Lovett or Leave It - Gay for Netflix

Episode Date: April 17, 2021

Amazon's workers vote against unionizing. The reckoning on police violence and accountability continues. And the Bachelor comes out of the closet... right into a nice little promotional tour. Laurie Kilmartin joins to open the show. Guy Branum is here for a VERY special edition of Gay News. And union organizer Chris Smalls talks about working at Amazon and the next steps in the fight to unionize after a setback in Alabama. Plus we quiz listeners to mark Earth Day and draw critical attention to the ongoing national ketchup shortage. What a week.To support unionization efforts please visit amazonlaborunion.orgFor a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/lovettorleaveit. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Love It or Leave It, Vaxxed to the Future. When the vaccine becomes available, take it. Vaxxed to the future. It's gonna suit you real nice. You don't have to roll the dice. Take it. That is a no brainer. That's.

To the future. Two shots should surely suffice. Maybe more, maybe less. When you say the lie. There's no time to second guess. That's. Do it for you. Do it for me.

Do it for us. Everybody. Do it for you. Do it for me. Do it for us. Take the vaccine. Take the vaccine. Take it. Take the dice. Take the vaccine.

Take it. Two shots should surely suffice. Maybe more, maybe less. When you say goodnight, there's no time to say goodnight. That is a no-brainer. That incredible song was sent in by Jorskan featuring Mr. Darcy. That's also one of my favorite names for people who have sent it in.

Jorskan featuring Mr. Darcy. If you want to make a Vax to the Future theme song, please send us one at leaveitatcricket.com. You can send it to leaveitatcricket.com. Right now, Senate Democrats have the power to stop the wave of voter suppression laws sweeping the country by passing the For the People Act. But first, they have to come together and eliminate the filibuster to do your part to get rid of this racist relic. Head over to votesaveamerica.com slash for the people and use our new whip count to find out where your senator stands. If they're on the fence, give them a call using our tool. We have to keep the pressure up.

We have to unbreak the Senate, unfuck democracy. Got to get these people on board. Also, I would call this slightly less urgent in the grand scheme of things, but we've got some cool crooked store news. We have a pull float that says vaccinated on it. I think it's cool. I think you should get it. And it's actually selling out. So I would move fast. Go to crooked.com slash store to preorder it now before it's too late. All right. It's a cool pool float.

Everybody's gonna be jealous of your pool float. On the show this week, we played a great Earth Day game. We demand listeners show us your catch-up. And I talked to Chris Smalls about organizing efforts at Amazon facilities in New York and Alabama. It was a great conversation. Chris is somebody who was fired by Amazon after trying to improve conditions where he worked. He went down to Bessemer to help organize there. And that organizing fight continues. So check that out.

But first, joining us this week, she is a stand-up Emmy-nominated writer and best-selling author. Please welcome Lori Kilmartin. Lori, thanks for being here. Oh, I'm so excited. This is my first Zoom show with you. Yeah, it is. It is. And maybe our last. Pressure's on. I'll try to bring it. Yeah, sure. It's a podcast. St podcast stakes are so low let's get into it what a week a baltimore woman didn't get to wear her wedding dress because of the pandemic so on sunday she wore it to her vaccine appointment instead when reach for comment the woman said

it was over really fast and i didn't feel a thing but enough about my wedding night oh my god uh you know what she wanted to get poked in her wedding dress and she did. So I'm on her side. Nice. Nice. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, manic pixie meme churl, Jim Jordan got into a one-way shouting match with noted doctor and person who emotionally is always about to take off his glasses and hold the bridge of his nose, Anthony Fauci, over when the country can fully return to normal. You don't think Americans' liberties have been threatened last year, Dr. Fauci? They've been assaulted. Their liberties have. I don't look at this as a liberty thing, Congressman Jordan. Well, that's obvious. As a public health thing.

We're not talking about liberties. We're talking about a pandemic that has killed 560,000 Americans. After the exchange, Fauci issued new mass recommendations suggesting that it might be beneficial for public health if some people added a ball gag. Look, there's a reason Jim Jordan is obsessed with liberty. He knows he should be in jail. That's right. So it's just the shouting. At the end of the colloquy, Maxine Waters jumped in with this.

Mr. Chairman, I don't want you to answer my question. The American people want Dr. Fauci to answer the question. What does it have to be? It expires, sir. If you need to respect the chair and shut your mouth.

So there was like a lot of like yasqueening going on a bit like among some on Twitter. Yeah. Maxine Waters has issued some pretty good retorts over the years this felt like it was after the fact and not that great you know it felt like she wanted in like it was like jim jordan had already was already quiet uh they were already kind of moving on i don't think cliburn liked having somebody step in to try to talk on his behalf. Everyone just seemed pretty annoyed.

That was my take. That was my take on you need to respect the chair and shut your mouth. I think she wants to swear and she keeps holding herself back. And I really want her to let it fly. Man, I don't envy being in a job with Jim Jordan as a colleague. The CDC recommended a pause on using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in response to a handful of very rare blood clots among the many millions of vaccinations administered. This is cancel culture.

Johnson & Johnson is an effective vaccine, and yet the woke mob is getting its panties in a twist over six blood clots. No one is saying blood clots are good, but can't we still appreciate that several million people got vaccinated without blood clots? I have fond memories of Johnson and Johnson. It's part of my childhood. Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so.

My view is Johnson and Johnson should ignore the haters and Twitter scolds and do what it does best, make people laugh. Here's the thing. It's only happening to women. And, you know, the product is named Johnson & Johnson. Clearly, they're trying to tell us it's for men. Let's let just men have Johnson & Johnson and we ladies will get Moderna. It sounds like a hair salon anyway. I like a vaccine. I like a vaccine that's strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for a woman. That's sort of what I'm looking for. According to the Wall Street Journal, toilet paper sales have fallen to levels even lower

than where they were before the pandemic. Experts say consumers who hoard a toilet paper are working through their stockpiles. And I just, I think it's actually just a really good sign that a year into this pandemic, a year into the lockdown, people are still using toilet paper. Like they haven't, they haven't given up on it. Sure. I mean, there's the most basic commitment to cleanliness is always good.

And honestly, I've seen the way Americans eat and we should always be buying toilet paper. Never think you have enough. You don't. You're one Taco Bell dinner away from being out of toilet paper at all times. That's giving me ideas. Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama voted overwhelmingly against unionizing. So I just want to remind everybody to shop local, support your local, support your...

Sorry, hold on one second. Hold on one second. No, just leave it at the door. No, just leave it at the door. Sorry, this is my... It's my amazing local book sock furniture hot tub store. It's just this mom and pop operation. They sell toilet paper, sex toys, bookshelves, sporting goods, swimming pools, school store.

It's pretty, it's a cool little operation. Yeah, Jeff Bezos is a dad, so he is running a mom and pop. Chicago authorities have released body cam footage from the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo last month, which shows that Toledo had his hands in the air when an officer shot him, folks. I think we need the police. We need their service. And they do a good job. But if they don't stop this onslaught, they cannot do this.

