Lovett or Leave It - Scrutiny on the Bounty

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

Emily Heller returns for our July 4th episode and agrees NOT to discuss gardening. Hari Kondabolu joins to talk about Hollywood's response to mounting protests, from voice casting on the Simpsons to the defense of hacky stand up. Epidemiologist Dr. Anne W. Rimoin explains the latest on mounting cases of coronavirus and what happens next. And listeners test out their political jokes on Lovett and Emily.

Welcome to the 17th episode of Love It or Leave It's back in the closet He's back Love's back in the closet Oh, he's back He's back in the closet Love is back He's back in the closet Don't you know

John's back He's back in the closet Don't you know John's back He's back in the closet He's back in the closet Don't you know John's back He's back in the closet That song, that incredible song, was sent in by Andrew Saunders. Thank you so much, Andrew, for sending that in. We want to use a new one each week.

If you want to make one, send it to hey at crooked.com, and maybe we'll use yours. We've gotten way more than we can use. They are incredible. We're thinking about some sort of way to share a compilation, which may, I don't know, achieve a narcissism supernova. But if we can avoid that, we'll try to share some more of them because they've been so incredible.

Before we get to the show, also, adopt a state. Our trainings are over. You can still watch them on YouTube. But the work has officially begun. If you head over to votesaveamerica.com slash volunteer, you can find calls to action like phone banking, text banking, letter writing, and more that you can do from home at any time. And I know that a lot of you have nothing calls to action like phone banking text banking letter writing and more that you can do from home at any time and i know that a lot of you have nothing better to do so go to votesaveamerica.com volunteer and please please please sign up later in the show we'll be joined

by hari kondabalu and ucla epidemiologist dr ann ramoyne but first she's an award-winning writer comedian host of the podcast baby Geniuses, returning champion, Emily Heller. Hi, John. How are you? It is so lovely to see you. Now, just like last year, Emily is here to mark the 4th of July with us, but it's under one condition.

Right. Emily has agreed, she has agreed in advance to forego Emily's garden show because we both felt that the bit has kind of run its course i so none of all of this is new information to me and i'm using the word information very loosely but because it is fourth of july very important holiday in politics or whatever it's your show i'm tentatively agreeing. I'm agreeing now. I'm agreeing. Yeah, we're not we're not we're not doing it. We're doing the other thing. So for all the garden show fans or Heller's angels, as we as we call them, no garden show this week. I hope you understand. Thank you, Emily, for your graciousness. As always,

you are sort of welcome. All right, let's get into it. What a week. On Sunday, Mississippi passed a bill to ditch its current state flag, which is the last in the country to include the Confederate battle emblem. July 4th marks exactly 157 years to the day, Emily, that Confederate troops began their retreat from Gettysburg while in Mississippi on that same day, July 4th, 1863, Confederate General John C. Pemberton surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg, helping to return control of the Mississippi River to the Union.

I think that Lincoln said something like the father of waters is no longer vexed or something like that in a very Lincoln-esque way. He called the Mississippi the father of waters. Now, Emily, I don't have a joke about this history, but I do think it's amazing to be so racist. You make your flag a symbol of military prowess for an army that only existed long enough to fight and lose one war. That's it. And your flag is that. It would be as if Sega's flag had the dreamcast on it you know what i mean but racist yeah it's like being like i am a huge paul mccartney fan but only wings like not the beatles like yeah it's just like you're not a patriot if your favorite part of

America is a part that's was barely around and evil this week like wings the wings as the Beatles confederacy is gonna get like if if they're I do think fortunately the Venn diagram of wings fans fans and Love It or Leave It listeners is probably not enough overlap that I think we'll get away with it. Yeah. I mean, I will say that analogy might have been better if I could name at least one Wings song. I can't either. Whoops.

