of all the songs that have come out of the Jackson family discography. Not my favorite, obviously. You know what my favorite Jackson song is? Of all the songs featuring multiple Jackson's, it's none of the other stuff.

It's Can You Feel It? And I'll tell you why. One day I'm going to do a can you feel it diagnosis for you guys. I don't know if I've ever talked to us about this before. There's not a better, there's not a better. definition of the difference between good and great than can you feel it. Not a better definition.

Is this the song or the music video? It's the song. I'll tell you why. We'll get back into Jan in a second. So on can you feel it. I've talked about this on the podcast before. You have never talked about this on the phone. No, no.

So on can you feel it. Germain comes in, right? And he's like, look around. Well, I guess it's Jermaine. It might be one of the other ones. Look around there. And it's in a dead. Yeah.

Can you feel it? Can you? And it's perfectly, it's perfectly good. And then another verse, it's in the air. And then the third verse of can you feel it? Michael Jackson gets on the song. And with Michael Jackson gets on the song,

you feel so fucking alive. When you hear, with Michael Jackson, he doesn't, he, before he even gets on a song, he goes, and you like, oh my, and did the whole fucking song changes. And you start to think, life is not about Jermaine's verse. Shout out to Jermaine. Life is about Michael's verse. That's what you really want.

What you really want is the shit that makes you feel like you're on fire. It's like. Exactly. And like, if the whole song was Jermaine, it would be a bop, like a cool song, a good song. But it just shows you the difference between Michael and his brothers. Sure. when Michael hits the song, it goes from being a question to a statement. A question to, exactly.

Exactly. I get it. I get it. I love the Jackson's. Right. Right. I love the Jackson's. And I don't feel any kind of way about that.

But yes, I'm so, so excited. There's just so much I want to know about, not just about the other people, even though I do. Like, I want to know the beginning stuff. I want to know how Janet felt that she never really had a choice in what she was going to be. I want to know if Janet had any dreams to be anything else. I want to know about her acting career. I want to know about the man she married and how a family didn't like it. I want to know about how what happened with Michael Jackson affected her career. I want to know about

Super Bowl. I want like there's so much that I want to know from her. I want to know about the music. Have you been to a Janet Jackson concert? Even though everybody thinks I'm that guy. I have. You have? Was it amazing? It was the All for You tour So good So So I'm looking for a clip And I would like Donnie to play it if you can find it

So they talk about how How Strict Joe Jackson was right No Have we ever talked about the Gurgitate all the way to the bank clip We talked about this So wait a second So wait a second

What? I got to see it out So wait a second This is not funny This is definitely not funny What I'm talking about This is definitely not funny So

I guess Michael Jackson did something Where This is a true story Yes I guess Michael Jackson did something When you was talking about Joe Jackson, when he was talking about Joe Jackson, and he said to Joe Jackson, he said, he said about Joe Jackson that when they were kids, that Joe Jackson would whip Michael Jackson, and Michael Jackson would get so afraid that he will regurgitate, right? Which is not funny. It's not funny.

It's not funny. Joe Jackson then shows you the difference. Joe Jackson then did this there's an interview where they ask him about it. They say, Michael Jackson said,

Michael Jackson said that you would whoop him and beat him to the point that he would regurgitate. Joe Jackson said, if he gurgitated, then he gurgitated all the way to the That's a, that man has no soul.

That man has no soul. Don't play that clip. Don't play that clip. I don't know anything about him being sick, but regurgitating. But if he did gurgitated, he gurgitated all the way to the bank, you know. Can you imagine growing up in the house with that mentality? He said, I don't know nothing about him gurgitated. Man.

He gurgitated. He gurgitated. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Watching. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's not.

What happened to Michael Jackson is not funny. All of them. Your dad's saying, look, if he, first of all, he said gurgitate. He didn't even say we're gurgitate. If you gurgitated, you gurgitated all the way to the bank. That just, that told me all I need to know about Joe Jackson at that point right there. Oh, you were saying, though. So, oh, so Janet.

also goes in depth about sort of how her life was when Michael started to have the allegations surrounding him. And she said, yes, she felt like she was guilty by association. Interesting thing to say, haven't seen a documentary yet. The documentary comes out on January 28th. For her to say guilty by association,

does that in any way tip your hand or give you any ideas about what Janet might think about her brother's case and his inner. or guilt. No, it doesn't. It doesn't because she stood beside him and we know that she was one of the closest to him. No, I think it just says exactly what it is. She was always by his side. So she became, you know, like, I think she'll go more into it, maybe whether she regrets being so publicly for him or not. But I don't think it says anything about what she believes about it. Okay. Van's very serious question of the week. I want you to take their complete career

into consideration, their careers into consideration. I want you to think about this question. Complete careers, life and careers, everything into consideration. Looking back on it now, who would you rather be? Janet or Michael? Janet. Janet, because Michael was first, so I think there was a whole other pressure on him. And I guess I'm more speaking into Joe,

Jackson, like I'm sure there was more, they were even harder on him, there was more pressure. And he already kind of paved the way. So Janet could come behind and it might have been, I'm not saying she didn't have it hard. She might have been a little softer for Janet. But her, it's clear that her father was still in complete control over every single thing that she did even into adulthood. So, but I'd rather be Janet. I'd rather be Janet. I think I would too.