Do you know how bad it has to be to get Pat Robertson on your side? This is a man who thought Disney's gay days would cause hurricanes. That's real. He really thought that letting gay people into Disney would cause hurricanes. He blamed the Haitian earthquake on black people making a pact with the devil, a very old myth about the end of slavery. It tells you how quickly this issue is moving, that even an ancient monster like Pat Robertson is moving to the right side.

Also this week, President Biden announced a September 11th deadline for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result. conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result. I'm now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan. I will not pass this responsibility onto a fifth. Wow. Thanks for taking that off my plate, said Tucker Carlson. Here's the thing. Most of the 9-11 attackers were Saudi, here's the thing.

Like, um, most of the nine 11 attackers were Saudi and Osama bin Laden was Saudi. So I think the message to the world is if you attack us, we will attack, not you. And we will attack, not you just East of you for about 20 years. I hope everyone's learned their lesson about coming after the United States.

20 years. I'm so young when it began. I wasn't. I was old even then. But I do hope if we take troops out of Japan, we do it on December 7th. Okay. That'll send them,

that'll finally send them the message. Yeah, yeah. Loud and clear, John. Loud and clear. California's Wildfire Research Center has found that the vegetation in the state is a lot drier than usual, setting up a potentially devastating wildfire season, but a gender reveal season for the fucking ages.

It's going to be awesome. They're going to burn down so many forests. We really got to tend those trees at some point. It's possible the drought is being extended by big mask because we are going to have to still keep covering our face even after COVID ends in California. Yeah. Because I remember like when I, I had N95s because N95s is what they had recommended for fire.

Yeah. That's what they, forever. Like it was like people had N95s because they said these are the best masks to have in the event of fire. So yeah, mask season is going to go on. Five of the biggest Democratic polling firms acknowledged that there were major errors in their 2020 polling. Said a spokesperson for one firm, I don't know what went wrong. We really thought Hillary had this one. Yeah, I think the errors started earlier than 2020, if I remember.

Like the problem with polling errors is that you can't know for sure what your polling error is until after the election. True. And if we consistently have polling errors we can't correct for until after the election, then what are the polls doing? Because if they're all a little bit wrong in ways we can't predict, and our elections are all really, really close, they don't really do anything. Yeah. I can tell you that this election is going to be close and I can pick who's going to win and you'd be right about half the time.

Yeah. So we're going to really have to face the fact that we can't really trust a lot of the polling that we're seeing. You can't go by me because I was all in on Amy McGrath. And clearly, my judgment is skewed. Man, that was a bummer. It was hard because they fought really hard in that campaign. And then we didn't send money. We did a fund. And we sent money to Senate races across the country. Actually, a lot of those did pretty fucking badly, too. We didn't win Maine. We didn't win south carolina right but it was always hard to say like don't give to amy mcgrath so we never said don't give to amy mcgrath we said here are some other places where your money will probably go further because if amy mcgrath wins it seems like we won

everywhere now we couldn't know no one knew that cal cunningham was so um sexy we just he's just a horny sexy man and like look when when cal cunningham came out to la to do pod save america and some fundraising we didn't know that it was going to be part of a tryst we didn didn't know that we were. Oh no, oh no, is that it? We didn't know that we were part. Oh yeah. Is that new? Am I breaking news? We didn't know that like he was gonna text, yeah, just got done with Pod Save America,

heading back to the hotel to chill out and watch a movie. But that was not what he did. That would make me come over, honestly. I'm ready to drive over. What I learned is just because I hate your senator Doesn't mean you hate your senator It was astonishing to me that Jamie Harrison would lose to Lindsey Graham But I guess South Carolina is fine with it

Lindsey Graham at least this week He said that climate change is real I'll just speak for myself here I've come to conclude that climate change is real That human emissions create greenhouse gas effect that traps heat. That makes sense to me. And you referred to a trip he took with John McCain and with Hillary Clinton, which is a trip I wrote about when I was her speechwriter. She talked about that trip all the time, which I love. I love that there was this

super eventful climate change trip to the Arctic with Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Lindsey Graham that they still are talking about. They had such a good time. They had such a good time up there. I love that. I like that for them. It has to happen personally to a conservative before they come around. Yeah. Yeah. So he had to go on vacation on an iceberg before he realized we were in trouble. It happens all the time. Like Jesse Waters, who's a Fox News moron, talked this week about how he finally understands parental leave because he is appreciating parental leave.

And I actually like, okay, great. Yeah. I figured it out. I wish that you were a person with empathy. Yes. But what I find amazing is not that it takes someone like that to have to experience a problem before they acknowledge the problem exists. What I find incredible is then after that change happens, they are unable to apply it

to any other parts of their life. Yes. Like, hey, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool. This is great.

Now, you didn't think a problem was real. Then you experienced the problem. Now you understand it's real and why it's important that we address it. Try doing that on some other things you haven't personally experienced. Now, can you conceive of the idea? Can you imagine that there are other issues

that you won't be hitting? Like not having health care or not being or having a full time job, but not having a livable wage like these things that you don't necessarily recognize right now. Or you didn't want that baby. Yeah, you didn't want that baby. They just gave you that baby. Like Rob Portman is a senator. When his son came out of the closet, Rob Portman

became someone who supported gay rights. And yet that has not fundamentally altered Rob Portman's politics around a host of other issues. And that to me is incredible. Like maybe just for a second, think that every single issue involves a father experiencing something painful around his, like, everyone is a person, you know, everyone's a person. And they don't get it. It doesn't happen. Yeah. I wonder if what's happening with white people right now is them, you know, realizing they're about to be a minority and they can finally empathize with how awful that must have been for the last 200 years and that's why they're angry? Well, I mean, I definitely think that there's, I mean, Tucker Carlson understands that his audience is afraid of what it looks like to not be automatically in charge.

And they don't care for it one bit. No, they want to be seated at every restaurant immediately. And it's okay to wait a little bit. Sometimes you actually have fun talking to people. And that's a restaurant. So you go in them. That's the thing. You can go inside. That's right. Yeah, it's familiar. I had a fever dream about one last week. So that's why it's in my mind. I visited my parents in Florida. We sat outside. First of all, the mask compliance in Florida was like, you're talking 50-50 at best. Wow. I did feel like when Liam Neeson brings Jodie Foster into society and Nell, you know?

Yeah. Just like, you know, they're like, what are you having? I was like, just like, you know, I, I was just, they're like, what are you having? I was like, a tan in the wind. A tan in the wind. And I would talk to people.

That's a, that's a great, great classic reference that everybody uses, all topical. It is a little hacky and overdone, but yeah, I'm glad you,

I think you found a way to use it. So that's good. I hear one more Nell reference today. I'm, I'm storm you, I think you found a way to use it. So that's good. I hear one more Nell reference today. I'm storming off. Everybody's constantly going back to the, it's like a Christopher Walken impression. You know, everybody's got their Nell. And finally, upon the passing of Prince Philip, a South African rhinoceros preserve is asking Buckingham Palace to remove his teeth before burial to repatriate them as they are made from the horn of a rhino he hunted in the late 1960s.