Leave that air in there. Leave that air in there. This week, Liz Cheney tweeted a photo of her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, wearing a face mask along with the caption, hashtag real men wear masks. There's a lot to unpack there. First, when someone says real men, it is either a Facebook meme like real men don't eat vegan, they shoot vegans, you know, as a stand in for like a physical feat of strength or an act of like traditional bravery that they don't get to perform because

you don't get to do that sort of thing when you live in the excerpts and you're a baby boomer. But but it's also sometimes subverting the form and says something like real men are tough enough to weep at the end of 1987's Batteries Not Included and see women as equals. That's what real men do. But Emily, I am always obsessed with anything about real men because it's always predicated on this cultural assumption that there are male qualities and that they are good. They're strong and brave and resolute and gritty. Because if you said the phrase real women wear masks,

there wouldn't be a logic to it, even if you were trying to subvert the expectation. No, it would make me think that it was some kind of weird, like JK Rowling controversy that I hadn't kept up with. Right. But no, yeah. I mean, it's exclusively used to appeal to men who are concerned about whether

or not they're real men, which is fundamentally a group that I have no interest in appealing to. Like, you should want to be a fake man. It sounds fun. Yeah. Like, fake men wear masks, too. Everyone should wear masks. Like, whether you're real or fake, wear a mask.

Right. The coronavirus doesn't know how many male archetypes you try to adhere to in creating your personality yes exactly and i mean i live in la so like i need the fake people to wear masks too otherwise we're not going to get our numbers high enough that's right right like i would say like the quintessential fake man according to this way of thinking is like skinny jeans and like we've got a lot i wear them myself you know i'm a fake man yeah i'm the least real man i know this statement the like real men wear masks it's for people who are like i don't want to wear a mask because i'm a man right it looks silly it doesn't seem like a man thing to do like i hope that that works on them right but i also I also, I just have a really hard

time putting myself in the mindset of someone who thinks it's manly to show the bottom half of your face. Well, it's, it's, you know, I'm, I have the same sort of conflict about it too, because like, obviously like Trump is projecting and like there, there, there was a lot of, uh, um, sort of propaganda is projecting the idea that like if you're tough and love freedom, you won't give in to the sheep and you won't wear a mask. And so there is, I guess, some value. Like, I'm glad Dick Cheney did this with a mask. It's better he do this than, say, bomb civilians. Yeah.

You know, so it's, you know, in terms of the things he likes to do in terms of his public profile. So, like, I'm like glad Dick Cheney is doing something like this. And there must clearly be some value to like appealing, like, we need the men who care about being real men who might be vulnerable to the propaganda saying it's weak to wear a mask, to kind of change that mindset and say, you know, Connie Schultz, who's a columnist, was on the show. And she was talking about the fact that being afraid of seeming weak by not wearing a mask is weakness. That strength is of ignoring this kind of silly stereotype. But there's still some value right now and playing into the stereotype to get people to wear the mask. Right. Yeah. Like

I'm not going to count on men's security in their masculinity to save me from the coronavirus because that's just not a safe bet um that being said dick cheney as the messenger like he's not a charisma guy he's not the guy who we're like now that's a real man no that's a real man behind the man george w bush wore a cowboy hat so that dick cheney could do all the evil stuff he wanted to do. Like, we need George W. Bush to wear a mask. It also speaks to just how terrible Trump is, that he's so abdicated any kind of moral leadership that people like Dick Cheney can step into the void. Oh, my God. Yeah.

He's just having a field day, like all of a sudden having some kind of moral leg up on anyone. So it does seem that on this one occasion, Dick Cheney had his heart in the right place, which is weird because in the operating room, Cheney's surgeon put his heart in the wrong place and yet Cheney survived. And when the baffled surgeon tried to get help, Dick Cheney grabbed his hand and pulled him in tight, even as the machine's flat line and steady tone seems to suggest that Cheney's heart wasn't even beating.

And he whispered in the surgeon's ears, my master isn't done with me yet. And he's not done with you either. How'd you get that transcript? Despite being developed with the help of at least $70 million in public money, pharma company Gilead Sciences announced it would charge over $3,000 per patient for the coronavirus treatment remdesivir. I think this is ridiculous. At that price, you might as well spend the extra $200 for Remdesivir Pro, which comes in space gray and includes a three-month trial of Quibi with ads.