It's tough. Michael Jackson, you want to be by my, but I think I would too. I think Janet has had, and you know what, Michael is sold more records, but in terms of longevity and high impact musically, you can make an argument that Janet just musically, just musically, was in ways more successful than Michael Jackson. I can't make that argument. Now, I can make an argument that she is super successful, but I can't say that she is in ways more successful than him. can't say that. I can't go there. It's true. Okay. It's true. Like, it's true.

Like, I'm looking it up right now. Who has more, more, more number one hits Michael or Janet Jackson? Why, Janet Jackson outranks Michael Jackson. among the top 100 artists of all time. Source. The source is billboard.com. Okay. Michael Jackson got a head start.

So why does Janet narrowly outrank him on the list of top performing artists in Hot 100 history? See, this type of shit y'all don't be knowing. And all of that, you see, see what I'm saying? To read the full story, subscribe. I'm not subscribing. No. You know what I would say to that? even if Janet does have more number one hits,

the cultural impact of Michael Jackson is what will always make him better. What he did with a single dance move, a single video, like he didn't need 10 more videos because it's just what he had in a one. Like to me, she'll never top that.

I mean, I'm not saying she will. I'm just saying what I said, what I'm saying is, you were only basing on number one. No, no, no, no. It's actually not number ones. It's just like overall top 10 hits and stuff.

But what I was saying is the argument could be made that she had a more successful music career than Michael Jackson. The argument could be made. And not just by me, but by billboard.com. But, but, you know, for other reasons, Janet seems to have, she's had, everyone has problems, but she seemed to have had a more of a little of life. Okay. Now, something else happened yesterday. Tristan Thompson. I can't even talk about it.

You don't want to talk about it? Well, it's more like, what are we supposed to say? You know what I mean? Zebra doesn't change his stripes. It's like, it is, I'm convinced at this point that they just keep him around because it's going to create a headline. Like, there's no way you were,

you are really into Tristan after all that he's done to you. I just, I can't. So this is my thing about it. I have more questions, I think. About what? entire thing. I have questions about the, first of all, you always want to strive to be the best partner you can be and try to do whatever you can do. And sometimes you fall short. Obviously, that happens. And Tristan seems like he doesn't really care. Okay. Um, my question is,

knowing what was on the line, how could he come in at $75,000 to give the lady for the abortion? I think that Tristan Thompson in this situation, first of all, I have to know if that's true. To me, that's an insulting number. Like, not saying that she should have taken money for that, but if you're going to offer money,

$75,000 to avoid everything that he's going through, right now. She didn't have been like a million dollars. She didn't have been like two million dollars. He's got an 88 million dollar contract. Shouldn't have been some gaudy number that like she simply could not refuse. I don't know. And looking at the way he was talking to her on that text messages, on those text messages, if in fact those are his text messages. Like, that just tells me a lot. I mean, look, there's nothing like to your point. There's, There's nothing that can be said about this, but you would think that if it wasn't about,

if it wasn't about embarrassing her again, then he would go through much more exorbitant sort of links to avoid this. So it doesn't really even seem like he really cares that much at all. Or he's just stupid. Good be. And I think I'd go with that more than anything else. I think he's stupid.

Last topic here in a rapid fire entertainment wrap-up. Something that we couldn't ignore here on higher learning. Simply couldn't ignore it. Dylan Gonzalez, former UNLV basketball player, plays for Master P's New Orleans Gators and Masterpiece Mixed Gender Basketball League. She is an Instagram influencer. She's a very attractive lady.

She has a twin sister. The Gonzalez twins were a phenomenon while they were playing basketball. UNLV had Drake coming out to all the games, all kinds of stuff like that. she tweeted something last week and the tweet was very direct it's a very direct tweet okay this is the tweet she said uh trace songs is a rapist lord forgive me i couldn't hold that in another year see you in 2022 that is the tweet uh there hasn't been anything that's been anything that's been expounded on. She hasn't gone into deeper detail. This is the tweet. The tweet itself has been

looked at in different ways by different people. Some people have said this is yet another accusation of sexual misconduct against Traceongs, where there is smoke, there is fire. And when you look at something like that, it is time for people to move on for Tray Songs or whatever. Okay. then there is a second group of people who have said that to say something like that on a public forum and give no more explanation, no more context, no more anything is irresponsible, reckless, and unfair to do. Where do you stand or not just the situation, but of course on Trace Sons himself? Yeah. So I can see why people are making both arguments, but where I stand, I'm not about to handle Trace Songs the same way we as a community handled our Kelly. I'm just not. I'm not going to

make excuses for it. I'm not going to say, well, you know, like I didn't like the way that this person came out and admitted it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to not believe women when they tell their stories. I'm not going to do it. We've seen this before. It may be slightly different as far as some of the facts are concerned, but we've seen it before where we refuse to hold accountable an R&B superstar for accusations that are not once,

not twice, but continually made about this individual. And if you forgot, please let me refresh your mind. In 2012, he struck a woman by throwing a wad of cash, leaving her with a black eye in her face. 2016,

punched a Detroit police sergeant at a concert and injured a cameraman because he threw a microphone at them. He was sentenced to probation for that. In 2017, Kiki Palmer came out and said he used sexual intimidation against her. Nope, people chose not to believe her. Now they want to say they want to believe her. A year after that, so 2018, they came to his home for felony domestic violence against a woman. She alleged that he choked her, punched her in the face, and knocked her down that same year. We're still on 2018.