Now, Lori, that's completely made up. We just made it up. I absolutely believed it. But it's so plausible. I absolutely believed it. Condolences to the Windsors. I don't know how to joke about it. But I do like the idea that that is so plausible around Prince Philip.

I was like, he must have become a conservationist after that because he had empathy with the elephant at some point once he finally had its tusks as his teeth. I like that you know enough about Prince Philip to imagine it being part of a story, a narrative experience in Prince Philip's life. That's a sad legacy of growing up during the Princess Diana years. You can't help but know everything about the royal family. I'm ashamed. Laurie Kilmartin, everybody. So good to see you.

Thanks for having me. So, so good to see you. Thanks so much for being here. When we come back, a bachelor comes out as gay and that means it's time for gay news. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. On Wednesday, former bachelor Colton Underwood, which is what they changed it to at Ellis Island,

Colton Underwood, which is what they changed it to at Ellis Island, sat down with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America to reveal that he is gay. Shortly after the news broke, it was also announced that Colton is not just gay. He's the gay star of a Netflix reality show following his life as an out gay man with Olympian Gus Kenworthy as his gay guide. So now it's time for ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba that Colton could be his true self and show other young gay kids how to be their true selves through this special. Is that right? Look, like anytime anyone on this planet comes out, it's a good thing.

One who is dead is alive again. One who was lost is found. It is happy and exciting. But the way that like the mainstream press shit itself that this person who was part of heterosexuality central like just that we have to pay so much attention to it because he was on the bachelor this show that strangely ritualizes like straight mating was just like, I don't know, there's maybe bigger stuff going on, maybe bigger gay stuff going on. Couple points. It's not just that he was a resident of heterosexual

central, as you would say, it's that like, he was somebody who wasn't comfortable being himself and then also had like successfully built a career out of his straightness his ostensible straightness it is a career built around i am handsome and anodyne yes an avatar for a straight mate and i'm gonna go on television and represent this ideal in a way that is pure toxic poison. Like I'm going to take these incredibly important human experiences of seeking love and companionship, of finding a partner that sees you for who you really are. And I'm going to be part of a twisted corporate exploitation of those innate human needs for the purposes of creating a competition. Yes. And also went beyond that to being restraining order level creepy against the woman who he found love with on The Bachelor. And it's like, I think the first do no harm of male homosexuality is like,

let's not be creepy to ladies. Yes. And then it's like, okay, like, I'm glad you're now coming out. I think I agree with you. That's just like a good thing. But then it's like, wait, hold on a second. In the same way that you performed a kind of like metastasized version of heterosexual romance on television. You Are Coming Out is now an inauthentic corporate version of Coming Out. It's underwritten by Netflix. His Coming Out is part of a promotional event for Netflix. And it is this thing of would he have even come out if there wasn't a corporation paying him to do this? Is he coming out because it is the lucrative and most beneficial thing to him? And one of the things I love so much about coming out, one of the reasons it is beautiful, is because it has consequences. Because it is saying, being true to myself is worth dealing with everything that the society pushes at queer people.

And the notion of somebody coming out because it is the most lucrative and personally beneficial of choices is just, it is strange to me. It is not a thing I was ready to encounter. And what's amazing about this is what he's doing is actually relatively sophisticated for someone who seems so completely devoid of anything interesting to say ever. these interchangeably broad-shouldered, like, narrow-waisted white gays who are not saying anything interesting or challenging. And you're getting at a really good point of, like, and look, it's terrible, because God knows gay men have been watching The Bachelor and Bachelorette and laughing at heterosexuality for decades now.

But don't get that shit in our world. Like, the notion that they're going to do some sort of pretend little dancer game him saying oh i truly loved what's her name who i met on the bachelor but i haven't found emotional connection with the man now is such a drum roll towards him doing some sort of bullshit abc gay the bachelor and it makes me so mad, the strain, just imagining the kind of unreal, sanitized version of that that they would try to do. I would love to watch a show about somebody coming out of the closet and learning from their queer elders and their queer peers, like, what this culture of homosexuality is. And I just know what Gus Kenworthy and producers decide for him is safe for television and safe for straight girls watching

is not going to look like what, you know, what the reality is. At least Finding Prince Charming on Logo had the good taste to cast a former escort as Prince Charming. Yeah. Some of this is The bachelor is not for me. And I have a feeling that Colton's journey to find love is not going to be

for me. What I hate about it is, all right, you were pretending to be straight for a long time and then you contributed to this sort of like ugly toxic thing. And now you're coming over to our side and immediately what you are going to make is something that young gay people will need a gay guide to help them avoid because most gay kids don't look like Gus Kenworthy and Colton

under underman. Uh, they don't look like that. They don't get to experience looking like that. Yeah. Oh, you get a gay guide. Colton, you are a beautiful, athletic, cisgendered white man whose guide will be the same. What's the guide? You two of you look in the mirror and be like, we did it. What's so funny and strange about it is you have these people for whom who two generations ago wouldn't have come out because the proximity to masculine heterosexuality, the fact that they seemed passable, meant that just being in the closet was safer and more beneficial to them. And now they are in a world where weirdos and people of color and genderqueer people have fought the fight to make this a world that is safe for them.

And they come out, and then they kind of get to move to the head of the line, especially in terms of the media. We just behave as though they are the most valuable of gays. And the thing is, is like, good for Colton. And I, you know, I was in the closet. I did not write a book. Did you know that he wrote a book about how he wasn't gay? I did not know that. That is incredible. But I wrote a column for my college campus newspaper saying I wasn't gay. So, you know, he who is without sin, you know, I'm really saying a lot of Christian things to be a Jew right now. But like, look, we, you know, we all went through closetedness. We all had to find this on our own. But having some humility about it, like maybe the humility to wait three weeks in between I'm gay. And also, I have a TV show about how I'm gay. That's not to say that there aren't real, like, bachelors have feelings too. Yes. And, and I'm not suggesting that anything about his journey isn't emotional, serious to him, important that there isn't real genuine pain and pathos inside of what will surely be part of the special. I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll reserve judgment. But like,

I think the test to me is like, all right, this is somebody that has embodied a lot of heterosexual norms in virtually every aspect of what he has done in his public personal life. Is this show going to be part of that? Is there going to be some part of this journey where there's a moment of confrontation, not just with being gay, but with like notions of masculinity that I think even like you and I are cisgender, basically gay men. And like we are, and I do think that like, for me,

part of being gay, even in my like mid to late 30s, has been an exploration in my own psychology of what aspects of my personality are still a performance of heterosexuality to go along, to get along because it's easier because it's the breezy language of commerce and capital and business and retail and life. And you get something from being a cis man in our society. You get something from it. And how much of that is real and how much of that is a residue of what it was like to be closeted at a different time? I don't know the answer. It's a challenge. It's an interesting, I think, part of what it means to to be closeted at a different time. I don't know the answer. It's a challenge. It's an interesting, I think, part of what it means to be gay in this era.