Very good. And also very bad. It's so depressing to think about that. Yeah, it is. So they announced two prices, right? They announced the federal government price for federal insurance, and that's like $2,000 or something like that, above $2,000, but something like that. And then they announced the insurance company price, which is more, because the federal government can negotiate for a lower rate. And then, of course, in their PR materials, they say, but don't worry, it saves a hospital $10,000 or whatever it is so that they

can justify the price. But you know that basically the conversation internally is they have a bunch of quants or whoever kind of crunch the numbers and figure out the most they could possibly charge for it. Right. And then there's a PR meeting where they're like, can you please lower this number? And so they do all the work to come up with like an argument for the number. And then a bunch of PR people are, if you make it lower, we'll survive. Please, please, whatever you like. It's like it's they want to charge as much as they can get away with without it becoming such a big scandal that they can't survive it. And it's so annoying that there are people who know how to do that math. I really feel like them charging that much money after using 70 million dollars of federal assistance to do that math. I really feel like them charging that much money after using $70 million

of federal assistance to do the research. It's like someone paying for their kid to go to like NYU drama and then the kid asking their parents after they graduate to kick into their Kickstarter so they can make a short film. It's like, no, I've funded your dream enough. Like, how dare you? Three grand. It should be free. It should be free. It should be free. Well, quite a system we built. Also this week, local also this week, local experts criticized President Trump's planned fireworks display over Mount Rushmore due to the risk of coronavirus and the risk of wildfire because of a drought in the surrounding forest. So just for those keeping score at home, pestilence and fire represent two of the four horsemen

of the apocalypse. Not bad for your first term. Trump 2020, don't change horsemen of the apocalypse in midstream. That's my new slogan. What are the other two horsemen? Well, it's a little bit complicated and i don't consider myself a scholar of revelation but then i am leaving the podcast there's the pale horse which is i think conquest pestilence then there's the red horse the fire horse which is war there's the black horse which

is death and i don't remember the fourth horse but I feel pretty good about knowing the fourth one's the Samantha uh we're we're hearing the fourth the fourth one is famine so no never mind that's a charlotte oh my god which one do you which one do you identify with? Me, I'm like, everyone thinks they're a pestilence, but I know I'm a death. You're being such, you're being such a pale horse right now. Bring your real pale horse energy to this. Also on Monday, Reddit announced that they would be banning the Donald Trump supporter community, The Donald, over hate speech violations. And Reddit also announced they would be banning the subreddit for Chapo Trap House and Elizabeth Warren fansite. California Governor Gavin Newsom ordered Los Angeles and six other counties to close down all bars due to the spread of COVID-19. Governor Newsom said,

Sorry, when I said bars could reopen, I totally forgot about Corona. Man, this pandemic is scary. Makes me nervous. And when I'm nervous, nothing relaxes me like a drink at my favorite neighborhood watering hole. I miss that place. That gives me an idea. Let's open the bars. What a mess. What a mess. Absolute mess. I picture, I just like was picturing like cheers and like Cliff at the bar being like, I don't know, Sammy. I can't do the voice. I don't know, Sammy.

It's 5G. Cliff's like, it's the 5G. Sammy, it's the 5G. It's a conspiracy. We don't need the masks. And then Ted Danson is like, I don't know about that, Cliff. I think we should listen to Fauci. And then Rita Perlman says, if I have to work in the mask, you have to wear the mask or I'll pummel you so hard you'll wish you had the virus.

And everybody laughs. And then Frasier and Diane donate to the Lincoln Project. And then Ted Danson is like, hey, do me a favor. Can you remind me to not wear a black face? At some point in the future, I'm going to want to do it. And I'm going to think it's OK because Whoopi Goldberg is around. But it's not. And I should just not do it. But can we also talk about how Norm would have a mask that has a hole in it for him to drink beer?

Yes, definitely. Massive news broke over the weekend that a Russian intelligence agency offered bounties to the Taliban in exchange for killing American soldiers, and that the Trump administration has known since at least March and perhaps longer. However, President Trump claims he wasn't aware. And honestly, Emily, I believe him, because if he knew about the bounties, where's his cut? I mean, he might have one that he also doesn't know about. That's the next revelation. I do feel like it's like a decent defense that like if he was told about it in writing, I believe that he didn't know about it. Like the fact of whether it was told to him out loud when he could have maybe

heard it but not processed it because it didn't confirm his priors or it was in a piece of writing which he wouldn't have read because he doesn't read or it was never brought to his attention, it doesn't actually matter because the truth is he should have been informed and any system that didn't inform him was broken. And if it is broken, it is because over the last three years, he so thoroughly abused the system that bad news around Russia, when it's so important to him that he build this relationship and be obsequious to Russia, doesn't filter up to him. And one thing we've learned over the last three years, too, is that a whole kind of ad hoc system has evolved around Trump, even around the Ukraine issue, right? There was that famous story about

how around a meeting with the president around the Ukraine issue, there was this side meeting that took place, I believe, in like the White House mess or in the room next door to the White House mess, where they had the other conversation, because you have to have the real conversations when Trump isn't in the room because he's completely non inquisitive, totally ignorant of the facts and just spouts off and doesn't listen or learn anything. And regardless of what actually happened with the specific information here, it's just a clear indication of how dangerous it is to have someone this fucking stupid and ignorant and and captured by Russia in the job.