A woman accused Tray songs of penetrating her vagina with his fingers. Then another woman claimed he did that exact saying behavior to her before. And then let's not forget, we talked about this on this podcast where on the No Jumper podcast, there was two women who had a story. And the one woman said that he coerced her into doing things she didn't want to threw her phone off a balcony and urinated on her without consent. You don't continue to have this many stories that span almost. the decade at this point

where there not to be some truth in it. Some of these cases are ongoing still. Some of them he has been punished for. Some of them have settled. He's settled with as lawsuits. So where I stand on what Dylan tweet, what Dylan's tweet is,

I support her and I'm choosing to believe her. So there's also, I don't know if you talked about it right there. There was a sexual assault claim last November that allegedly took place at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. I don't know if that was mixed up in some of the ones.

No, that's missed that one. So look, from what Dylan has put out there, there's not enough for me to say whether or not I believe her or not, because the statement itself isn't clear. Well, you're saying you don't believe if it happened to her, maybe a friend? Well, what I'm saying is that that's an important distinction if we're talking about it. is what she's saying that she well well sure it is obviously if you hear something secondhand it can't possibly be as if you hear something second hand i'm not saying that it's not true but it's definitely different than something happening to you sure so so what i would say is i think the people that are asking her to clarify the tweet would only be if it's coming from good faith if it's not just coming from people be like oh you're taking another black man down if it's coming from good faith if it's coming from good faith then I think the question should be, is this something that she heard from a friend?

Is she maybe because if it's in the cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, that's where Dylan lives? So is it that she knows the woman that was there? Did this happen to her? Now, at the end of the day, that's not going to make a huge bit of difference for a lot of people that are choosing whether or not to believe or not a believer. But what I'm saying is that to believe what she's saying,

you have to know what she's saying, and I think the tweet is a clear declaration, but it's not really saying very much other than that, what it actually says. It's not saying that she was the victim of him. It's not saying that someone she knows is the victim of him. And I think when people are asking for a little bit more,

that's probably what they're asking for something that is as serious as that. That's not to say that in any way I'm or people I know certainly there are people that are like hey man you can't just say

that come out because they don't want to believe it about Trace Hongs it's a man versus woman thing but for me looking at it I looked at the tweet and I'm like okay well what's being said here

is like what's being said here are you saying that he assaulted you or you saying did you know someone that he assaulted and I think people that are asking for that I think that's fair

well it's fair in the sense that you made a public statement so you've included the public now to ask questions on it but when I look

it, it almost sounded like an outcry. And the following thing was, Lord knows, I couldn't go into a new year holding on to that. It seemed personal to me. It didn't seem like, it. It seemed like a story that has not been told, which is why she's like, I couldn't go another year without putting that out there. Maybe it was hearing all these other stories and people are refusing to believe or just, you know, brushing it under the rug or not letting it go, or letting it go, where she was like, you know what, I'm going to do something bold, drastic. and maybe this will get people's attention because I have my own personal story. So for me, it's like rather than dissect the tweet, I'm just going to take it for what it is. And I hope they investigate it. And I hope she's willing to say more to the authorities. Right.

Well, I guess what I'm saying is, it's hard sometimes to kind of understand what it is. Sure. So, you know what I mean? So that's kind of the deal. But, you know, the reality is that when she comes out, or even if she doesn't come out, full space for her to tell her story with absolutely open arms and the belief in victims that we should have. Totally believe that. But when I first saw it, it wasn't a question about whether or not in the context.

It was a question about what she was actually saying. She's saying he's a rapist. I guess the question would be why? like why are you saying that so like like that she's a rape that he's a rapist and i don't think that's an unfair thing for people to for people to ask from from the statement um but all in her time all in her time she might well she said she had to get that off of her chest so she got off of she got it off of her um and so all in time for her you know we'll like we'll see what happens with that but uh to be real with you your points about the

list of things leading up to whatever has gone on in Trace's life, it just simply can't be ignored. Yeah. It can't be ignored and it shouldn't be ignored. So there you go. Let's take a break and talk to Dr. Eric Fagel-Ding about COVID, about Omicron and what's going on right now. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech.

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Visit weathertech.com today. Okay. So obviously if you have a pulse and you are paying attention, you know that the science, the attitudes, the explanations, everything revolving around COVID, they're just evolving at a really, really rapid pace. We don't know what we should do, what we shouldn't be doing, when Omicron will peak. All we see is the case is going up, hospitalizations are going up, and a lot of people have questions and they want answers.

We have somebody who might be able to give you some of those answers with us today. His name is Eric Fiegelding. And he is a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, a former visiting scientist at Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is a great follow on Twitter. I follow him and harass him in his DMs when I have questions and I am scared. He's done so much stuff focusing on obesity, nutrition, cancer prevention, biosecurity. just amazing stuff. Dr. Feigl Ding,

happy to have you joining us today on higher learning. My first question for you is people see cases going up, cases of Omocron going up. By your best estimation, when will cases start to fall again? When do you think it will peak? Yeah. Thanks for having me. I think, first of all, you know,

we've gone through so many waves. by now that we can only say for the immediate time. And I think the answer depends on where you are in the U.S. I think most of the U.S., hopefully the Omicron way will be over by the end of January. But I want to say just because it peaks, you know, peak is like, you know, a bell curve, you know, half the cases actually come after the peak, right? The peak is just when it's like when it's at the highest, but then half of it comes afterwards. So on the way down.