What I fear, forget everything, forget where he came from, forget the corporate twinge and inauthenticity of it. What I fear is there is no shortage of content for straight people, for gay people that does not examine these issues. And by not examining them, fosters them and continues them. And I just, I'm not really ready for a Netflix special that is ostensibly celebrating what it means to be LGBT, but is ultimately just a very long mask for mask, you know? Yes.

I mean, the media and I think straight people have such a taste for hot white gays you don't have to worry about because they seem fine. And you don't really have to think about what their internal lives are because they seem fine and are cute. It is the sassy gay boyfriend that everyone wants in a romantic

comedy, and then you don't really have to think about him. But I think gay people, particularly gay men, particularly white gay men, because we have the safety of closetedness, because we have the safety of just pretending that we're like everybody else, we are very bad at being honest in media about who we are. We're bad at making TV shows about our honest experience. You know, like there are some amazing people out there who have done really good jobs of being honest, but there is so much anxiety around honest representation. And like, I just think if they had said David Halperin or Wanda Sykes or any number of people were going to. And I fucking love Gus.

Gus is an adorable guy. If Colton Underwood needed to get better at skiing, I would say what a great person to go to. But when it comes to understanding who he is as a person, you could maybe look to somebody who wasn't ripped. And my hope, though, too, that like i do wonder if some of this is like i don't know what of this show exists yet if anything and uh you read the description in the kind of announcement it's like is this just the first person they got to attach like is it gonna be like i hope that there is a look they can make whatever the fuck they want and the answer to content we don't like we can just make other shows there's plenty of opportunities that's great but my hope

is i just know that it is still the case like i know what it was like for me when there is so little out there in terms of representation for a gay kid to latch on to every gay character is you you watch it and it's like that's what it means to be gay. There's not enough. You don't get to see 40, 50, 60 different ways of being gay. There's a few options. Yes. And what I just hope is that until there is so much out there that a gay kid can find themselves anywhere, that if they're going to have to find themselves in this, that the people who make it have enough respect for that kid to show them a few options. That's all. Just show them some options.

Yeah. There was a review of the L word in like 2009 that did a better job of explaining that anxiety of when you're not represented in media. When you have one representation, you put everything on it and your response is just, I'm not like that. And you know, I think that the queer community the the review is from like 10 years ago I wish I remembered the name of the woman who wrote it but it's a little Shonda Ferdigoyen it's a little bit like what are people gonna think about me based on what they're seeing in this thing and I think we as queer people have to be strong enough to try to be honest so that we can do those little bits of things can Can I tell you a lovely story?

Please. Once, years ago, I was at a comedy festival in San Francisco, and there was this impossible... I had sort of some bad interactions with maybe sort of, like, gay elders, some of whom were in the closet, some of whom were not. And I was in a weird place, and I went up to the impossibly cute straight guy who was making s'mores for us, and who had a topknot. It was the golden age of topknot.

And he was so tall and handsome, and I went up to him and I said, can I have a s'more? And he said, oh my God, guy. And then started telling me what it, because he wasn't a straight guy, he was a gay guy. And he was like, talking about what it meant to see me on Chelsea lately when he was in high school. Now, did this make me feel impossibly old? Yes. This is just a self-aggrandizing story. I'm sorry. but it was just that little moment of being able to know that this person who is very unlike me in so many ways was able to see me and be like,

well, there's space for lots of kinds of people. And, you know, I certainly hope, like, yes, there's Colton Underwood, but there's Alec Mapa and Solomon Giorgio and Wanda Sykes and Arby Butcher, so many more people out there representing their honesty that I think it's certainly not a perfect situation. It's a good situation that there are more people being represented. But we do need to care about how much of the bandwidth is going towards, you know, ripped cis white boys. And especially ones who are part of who the world cares about because of their participation in heteronormative narratives. And so Netflix, as a huge admirer of your service

and user of your service, praise be to Netflix, you call Guy Branum, all right? I'm not saying Gus Kensworthy doesn't have some great ideas and pitches for Colton on how to be gay. But if we want to really show Colton the ropes, you get Guy on the fucking blower Netflix. And that's gay news. Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh. Gay news. Guy Branum. So good to see you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I just want to acknowledge the fact that you and I made plans for Tuesday. Neither one of us texted each other and it just didn't happen. I thought we were waiting until we were both like officially vaccinated. All right, I'll take it. Yes. I'd like to make two points. The first one is when I went into that story, I realized I couldn't tell a third of it.

And that it just ends up sounding self-congratulatory in this version. It's uh self-congratulatory in this version it's a self-congratulatory story regardless so please cut it if you need to and the second point is i made plans with two separate people on tuesday and never followed up you know what you know what i'm still recording you leave that in that stays in all stays in. Now we're going to break. Thank you so much to Guy for joining us. When we come back, we play a game about the nationwide ketchup shortage. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up.

And we're back. This week, news broke that after a year of delivery and to-go orders, we are currently facing a nationwide ketchup package shortage, with Heinz planning on going to emergency packing production to meet the increased demand because Biden still refuses to invoke the Defense Production Act. This hasn't impacted me terribly, as I prefer to eat my fries in the French way with mayo. I'm just going to say that and then deal with the comments. But it's actually true. But you're right. Okay.

Sorry. I don't know if we're allowed to chime in, but... You don't exist yet. You haven't been introduced yet. You don't exist in this world yet. I couldn't let you take the mayo heat alone. I'm so sorry. I'll mute myself.

You're doing so great. The point is, gone are the days of liberal fistfuls at the bottom of the bag. Large chains like Long John Silver's and Texas Roadhouse have turned to secondary suppliers. Ronald McDonald and Wendy put aside their rivalry to rob a warehouse in Altoona. But we've been preparing for this contingency. We all have. Because here at Love It or Leave It, we know that in every home lies a filthy secret. A sordid collection of packets and napkins and cutlery and loose chopsticks that we've hoarded from restaurant to go orders, whether in a drawer, a paper bag atop the microwave, or on your nightstand, because every room is a kitchen now, and every surface an airplane trade table, ready to

support a laptop, a meal, a nap, whatever. So we're asking our listeners to compete to prove who has the most elite condiment collection in a new segment we're calling Heinz and Go Seek. Here to play, we have three listeners. and Go Seek. Here to play, we have three listeners. We have Segi. Hello. We have Jackie. Hi. We have Angie. Hello. Hi, everybody. Hello. Hi. Hello. Are you ready to play this game? Very nervous. I'm ready. But yes, yes. Angie, you can't just not. It's a podcast. I'm ready. I'm ready. Sorry. You're doing so great. All right. Here's how the game works.

I'm going to ask you a question. You're going to have to show, right? This is not, you can't just answer. All right. Question number one, who has the most matching sets of to-go utensils? We need to see a knife, a fork, and a spoon. Go. Go. It's a race. I got nothing. No one's going anywhere. Because now when you order, they ask if you want utensils. And I'm like, no, I'm in my house. So I just don't have them. I'm sorry. No, it's Earth Day, Segi. And that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed to get- Is it really Earth Day? It is. Well, this is our Earth Day episode. This is our Earth Day episode. Sorry. So even though you're clearly losing this question, you're winning in a larger sense. Angie, let's see what you got.