So I think people shouldn't think that this is going to blow over immediately. And again, hospitalizations will continue to rise even after cases peak because you can say that it's milder. And it is a slightly milder, but intrinsically it's not that much milder because we're just having more cases of breakthroughs and really. infections right now. And of course, those who have breakthroughs generally, it's mild. But, you know, the surefire way to let the virus cause havoc is let it exponentially increase. You can say that it's half as mild, which is not even that mild. But if the doubling of the virus is every, you know, two or three days, then at most, you know, the virus with a slightly milder, you give it a two days, you know, head start. But honestly, we're not going to get out of this until we realize that

stopping transmission is more important than just hoping that, oh, let's just keep the hospitalizations down. Because if we have runaway transmission, this thing is going to keep going. And if we don't vaccinate enough people, this thing is going to keep going and it's going to keep coming back in a couple months with another variant. So I don't want to play whackamol anymore, but people just need to come together. But it's so hard, as you know, in this politicized world that we live in. So you talk about, you know, transmission. And I think one of the things that, you know, as citizens or whatever, that was a little alarming or shocking was we're hearing about this new variant. We're hearing about, you know, like it's breaking, all these breakthrough cases, whether vaccine boosted,

whatever that may be. And then the CDC lessens the quarantine time to five days. And then. Can you talk a little bit about why that is? Because I'm hearing some wild theories out there as to why that may be. And I think it would be great if we had an explanation to understand that. Yeah. I'm not a big fan of that rule. Like, you can shorten quarantine or isolation time if you have a positive test, if you have tests to test negative out of it.

But the CDC just blatantly said, oh, instead of 10 days, you can just do five. and then no test needed. And, you know, if you don't have symptoms, or if you just have resolving symptoms, which is the vaguest, muddiest statement in the world, right? Like, oh, my sniffles, you know, I cough every, you know, two minutes instead of one minute. They're, you know, it's resolving.

Technically, under the CESI guidelines, you can just go out and willy, nilly back into the world, even though you're still coughing, even though you're still symptomatic. And again, I remind you, even if you don't have symptoms, you can still transmit it asymptomatically. It was just the fact that there was no testing needed to just do that. It was really frustrating. Like other countries don't do that.

Other countries require at least one, if not two tests. UK requires two tests before you leave isolation early before 10 days. But, you know, there's obviously some pressure from the airlines because they've been pressuring CDC for this. they shouldn't CDC shouldn't cave to the airline industry they're not you know

you shouldn't ever cave to any lobbyists but yeah some people say it was really in scientific the good thing I'm hearing

is that maybe the CDC might backtrack later this week they might impose like one test minimum to exit but still

it is frustrating some people say well it's because we can't get ourselves on more tests but just because

you're your bottlenecked on tests is not a reason to throw caution into the wind, right? Like, the solution when you don't have a test is to pump out more tests and make it more available not to throw away any texting guile and throw away and put out something like, oh, if your sentence are resolving. That's just ludicrous. Right. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Go ahead. I just had a quick follow-up question. Isn't this alarming if the CDC backtracks and it calls us. people to lose faith in what little they made have already have. I was going to say that. Yeah. I'm just so sorry.

I have to follow up with that. I'm going to say that first of all. I think it's to error is human to correct is divine. I think the backtrack now, it is better than not backtrack. To dig in your heels sometimes politically, you know, some politicians like to dig in the heels. But I think as a science, they're a scientific agency. And faced with clear. that you can transmit, clear science that this, you know, this early isolation without any other testing is dangerous, given we know some people are infectious over like 12, 14 days sometimes, that I think backtracking is good. Like, for example, the first big mistake we did was back in May and said, oh, if you're vaccinated, you don't need a mask. Well, clearly there's a breakthroughs, right? And clearly the message was heard wrong. All the anti-masters heard basically.

Oh, CDC says you don't have to wear a mask. And then eventually they double-backed on it several months later. But by then, the you don't need to mask the thing was everywhere. And then, of course, Delta hits and all hell break loose. And so that's why I think backtracking early is the best. And admitting fault and telling people this, you know what, we made a mistake, this is the safer way. I think that is better than just digging in their heels on an unscientific position.

I read an article yesterday that said that there's a possibility that some scientists, specifically ones from South Africa think, that Omicron might be a blessing in disguise because the symptoms are milder, as you talked about, but also because there is a heightened T-cell response to Omicron that gives your body a little bit more protection from it. And if this, which is more transmissible, burns its way through general populations, they'll produce a similar antibody response and it might shorten or signal the end of the pandemic. I, by looking at your body language right now, I'm going to guess that you do not subscribe to that school of thought. I think if it's possible, like it's one of the possibilities. But I would say it's a high risk possibility with also a high failure. You know, people said like, you know what, all this delta, you know, maybe if it just let it burn through the population will be better on the other side. People have been saying that ever since May of 2020.

And then people said that, oh, we're a herd immunity after last winter's ugly mess. oh, we're heard immunity. You know what? It was painful, but it was worth it. And then Delta. People said that this is like the fourth iteration of people saying that. I have a very long memory of people saying those kind of things. Now, it's possible.

It's possible that, you know, Omicron burns through and it's so infectious and we've developed immunity that, you know, the COVID is over. It's possible. But first of all, this is my fourth road. with this, people saying this, and I don't necessarily trust it because you can always have a different variant. We could have COVID-22, something that's so mutated, that's not even called a variance anymore, right? And then we're back to square one. If we have something that's even more different than Omicron. And I think just putting just putting all our eggs in that hope back basket,

that that will, this burn through the populations, but I say burn through, it's kind of like burning through a forest until there's nothing left to burn, right? That's their plan. But I don't think burning through the forest is a good idea because, A, there's besides a huge hospitalization, because, again, it's not that much milder, considering that exponential rise, you know,

will ultimately always trouts. And by the way, we're at, like, we're past last year's hospitalization in the U.S. in pediatric hospitalization, we're at 2x the pediatric hospitalizations of last year's highest all-time peak. That's not a safe strategy, right? This burned through is nausea strategy, and then you're talking about long COVID, that 10 to 30 percent of people have developed long COVID, and if you multiply it by the number of people are being infected, one in 10 or one in three, that's huge. So I don't think it's a safe strategy. I don't think it's a good strategy because I don't,

I'm not even sure it will work. It could, but it could, we, A, would pay a huge price for that. And B, you're putting a lot of hope on a fourth try, on something that three previous tries we've tried, and it never worked because the virus mutated enough that it just evaded. And so I think it's too risky. So what is the strategy? Because I'm going to go back to transmission as you were talking about, about us coming together. you know, we're supposed to be doing our part yet people are antsy, people want to travel,

people want to get back to normal, but we're starting to see some closures. I know in the business that I'm in, we can't do red carpets anymore at the moment. Award shows are getting pushed back. What's the strategy to get a hold on this when every time it seems like we are doing a little bit more in quarantining or we are putting safety protocols in place, another variant pops up? because it doesn't seem like at this point we are going to work together because we didn't do it on the OG strand. Yeah, I know. It's very frustrating. Like vaccines and masks, if everyone did it would solve it. But obviously, not enough people are doing. But first of all, masks right now, we need to wear better masks. We need to wear the N95, KF94 masks. We can't have flimsy surgical that we see everywhere. We can't have flimsy cloth.

masks, we just really have to have better masks because the more infectious. And the affordability and availability of them, you know, they are there out there, but not everyone can afford them, unfortunately. And the other thing is like, we have to rethink of air disinfection. You know, we, we, years ago, we woke up that, oh, outdoor air quality, air pollution is kind of a bad thing. But we totally forgot about indoor air quality. That's, you know, basically whatever people in classrooms talk, they spit and spray aerosols throughout the room. And we've never actually solved the air issue of like ventilation and all that kind of things. And you know, the good thing about ventilation and air disinfection, if we disinfect the air or ventilated air, it's agnostic. It doesn't

care about your vaccine political beliefs. It doesn't care about your mask political beliefs, right? Because it's something about just cleaning the air in a room. It doesn't care about your political beliefs in your personal behavior and compliance. In certain ways, that's actually what we need to do. Because, you know, if we have to like transcend this politics, the best way to transcend the politics is with ventilation and air disinfection and with like hepa filters, UV, and just greater ventilation, period. I think that could also be critical in solving this if we have new indoor air standards. Because that's where most transmission happens outside of the family. that's where most transmission happens in schools and workplaces and restaurants when people are just sharing the air and it's and it's just really really dangerous but ultimately it's vaccinating the world it's it's also you have to build like a high sea wall all at once what we're doing is like we're sandbagging whenever the flood comes oh no we sandbag after the flood's already here right we we add mitigations after oh shit the cases are rising oh maybe we'll add something to maybe we'll add something to maybe we'll add some of the

litigation, but then you're sandbagging after the fact. The best way is to build a high sea wall ahead of the flood, right? Not to sandbag when the floods are already here. And I think that building the high sea wall is this indoor air infrastructure, and of course, the vaccines and the N95 masks and everywhere, and of course having the testing available, and the testing being free or just a dollar each as opposed to being $24 as CBS Walgreens, I think those would be, if we had that testing for a dollar each and everyone can get one, that would be so huge. But you know that it's only wealthy people who can afford these $24 test kits.

And that's not helping the COVID, right? Right. That's before just sending the kids back to school and going to work. while still sick. That brings me to a couple more questions, but that brings me to one of them. What specifically then, you've set out a couple of things there.

One was improving indoor air standards. Makes sense. Something that doesn't offend people's political beliefs and their beliefs about masking and vaccination and all of those things. And then you talked about something else, which was increased testing and increased affordability of testing.

Those seem like there are two things that the Biden administration could potentially get involved in in terms of federal standard settings, workplace recommendations that could come from the CDC or from the Department of Health. What do you feel like the administration could be doing more, if anything, not asking you be a politician to kind of stem the tide here? No, I think there could be many things. I think the production of these cheap tests and having more competition and subsiding tests so that we're just requiring them that they're sold at cost for a dollar each. Because I don't think anybody should be pandemic profiteering at the stage, but many companies clearly are. I think that would be really good. N95 masks, I think, you know, most people don't even know what an N95 is. among the people who are educated they do,

but a lot of lay people, you show them in the 95, their reaction is, I don't know what that is, or I can't ever afford that. I think he should be able to send it to one to every American once a week or once a month, you know? Just mail it. If you can mail a stimulus check to every American, we can mail a much, much cheaper box of N95s once a month.