I have. These are the forks and spoons that I have that were just on hand. OK, OK. Not just from that drawer. Let's see what you got, Jackie. I have only forks and then one knife and one spoon. All right. You know what? First of all, that was frankly embarrassing.

Segi is morally opposed correctly, but still in a way that rankles. Angie and Jackie, what's worse is you don't have a moral stand. You just don't have a great collection. Stay right there. I'm going to just, I'm not even playing this game. All right. I'll be right back. You stay there. Everybody stay there. I thought you guys did great by the way. Thank you. Don't talk when I'm not there. This is what we were talking about. Oh my God. This is what we were talking about oh my god this is what we were talking about

next question i get the first i've won the first one next question is this a game just for love it to win was this what this was all for you don't ask questions saggy i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm already failing you're doing great okay you're doing great i'm gonna give that one i'm gonna give that round to jackie honestly because i just feel like she's brought them thank you she's just um she had one more spoon all right second question who has the most rare sauce packet oh that, that's me. Show me one condiment from a packet that is unusual. So I guess it depends what you mean by unusual and to whom, but I do have various chutneys from a samosa place.

And that's what I'm going to go with because it is, it is in our takeout sauce packet. So I'm counting it because it was from takeout. All right. We have chutneys and we have chutneys i have a honey packet from my uh socially distanced road trip across the country and i believe this comes from a random cafe in savannah georgia so i don't know if honey is a uh a honey from savannah georgia jackie um it's been slim pickings over here. We have a chutney and a regional honey packet. It is from Canada, if that gets me anything. I don't know that it does.

So this is ungodly. I have the old Chick-fil-A Polynesian one and the new one. I don't know why we have just one of the old one. An ancient Chick-fil-A Polynesian sauce packet. It's an artifact. It's an artifact. We have just one of the old ones. An ancient Chick-fil-A Polynesian sauce packet. It's an artifact. It's an artifact. Whenever I'm reminded of the fact that Chick-fil-A sells something they're calling a Polynesian sauce,

it raises all kinds of questions about the appropriation that must certainly have gone into the creation of that sauce. But no time to dive into that today. Jackie, question number two goes to you. Thank you. You're doing so well. Though then we start to ask questions about going to Chick-fil-A. Was that wrong? Should we start thinking about that? And then I'll say, no, I had Chick-fil-A. This is real. Yesterday. I had Chick-fil-A today.

I don't think it's that good. I have never eaten at a Chick-fil-A. I'm just going to never. I have when I've been to the States just to try it. And I don't, I could do without it. It's fine. There's better chicken. Jackie, you're winning the game. You're also winning hearts and minds. Because what I'm hearing from Segi and Angie is Angie's never eaten a Chick-fil-A. No parade for her, sadly.

Next question. And then Segi, come on. It's fine. It's better than fine. There's been a fry quality issue that it's time we start talking about, but it's very good. All right, third question, final question.

This is the name of the game. This is why we're all here. All right. Given the ketchup shortage, we would like to see who has the most ketchup packets. We count catsup. Show us your ketchup. Oh man. Unfortunately, we made burgers and fries last night. So some of them got eaten. Where'd Jackie go? How far does Jackie have to go to get this ketchup?

I realized that I have almost identical amounts of ketchup, soy sauce from Thai, Japanese, Cambodian restaurants, and then every kind of Del Taco hot sauce you could possibly imagine. Angie, I love that you also have a bag of takeout sauces. It's so well organized. Siggy and Angie are so well organized. So Angie, roughly speaking, how many ketchup packets, not all these other packets, was not the question. 23. How many ketchup, 23 ketchup packets?

From four different restaurants. From four different restaurants. Jackie, what are we looking at here? I thought I had more. We used to have this filled up. Now we just have the four. Wow. Only four.

Yeah, I have those too. The dip and squeeze ketchup. It's really a very high-end packet and frankly i don't know is better than the packet i don't think this is better than the packet uh that question goes to angie i didn't even get the answer oh sorry say i forgot you were there how many i'm just fucking with you i only had 12 so i lost anyways she had 12 she had 12, so I lost anyway. She had 12. She had 12. That was good for Segi because Segi doesn't even get the cutlery. And good for her because this is our Earth Day episode.

And in a sense, she is winning. But in another sense, who won? Who got two? I think it was Jackie. Jackie wins the game. Thank you. And she came on strong at the end with ketchup packets. But in the game of Hunts and Go Seek, we're not eating Hunts ketchup.

We're not animals. Hunts and Go Seek, the winner is Jackie. Great job, everybody. Did a great job playing the game today. Good job, everyone. Thank you so much. Bye, everybody. Great job.

Thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you. Happy birthday. Thank you. Happy birthday. Oh, I thought you said birthday. Sorry. It is my birthday, but happy birthday. I'm a conservationist by profession, so I have to say it. It's your birthday. Thank you. Yeah.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. How did you think Angie knew that? I don't know. I was like, did I say it knew that? I don't know. I was like, did I say it and forgot? I don't know. Get them out of the Zoom.

I'm sorry. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you to Angie, Siggy, and Jackie for playing. When we come back, I talk to Chris Smalls about fighting for a union at Amazon. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back.

He is a former Amazon employee of five years who was fired after leading a walkout against pandemic working conditions at its Staten Island Fulfillment Center. Please welcome Chris Smalls. Hello, thank you for having me. So before we get into what's been taking place in Bessemer, I wanted to start with your experience. Can you just talk a little bit about what led you to work at Amazon, what the conditions

were there, and just what happened? Well, before Amazon, I worked at a grocery distribution warehouse overnight, 10 hours. It was a very physical job, even more physical than Amazon, actually. I was unionized, but the union didn't really represent me. I had a situation there that didn't really sit well with me. I went through the whole arbitration process. The supervisor, who was in the wrong when it came to my situation, only got a slap on the wrist. who was in the wrong when it came to my situation, only got a slap on the wrist. So that forced me to pretty much look elsewhere for work. And at that time, Amazon was opening the building, and this was back in 2015. So I started off at their location in Carter at EWR9. That was my first

site. Launched that building, worked hard for about seven months and got promoted up to a process assistant, better known as an assistant manager. So I've been in that position for the last four years. I opened up three buildings for them, starting off there. Second was Connecticut, BDL2, Windsor, Connecticut. And then my last site was JFK Staten Island in New York. And the working conditions, these buildings all were the same. We're talking a million square feet. Pretty much you walk the state of Rhode Island every day. And that's not a joke.

It's serious. 30 to 60 miles a day, 14 NFL football fields. So you can imagine how massive these buildings are. 10, 11 hour days, 12 hour shifts. Sometimes I was on a 12 hour shift. You lose a lot of family time. I can tell you that. And it takes a toll on your body for sure.