And I think that's very doable, on a logistical scale. And I think indoor air standards, we have to set that, you know, unless you have enough air exchange cleanings in any room sufficient, it's kind of like our airplanes

have a minimum rule of six air exchanges per hour. If we have that standard for office building, schools, restaurants, I think we could cut down on COVID by huge amounts and all would do be a swiper of the pen note saying minimum air exchange and set by the CDC or the Department of Labor. And I think those things easily can be done tomorrow, relatively easy. And again, the testing, I'm pretty sure they can get to some.

If European countries can basically give away these tests and have so many competition in the testing market that they're selling for one euro, which is like $1.20 each, on the scales of minimum to anyone can get them, so can we. Like, if we believe in the power of American exceptionalism, if they can do it, we can do it. There's no reason. And there's no excuse like pharma saying, oh, well, we have to do a lot of R&D research.

No, these rapid tests are the cheapest things out there. They're like flimsy plastic kind of things. There's no R&D to them. And like hundreds and thousands of labs have developed them, which isn't even mass-produced them. There's no excuse like pharma has. just mass produce them. Just do it. But I think it takes, it takes, you know, executive whipping to get these companies to do it and without profiteering. I think that's at the end of the day, that's what he has to do. It's so true. Here's my last question for you. I want to focus on testing because as you're just piggybacking on what you're saying, it's hard to get a test. I experienced it a few weeks ago, couldn't get tested. My parents have had the same issues.

just trying to be responsible and get a test before they do something, couldn't find a test. Like, unless you have strength, you can pull some strings. It's very hard to get one on demand. You posted something on Twitter the other day where you talked about how the way we should be testing and that the strategy should be changed. And this was really interesting to me because I know a lot of people who are testing positive for Omicron are, it's their third and fourth test before it actually pops up as positive. You talk about if we did it on the throat test, it would be more effective against this variant.

Can you speak a little bit more about that? And why aren't these changes being made? Yeah, so many countries swab the throat. You know, in the UK, they swab both. They have videos put out by their public health, England, CDC, about swabbing the throat and then the nose. Jamaica does it. you know, Jamaica is smarter than us in doing this.

And just right now, they swore off the throat a lot down there in Jamaica. The FDA right now officially, the official EUA, the emergency authorization for these rapid tests, is still nose sampling only. And obviously, you know, in those,

any clinics or drive-through official testing places, you have to go by what the official authorization is. But at home, you can swore. in your throat. And they show that amycrone replicates differently. It replicates in the upper respiratory much more than in your deep in your lungs. And so you would actually have your cells, your bronchials, and your throat actually have a lot more virus than before. And so they found that if you swab your throat or your saliva, or just your cheek saliva, you'll find 15% more of an amicron than if you

just swab your nose alone. And I think that's like the science is there. Many other countries do it. And it's not like American has American exceptionalism on our Omicron is different. No, the virus is a virus to all humans. So we should at least learn from other countries. You know, this happens so many times before. Like there's asymptomatic transmission we were warned. We didn't believe it until too late.

You know, there's reinfections we were warned. There's breakthrough transmission. if you don't wear masks, so we were worn, but CBC didn't wake up until, like, it hit them personally with a U.S. study. I think we should learn from these other countries that this is the best way. We have to do it, and we have to act now,

because every second in which we sit on our butts, sit on our hands, on our chairs without acting, is just so, so endangering of so many more people. And if you can find 15% more cases, is that's out of 100 people, that's another 15 people that's, you know, taken off that stop transmitting. And I think it would make a huge difference.

But unfortunately, you know, the FDA, EOA has not been updated. But at least if you test at home, you can do this extra oral swab, throat swab, in addition to your nose. And I'm pretty sure you'll find more cases 15% of time. Okay. Last question for me. And it's one that comes straight from my anxiety.

So we're seeing variants, obviously. We've seen variants from COVID-19, and alpha, delta, Omicron, Omega, Apocapa, Alpha, all of those things. We've seen all of these, you know, Sigma Gamma Row, all of these different variants that are popping up. These variants all have distinctive and signature characteristics. What are the chances that we get,

a variant that is 10, 15, 20, 30% more deadly, that there at some point that there is a variant, because right now, as big of a headache as COVID has been and as many lives as COVID has taken, it still is, there's a mercifully low death rate in terms of when you compare it to other diseases. is there a potential human killer apocalyptic variant on the horizon for COVID? So first of all, I want to point out that that was Delta already because Delta was twice, if not three times more severe than the Wuhan 1.0 string. Wow. Okay.

Delta was already much worse. Delta is twice as transmissible, faster transmission, and also more severe. Omicron is much more transmissible, not as severe as Delta, but still more severe than Wuhan. Because think about it, if Delta is twice a Wuhan, and Omicron is just a little bit milder than Delta, you're still much worse than Wuhan. So I think, and I want people remember, if you have two viruses that's more contagious, same deadliness, or not more contagious, higher deadliness. in the end, what will kill more people? What will kill more people is the more contagious same deadliness or even milder. They've actually modeled this.

If a virus is two or three times more contagious, but half as severe, well, always, always, always kill more people in the end because of the contagiousness. Now, there are people, there are people who hope that this will come to an end and they say, well, well, you know, the virus will evolve to be more deadly over time so that it can spread to more people. Yeah, but what makes people, what the makes the virus spread to more people is viral load, which also usually oftentimes drives severity. Now, if there's something like Ebola, Ebola has like 50% deadly. Right, that's what I mean. You will die.