So when the pandemic hit, you were vocal about wanting greater protections for workers at the plant. What pushed you to want to strike and what were the demands? Well, number one, I'm still a single parent and that was my first complaint. What are you doing for parents to have school closing due to COVID? That was my first question to HR at the building and their response was, oh yeah, if you don't feel safe, you can stay home, but you won't be paid. That's what Amazon was offering at that time. We're talking last year, beginning of March. I said, OK, that sounds good. But, you know, what do we do after we use all of our paid and vacation time and our time is depleted? You know, how can we pay our bills and stay home and be safe at the same time?

And once again, their response was, you know, just apply to the Amazon relief fund. And I said, okay, I will, but I don't think everybody's going to be approved to get, you know, relief. So I'm thinking always of the broader perspective. And what pushed me over the top was when I did use up all my time and I came back to work and noticed that my employees in my department were sick. Flu-like symptoms every single day with somebody new with a different issue. Dizziness, fatigue, couldn't finish their work, had to go to AM care a lot, had to go home early. Something was wrong. I even seen some associates vomiting within the building and

we had to just clean it up and put them back on station or replace them. So it was something definitely wrong that was in the building. I knew that. So that forced me to take further action, for sure. In looking at what people have worked at Amazon, at Bessemer, talk about, it seems like there is two kinds of demands. One is specific improvements in working conditions, specific changes around how breaks are given, how people are monitored, how extensively they're monitored, how they're paid, what you're talking about, chance to be with family, take care of your family. And then there's this other part of it, which is just wanting to be respected, just wanting

to have power in your life, in your workplace, to feel like the management hears you. Can you talk a little bit about both of those things? Like how much of the problems at Amazon did you find were just specific issues around how people are compensated, how people are treated, and how much of this was just not being able to reach anybody, not being able to talk to anybody, not being able to get relief when you did have a problem? It was a combination. See, our demands at the time was so real-time. Those are real-time demands that we had. We wanted the building to be closed for 14 days, incubation period, and virus. This was a life or death situation that we were in.

New York City was the epicenter of the world. People were dying every 15 minutes. We didn't know what was going on. We didn't have any PPE, no cleaning supplies, nothing to protect ourselves. So our demands were specific to what was actually happening at the time. That's why we felt it was so urgent for Amazon to do something about it. Of course, the demands that Bessemer had and the union was trying to present to the workers, we absolutely aligned with them as well. We wanted the same things. Of course, our demands have definitely grown ever since because these problems still exist even after my fire. And so when it comes down to it, the workers don't have a voice when it comes to real systemic change in the culture of Amazon.

So the only way we're going to get that, and it's been proven, the only way we get that if we all collectively make some noise or we make some type of advocacy against the company. Other than that, Amazon continues to profit off of people. They continue to operate the way they want to do because that's the only way Jeff Bezos continues to be the richest man in the world. What was your response when you found out that after trying to organize to protect people from COVID, that the reason you were ostensibly being fired was for not taking COVID protocols seriously? I knew day one that, you know, that was a lie. You know, how can I, the one person that was raised concerns, be the one violating the policy? That didn't never make

sense to me. And then it's been proven already. Even with the lawsuit that I currently have with the attorney state general's office. You know, two H.R. reps came out and said that they never agreed with my termination. I should have never been terminated. It was never justified. It was never explained to me in depth the policies. So legally, I'm hoping to be vindicated as well. as well. And I always knew from day one that they was targeting me because out of 5,000 people in that building, I was maybe the second or third person to be put on quarantine. So you're telling me out of everybody else that was in the offices with me, that was in the cafeteria with me, off the clock, all the people I've been around, even the people in the office, I'm the only one that need to be on quarantine, nobody else. So it was definitely a red flag from day one. And I stand on my ground,

you know, that they use that against me to stop me from spreading the message of safety. So let's talk about Bessemer because you've been down there, right? You've been talking to people in Alabama. What is, obviously we just had this sort of disappointing vote, but can you talk a little bit about what you learned being down there, what you heard directly from the workers at that facility? A lot of misinformation. The workers were definitely misinformed. They were brainwashed, so to speak, put into four classrooms a day in one shift. Amazon put them in four classrooms, broke them down into groups of 20 and even smaller groups of that drilling nothing but non-facts about the union into their heads.

They were told that they were going to go on some type of immediate strike and lose months of pay. They were handed out items like, you know, pens for their shirts, stickers for their cars. So the most important thing I realized that they were still hiring the entire time. They never stopped hiring. Some of the workers I spoke to were only there for two or three weeks. They haven't even received a ballot. And if they did, they didn't know what the hell was going on. So there was a lot of ways Amazon was union busting that is yet known to the public. I'm talking to workers, the list goes on and on. You know, you say that there's union busting going on and people say, oh, it must be exaggerating.

Oh, they must not be really putting people into rooms and lying to them. That can't really be going on. Right now, it is not illegal for a company to have mandatory meetings where they give the company line on the union. Can you talk a little bit about what they actually say in those meetings about where union dues goes, what happens in a strike? Can you just talk a little bit more about that? When I was walking the building, I actually found the pamphlet. It's called Do It Without Dues. They made a website, doitwithoutdues.com. I don't know if it's still up there. I believe they got some scrutiny behind it and took it down, but I found the paper and that's what they were drilling to them. Basically telling them that they're going to lose $500, a big chunk of their pay when they sign up,

which is untrue. The $500 is union dues, but it's for the annual cost of how much it will cost. So it's really substantially nothing coming out of your check a month. And that money is going towards, if there is some type of strike that you would like to take place in, that's the money that will be supporting the workers. And then so, as far as information that I found out about what Amazon was giving the workers, it was just the same thing. The same things you heard on the reports, that the union is not good. It's not going to represent the workers. The union doesn't pay as well, which is just not true. Unionized workers make roughly $11,000 or

$12,000 more than ununionized workers. And that is a fact. So they were just telling them all types of things, especially putting fear into them about their pay. And that's the biggest thing that doesn't sit well with workers in Alabama, a right to work state, a state that has no state minimum, they could pay below the minimum wage. That didn't sit well the most. the minimum wage, that didn't sit well the most. Organizers were talking to workers outside the facility at a stoplight. And then what happened? Somehow, someway, the city came and just changed that, changed the stoplights,

came up with a bogus excuse why. They claimed that there was a number of accidents and they needed to, I guess, address these accidents by changing stoplights time. No, there was a police presence at every entrance. When you go down to the building, there's about three entrances to the building and they had a police SUV, whether it was a regular police vehicle or unmarked vehicle at the top of the entrance, literally monitoring what seems to be the organizers. literally monitoring what seems to be the organizers, you know, just in case they stepped on the property or from what the workers were being sold. If they do stop to talk to an organizer now, they're going to be terminated. They're being targeted and terminated. So that's the fear. Even if it wasn't true, the rumors that spread like that still puts doubt and fear into workers. And they literally, when they pulled up to the stoplight,

they kept their face forward. They didn't even turn to the side. They were frightened to even look at us. Right. Because they don't know when they're being seen, right? That's the question is like, when are people being monitored? We don't know, right? It's not whether or not it's true. There's a fear that given how monitored the employees are when they're on the premises, given how much surveillance there is, how much tracking there is on the phones at where they are. But there's a fear that if they're even seen being part of this process, there'll be a bogus excuse for why all of a sudden they're not getting promoted or they're getting fired. Absolutely. At the beginning of the organizing drive, you know, at first the union just hands out cards to everybody and says, would you be

interested in just having this conversation, some version of that? And there was a big response that said yes. Then the organizing campaign and then the anti-organizing campaign takes place, and you end up with this really disappointing outcome. What have you learned about how to do this better the next time, given how big a defeat this turned out to be? I mean, just how lopsided the outcome turned out to be. Yeah, several things I took away. Misopportunities, I like to call them. Number one, we got to think about this. This building's only been around for a little bit over a year.

So how much worker influence do the workers that they even had to even get that initial vote have over other individuals? I'm not too sure if it was a lot. Now they were able to get to the union vote, but from what I've heard, half of the people that signed the initial cards got fired. So you lost 50% of the people right there. And that proves it. They needed 3,000 to get to the vote and they fired 1,500. Now you're only left with 1,500 up until the ballot closed. Only 3000 members out of 6000 participated, right? So 50% of that, and then you take, you know, the union busting and the brainwashing and everything else that gets you your results right there. So what I took away is they didn't make it really

intergenerational to me. I know the politicians and celebrities went down there. You got to think about this. There's different age brackets that work at Amazon, 18, 19, 20 years old. Do they know who Nina Turner is, who Bernie Sanders is, who Danny Glover? No, these are prominent people, but at the same time, Amazon workers do not come home and get on the media like we do. You know, they're not in tune with what's going on with the controversy surrounding Amazon. These people work 10, 11, 12 hours. They come home to their families and they're dog tired. They're going to eat dinner, take a shower and probably go to sleep and rinse and repeat to get ready for work the next day. They're not really hearing the outside noise too much. As much as we think that they are, that doesn't really resonate

to them. You can bring down a president himself. That doesn't mean that it would have reached the mass inside that facility, which we've seen when Bernie Sanders went down there and still only a handful of workers showed up. So that tells you right there that they've never had enough workers influence. You know, that plays a huge difference when you have a building that's fairly new compared to a building that's been around, you know, two, three years, four years. These workers are more seasoned and these workers, they want some change. They know how to avoid getting terminated. The workers that just got hired at Bessemer, they didn't know what they were getting themselves into. So a lot of them didn't make it within that year. They got terminated right away. Amazon ultimately defeated them. So how do you apply that? What happens next?

Where do you go? What's the best route to have a more successful organizing drive or to make change happen in some of these facilities? Well, I can tell you now, this is what we're doing right now in New York. We're absolutely trying to unionize my former facility. I'm working with an amazing group of people right now. What we're going to do is keep it worker-led. When I mean worker-led, not saying that RWDSU didn't do that, but what we mean is we're going independent route. We're going to build a union from the workers. Let the workers build this union to feel more comfortable with coming forward to sign up for it. Sometimes unions obviously have a bad rep or bad taste. Of course, it's only 6% of unionized workers here in the States. So having that conversation is very

difficult. But if you have a conversation with a worker coming from an Amazon worker, it makes the conversation easier because we can absolutely relate. We've been a part of the machine. So this union drive that we're planning to do, the differences and the advantages that we're in New York, which is a union state. And then on top of that, we're having workers lead this union drive, creating their own union, which makes the conversation a lot less strenuous and a lot easier to connect with workers there. If you got Jeff Bezos on the phone, what would you want him to know about the experience of being a worker at an Amazon facility that you think that he is not respecting, not understanding? I would rather have lunch with him at the warehouse so he can

experience what it is to actually make a profit. I will actually put him in path, we like to say. As a supervisor, we used to say, put him in path. And that's what I would do with Jeff Bezos. I would say, you know what? You get on station and you pack these boxes for the next 10 hours. Or you pick these items, which they're subjected to pick 4000 items, 5000 items a day. And then tell me how you feel at the end of the day. I guarantee Jeff Bezos wouldn't even last an hour. That is the God honest truth. He won't even last one hour doing what we do every day in these warehouses. So that's what I would tell him. You understand that workers' voices matter. We're making a profit. We're making you the richest man in the world. At the end of the day, you need to protect

us and take care of us. And if you're not going to do that, then we need to unionize. We need to have a toll on your body, and mentally being put in the station for 10 hours, 11 hours, 12 hours. It's like solitary confinement, and especially when you only have a 15-minute break and a 30-minute lunch. It's just not fair to us. So there's something that needs to be done. What can people who are listening to this do to be supportive of the organizing that you're doing? Well, yeah, New York for sure. Once the campaign go up, we're going live with it starting actually this week coming

up. It's going to be called AmazonLaborUnion.org, the website, Amazon Labor Union on Twitter. Get involved. Follow us. We already have a good following now. We definitely going to need support when it comes to donations. And if you're on the ground in New York and like to volunteer, we're going to have some volunteer opportunities, whether it's phone banking, talking to workers at

their home, home calls, or coming out to the site with me. I'm going to be out there myself, physically handing out union cards to workers. If you would like to get involved, reach out to me and we'll make a schedule for you to get out there and connect with workers. We want to get this building unionized so that, you know, it uplift the spirits again, because I know everybody's, you know, feeling down after Alabama, but we're here to say that we're not going to give up and we're going to try right here at our home base. Thank you so much to Chris Smalls for joining us. When we come back. We play a game to mark Earth Day. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. Earth Day, the Earth's birthday. Maybe that's true. Maybe it isn't. Either way,

it's the perfect time to talk about Elon Musk's second favorite planet. Earth Day is a chance to focus on the need to address the unfolding threat of climate change. For most of us who aren't in the pocket of big oil or big pillow, the first step involves posting a tweet or a lawn sign that says, in this house we believe in science. This got us wondering, how much do we believe in science anyway? And isn't science less about belief and more about subjecting all claims to an iterative process of learning and revising and correcting infused with a spirit of curiosity and humility

in the hopes of creating more and more accurate models to describe the world around us, which help us shape and predict outcomes in the service of human flourishing? Isn't it dangerous? Joshua, who's our guest today. Hi, Josh. Hi, how's it going? Do we go by Josh? Is it okay?

Yeah, Josh is fine. Great. Just felt so formal to say the full name, the Joshua. Don't you think it's dangerous, Joshua, when people say, I believe in science, that they make it kind of an identity? Yeah. You know, Republicans complain about identity politics, but the real identity politics around things like claiming climate change isn't really, you know? No, absolutely. I teach fifth grade right now, and the number one thing we're working with our students is it doesn't really matter what you believe. You have to be able to prove it.

Exactly, Josh. Sure for Joshua. In an effort to better understand the science in which we all love to believe, it's time for a game we're calling She Blinded Me With Belief in Science. Here's how it works. I'm going to read you a question about somebody that ostensibly believes in science, and your job will be to figure out what the correct answer is. Are you ready?