Like the reason Ebola is not truly pandemic on the scale of like COVID is it's too deadly, right? There's like a, it's like Goldilocks. If it's too deadly and you get too sick, you would never go to the nightclub or the restaurant or school. Right. If it's super deadly, you would be isolating. You wouldn't be going out of the house after five days, let's just say, right? Yeah. But if it's super mild, but in some, but then really deadly in others, and then overall, the transmission allows it to spread to more people because people don't know they carry it and then spread it. That is the pandemic virus. So in certain ways, I don't think that if you get way more, you could still get something deadlier than Delta, for example. But there's a limit of how deadly it will be before it basically cramps its style in terms of the

transmission. Because ultimately, transmissions is what makes it win, not the deadliness of killing the hook. So I think there's this Goldilocks but it could be worse. There is a chance that it could be worse, but I wouldn't say it would never be on the scale of like Ebola bad. But I think

in certain ways, I think of it this way. The fact that people react really strongly to polio, Ebola, smallpox, because it disfigures them. Yeah. But the COVID, you don't have the time you don't even know you're carrying it.

And the other times, there's no like physical scarring. But in certain ways, if this disease got more severe, in certain ways, if it got more severe that creates some physical boils on your face, people will take it seriously all of a sudden. Actually, I think if COVID evolved in a way that was so severe, your face got disfigured, oh man, no one's going to play. around and put the anti-mask and anti-backed to that point. And I think that's why, you know, in certain ways, it's our complacency against COVID right now that is killing us with this pandemic that keeps coming back and back and back. Dr. Dane, Dr. Eric Fidel Deng, thank you so much for joining us today on higher learning. I feel more educated, but I also feel only slightly scareder.

I feel more motivated rather than scareder. So you did a great job today. That's huge for him. I didn't do the full DiCaprio like, you know, shouting up. Because we're not, I'm not trying to, again, I'm not trying to fear monger. I'm just trying to tell people to be precautionous because I, especially for the kids, they have the whole lives in front of them. I don't think it should be going to hospital, like right now, as they are.

So I just want everyone Stay safe So thanks for listening Okay tell him where they can find you on Twitter dot Oh my Twitter handle is Dr. Eric Ding D-R-E-R-E-R-C-D-I-N-G But

You know I'm not I'm not pushing any product merch or anything No he's a fantastic follow on Twitter He's breaking it down He's one of the files For the first files I did early in the pandemic To get all my COVID information And if you want

somebody that's going to give it to you straight is a great follow on Twitter. Thank you so much for joining us on Highland Island. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business

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Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck. And the person who drives it, well, that's a Chevy person. You probably know one, your buddy, your sister, ones who always show up, did the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something. And maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet, together let's drive. Visit Chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup. All right. Antonio Brown walked off the field. Middle of the game.

Peace. Took his shirt off, took his helmet off, took all of that stuff off. He already had the helmet off. You know, it's obviously not eating a ton of bread. As I've noticed that when he was leaving. He probably hangs out with Brian a lot doing, doing crunches and shit like that.

You know, but there's more to this story now, then. Okay. Okay. When Antonio Brown first left the game, and he left the game, I think, in the fourth quarter of the Buccaneers versus Jets game, which the Buccaneers came back and beat the Jets on the last second pass by Tom Brady. That never happens.

How did that happen? Whatever. He left and immediately people jumped down Antonio Brown's throat. He said, hey, Tonya Brown's an asshole. If peace sign, pumped the crowd, leave the field. when you first saw it, what did you think? I wanted more. I wanted to know, like you saw Mike Evans run over to him.

I wanted to know what happened. I kept watching going down this dark hole trying to find more video onto what led it, other than just maybe his frustration said he wasn't getting the ball thrown to him. I'm unsure what led up to that breakdown. And I want to know what Mike Evans said to him. But when I saw it, I thought, oh, Antonio's not okay. I had a reaction that most people had. This isn't normal.

He's not okay. Right, right. So a little bit more has come out now. Okay. So this is a little bit more that's come out. I want to know if this changes anybody's perception of this. And I'm sure people who have been following the story of heard this. So apparently, Tony O'Brien, who had been into that game a little bit earlier in the contest,

was asked to go back in the game by head coach Bruce Arias. Hey, go back in the game. We need you. Tony O'Brown, who's been nursing an ankle injury for the past couple of weeks, it's been bothering him. He told him, he said, I tweet the ankle, can't go back in. Apparently Bruce Ariens and other people that work for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coaches, whatever, thought that he actually was healthy enough to go back into the game.

And maybe he was just talking it a little bit. Tonya Brown says, I'm not going back in the game. I'm hurt. Bruce Aaron says, if you do not go back into the game, you're cut right now. I'm going to cut you. You're off the team. Effectively cutting him right then. Antonio Brown goes,

fuck it, you fired me. I'm leaving. And he walked off the field. And then Antonio Brown. Who told that story? Where did that story come from? That story was reported on ESPN on Good Morning Football. It comes from insiders around the organization.

Bruce Ariens has been a little bit more cagey about what actually happened in the situation. But he has denied that Antonio. Brown said he was too injured to keep playing. So I guess what Bruce Ariens is saying is that, and there was some talk that maybe Antonio Brown could have been mad that he wasn't getting more targets in the game. And so if he was mad that he wasn't getting more targets in the game, that maybe Brady was throwing to Gronk or some of the newest guys that they have, one guy who, of course, is from LSU, which means he's going to be amazing.