Absolutely. Earlier this week, famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted, the good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it. One response came as follows. Nope, science itself isn't true. It's a constantly refining process used to uncover truths based in material reality, and that process is still full of mistakes. Who is responsible for this insight? Is it A, Elon Musk? Is it B, the official verified account for Steak'Em, the frozen

food brand? Is it C, Lil Nas X? The tweet was followed by a quote tweet that said, stream Montero. Is it D, Ted Cruz, who we hate even more when he makes a good point? The tweet was followed by a quote tweet that said, Oh, God. I've listened to a lot of your episodes, and I'm just feeling like you're going to make me enjoy Ted Cruz for a minute. Just out of spite. I'm going with Ted Cruz. Incorrect. It was Steakums.

The brand went on to say, Neil just posts ridiculous soundbites like this for clout and he has no respect for epistemology. It's 2021, Josh. So even our moments of genuine lucidity are resting on a foundation of nonsense. Also, just so you understand, Stakehams always misspells words

that have steak or meat in them. So when it tweets mistakes, it spells it M-I-S-T-E-A-K-S, like stakes. You understand, Josh? I think that's on brand. I'd have no respect if they weren't so consistent. Next question. In 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren

and Senator Bernie Sanders both had tweets that contained the words, I believe in science. Warren has proposed that the U.S. start weaning itself off nuclear energy, and Bernie Sanders has called for banning it outright. What does the IPCC, the internationally accepted scientific authority on climate change, have to say about the role of nuclear energy in staving off catastrophic global warming? Is it A? In a 2018 report, the IPCC outlined 85 different possible pathways we can take

to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. None of the pathways had zero nuclear energy by 2030 or 2050. Is it B, the IPCC said that without nuclear energy, we'd have to make the windmills bigger so that each one is about the size of the Statue of Liberty. It's doable, but kind of a pain in the ass. Is it C, official IPCC recommendations include nuclear plants in all major cities, complete with renderings that look eerily like the nuclear plant Homer Simpson works at? Or is it D, halfway through the IPCC report, the text slowly unwinds into a kind of free verse poem about one

dying tree begging for help, never mentioning nuclear power, but spending several stanzas on the hubris of believing that the only kind of consciousness that exists is human consciousness. Hi. Oh my God, I think D is a phenomenal answer, but I'm gonna go with A on this one. There's no path without it. You got it.

Awesome. There's no path without it. It's, well, or at least it's very, very difficult to imagine doing this without nuclear power. Next question. A 2020 survey from the Shelton Group found that Americans trust scientists more than almost anyone else, including the press, corporations, Congress, schools, and churches. What were the results of a 2020 survey by Pew Research Center

asking Americans if they thought dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress? Is it A, 93% of adults thought climate change should be a priority for the government? Is it B, the responses were about evenly split between it should be a top priority for the president but non-Congress, and it should be a top priority for Congress but not the president? Is it C, 52% of all adults, about half, said they thought dealing with climate change should be a top priority for both? Or is it D, only 38% of those surveys thought it should be a priority, while 61% said their top priority was stopping partisanship

and restoring civility in the discourse. Oh, God. Is it a very depressing D? No, it's slightly less depressing. It's C, only 52%. It was 29% in 2013. So we've now crested that about half believe it should be a priority, but that's still not where it should be if people really trusted science. Not great. That's absolutely awful.

Yes, it is, Josh. Thank you. Next, final question. In 2017, Elon Musk tweeted a quote attributed to former president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The quote is, if one day my words are against science, choose science. Which of the following are words Elon Musk used against science since that was posted? Is it A, in March of 2020, as companies were starting to shift to remote work, Musk tweeted, the coronavirus panic is dumb. Is it B, he tweeted, based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in the US byS. by the end of April. Is it C? He tweeted misinformation about rapid antigen tests and said he will not be vaccinated.

Or is it D? Anything, literally anything, related to the Hyperloop. This feels like an all of the above one. Josh, you got it. You cracked it. Awesome. You cracked it. You got it.

Josh, you've won the game. Woo! Thank you for believing in not believing, but still respecting the scientific endeavor. You bring that energy to your, you talk about that with your, you teach that. Yeah. You're the expert.

I believe in two things, John. I believe in science and you. Oh, oh my God. Let's get the, I gotta get out of here. Get him out of here. He's pandering, all right, which we like, but in small doses. Great job, Josh. You won the game. It seems like those kids are in good hands with a great teacher. When we come back, we'll end

on a high note. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Because we all need it this week, here it is, the high note. Hello, Nicole from Boston here. And my high note of the week is that my mom just wrapped up her last round of chemotherapy. We found out a few months before the pandemic that her leukemia had returned for a third time. So after a very stressful year of going in and out of the hospital several times a month during a pandemic with a weakened immune system and infection prone lungs, we are very, very happy that it's over. She made it. She got her second shot of the vaccine last week,

and we're hoping we'll get the cancer-free news in the coming weeks. And, yeah, we're just really excited to finally start returning to normal. Thanks for everything you do. Bye. Hi, Lovett. This is Elizabeth in Austin, Texas, and my high note for the week and for the past 14 months is my girlfriend. She's made me laugh every single day and has also managed to finish her degree and is about to graduate and become a middle school science teacher.

She listens to Love It or Leave It, too, and I'm just so glad she's a nerdy VA with me. Hey, Love It. I just listened to your high notes, and Valerie, although her high note made me cry, actually gave me hope anyway. So, yeah, my high note for this week is one of the high notes on the show. That and listening to you and Emily Eller, who really you two twins separated at first. So good. So funny. And so I can say with confidence that I laughed and I cried. All righty. you two twins separated at first. So good. So funny.

And so I can say with confidence that I laughed and I cried. All righty. Happy almost end of it all. Take care. Hi, John. This is Mitzi. I'm in San Antonio. And my high note this week

is that the monarch butterflies have come through our neighborhood here in San Antonio, Texas. They laid a bunch of eggs on our newly planted milkweed, and right now we have about two dozen big fat caterpillars munching through some more milkweed in a specially built enclosure in the front yard, and we're going to watch them as, keep them safe from predators,

and we're going to watch them form chrysalis and change into butterflies and release them into the wild so that monarchs are protected. Thank you so much to everybody who called in. They have been so moving. Obviously, there are the incredibly personal stories that people have been sharing, like new smoothie recipes. I was really grateful for that one last week. That was the one that really got me to tear up. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope,

call us at 213-262-4427. Thank you to Lori Kilmartin, Guy Branum, Chris Smalls, and everyone who called in. There are 570 days until the 2022 midterm elections. Have a great weekend. and 70 days until the 2022 midterm elections. Have a great weekend. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production.

It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Ryan Woodruff, and Lee Eisenberg. Jocelyn Kaufman, Pola Viganolin, and Peter Miller are the writers. Our associate producer is Brian Semel. Bill Lance is our editor, and Kyle Seglin is our sound engineer. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean and Jamie Skeel for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast.

And to our digital producers, Nar Melkonian, Milo Kim and Matt DeGroote for filming and editing video each week so that you can.