But if that's the case, if he was fired mid-game, Does it change to you the fact that he walked off of the field? I can tell you one thing. If you fire me, I'm not waiting to the end of the day to leave. I'm leaving right then. You know what I'm saying? I'm out of here. So what's saying?

I mean, how serious did we think that Bruce was? Like, does Bruce even have the authority to fire him like that? I don't think so. Well, the coach could definitely. He could bench him. Yeah. But can he fire him and kick him off? the team right then and there? I don't think so. If the coach says he's cut, he's cut.

Okay. I mean, but I mean, I think he would have benched him maybe because for, but I don't know if he would have completely, I mean, maybe they could have worked it out later. I think, does it change my opinion to answer your question? No. I can, and I have a temper and I would probably be angry and maybe I would have like kick something or throw my helmet off the field, but I don't know if I would have done all of that. basically ending my career at this point because that's what he did. His career's over. Nobody ever is going to take a chance on him again.

And the only reason they did this time, the last two times, is because of Brady. So, I mean, unless Brady can work his magical powers again, I can't see it happening. I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure about that. Okay. Well, I think if you have Antonio Brown, like Antonio Brown probably has played his last game in the NFL, probably. for sure. But if you can bring Antonio Brown in on the minimum,

which he was playing on right now, if you can bring him in on the minimum, right, and get that caliber of receiver, which is not what he used to be, on the minimum, I think they're guys, teams that might invite him to a training camp in this year. Okay, but that doesn't mean he makes a team.

I'll talk about making the roster. Well, I mean, because he ain't going to accept the practice squad. I mean, no, he's not going to accept the practice squad, but if you invite him to training camp, you're hoping that he makes the roster. He's Antonio Brown.

Or you could just be curious to see what kind of, you're not guaranteeing him a spot. It's just like, let me see your attitude. Let me see how you are. Sure, maybe there's interest. Maybe. That's what I'm saying. Another team might give him a chance.

I just don't see it. Like, he's taken up the spot of somebody else who's willing to, you know, play the game. But you guys, people always say that. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about that. Nobody care about people taking up a spot. It's not about.

whether or not you're taking up a spot. It's about what you can do with that spot. And Antonio Brown can freak it and get in and out of breaks better than other people. Maybe it is better than other people. But I think part of what you can do with that spot is also your attitude. I do. I do. I believe it.

Have I ever put on pads suited up and played on the field? No. But I don't think a coach wants to be disrespected and embarrassed like that. I think that was embarrassing for Tampa. Probably was embarrassing for him. it has to have been a lot of people also said that maybe he has CTE from a hit that he received from Rottes-Byrifck back in the day and maybe mental health disorders when Tom when or mental illness when Tom Brady talked about this he seemed very very concerned about the mental state of Antonio Brown he said when somebody needs help you know you just want to help him and you want to love them sometimes you have to love people from a little further away is basically what he said that perhaps Antonio Brown has deeper issues. If, in fact, he does have deeper issues, does that change the way you view this?

Is the structure of football necessary for us not to see? Because Antonio Brown has a litany of things he's been accused of, by the way. On and off the field. On and off the field, something's being mischievous and assholeish. Something's being downright fucking. We're talking about sexual assault, like accusations. and things like that. So what happens to Antonio Brown now?

Well, hopefully he's got a strong circle of people around him that get him tested, checked out. If there are deeper issues, I feel like for Tom Brady, who seems to be very close to say that to him, about him, I mean, there's something there.

So he doesn't need to be on a field is what it sounds like. He needs to go check on his well-being. Yeah. Yeah, just want to let people know. Chronic, chronic traumatic encephalopathy

encephalopathy C-T-E Snuffilophagus It was a hard word to say encephalopathy encephalopathy It's a tough thing And it's something

That should be diagnosed Over on Twitter You guys don't know Whether or not that man Has C-T-E or not Right He's been having problems He's so quick to say that

He's been having problems Way before this Had problems in college Bounce around To a bunch of different schools His mental illness May or may not be related to

CTE or he may or may not be mentally ill, but he's a big boy. He can take care of himself. So I will say this, that if you do fire me at half time, I'm leaving at half time. Okay. We got to get out of here. We have end of the year awards to do. And Trudy really will. Trudy jump on.

I can't do it. Y'all, I got to go. It's like 110. It's going to go longer than five minutes. Rachel's got to go. Trudy really wants us to do this. You messed that up. We were supposed to do it last time.

You messed it up. One of us was prepared. One of us was not. It's not, I don't think people care about what we think the best TV show of last year was. All right. Well, there we go. Let's do this. Trudy really wants to do this, you guys.

So vote on a Reddit whether or not you want us to do end of year awards. Best TV show, album of the year, ally of the year. Class clown, biggest goofy of the year. Best moment for the culture of the year. Not sure. Best dress style icon of the year. Public servant of the year. Best viral moment or TikTok challenge of the year.

Best author or book of the year. I didn't get that list. That's the list that's the list that Trudy put out. Because Van didn't like the list from last week. So I changed it to make a call. Trudy put out also best fitted hats. And I wasn't ready for this one. Best fitted hats of the year.

That was wonderful. All right. We're out of here. Rachel got to go. It's not for me to go box. Tell you things caps off. We do not stop learning. I am Van Lathen Jr.

I'm Rachel and Lindsay. We are out.