Yeah, there's 10 different versions of it being his fault. There's no version of it not being his fault. Right, right. Republicans responded. John Cornyn, senator from Texas, said, It doesn't surprise me that the Russians are trying to help the Taliban kill Americans. I mean, we've known that for a long time. So it's just like kind of boring to him. It's truly one of the most despicable revelations in an era defined by despicable

revelations. And I just, I don't really have a joke about it. I just think we need to retain the memory of how pathetic these Republicans were in response to a story about the president of the United States disregarding the deaths, the murders of Americans while doing less than nothing, while actually rewarding the bad behavior of the country that was killing our people. And they will look the other way. And I just I know that our our the outrage shelves in our hearts are full. There is no more room to squeeze in books, but we need to make room. That's all. Yeah. We need to do some creative interior design to squeeze some more books on that shelf. Whenever a Republican says something like, well, we already knew about that. And like,

it's something that we've known about for a long time. It's like not a big deal. I just want to be like, just out of curiosity, are there other things that you've known for a long time that you want to tell me about now? Like, just because, like, your version of what's a notable piece of information and mine are different, can we just, like, stuff you think maybe I don't need to know, could you just tell me that stuff now? Also on Monday, the Supreme Court overturned a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana with Trump appointees Gorsuch and Kavanaugh seeking to reject president and keep the anti-choice law on the books. This is exactly what Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Kavanaugh promised not to do. But to be fair to Susan Collins, she was full of shit at the time. You have to take that into account. You have to account for the fact that she was full of shit at the fucking time. Yeah. She was a product of her time, which was two years ago, and people were really full of

shit back then. And so you just sort of have to weigh that when you're holding people up to the standards of today. Late 2018, like people don't really remember. It's amazing how quickly we forget the culture of late 2018. Right. Yes. And just as a reminder, if you want to make sure that Susan Collins pays a price for putting

Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, you can go to votesaveamerica.com slash get Mitch. All right. And help make sure that she faces a well-funded opponent who has a real chance of winning. So let's, you know, let's. Let's get her out of there. Let's get her. Let's get her out of there. All right.

I'm sick of Susan Collins to me is somebody next to Jack and Rose on the Titanic as it's vertical and going into the water and says, I'm getting to be a bit concerned that this ship might sink. But also she voted for the iceberg. Right. And also, right. Right. She was like, the iceberg promised me it would leave the boat alone.

Yeah. And finally, the Supreme Court also ruled that parts of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were unconstitutional in particular around the way

its leadership is appointed and can therefore remain independent from the president, which only means one thing. The Supreme Court's taken on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Time for Elizabeth Warren

to suit up and smother another Supreme Court justice. Is this a rumor we're starting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? A lot of people talk about change. We're suggesting she smothered Antonin Scalia. That's what we're suggesting inside of that joke. Obviously a joke. I think she's capable of it for sure. I mean, she looks strong enough. She's very, you know, she's a little bit older, but I think her arms could do it.

Yeah, and I think it's like, you know, 10% perspiration, 90% inspiration, right? They say that about smothering Supreme Court justices in their sleep. It's one of those old, old chestnuts. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, look, they say,

what is it? Reach for the stars. You may miss, but you'll still smother a Supreme Court justice. Yeah. You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take at smothering a Supreme Court justice in their sleep. Let's make sure we just leave this on the podcast and not video. I think on video, this will look worse. Yeah.

All right, Emily, thank you for joining for the monologue. You're going to stick her. She's going to stick around. So don't worry. You don't have to think about Emily. Emily's agreed to be here because it's July 4th and it's part of a tradition.

But when we come back, I talked to Dr. Ann Ramon. She's an epidemiologist at UCLA. And we had a really good conversation about where the virus is now and what we can each do in our lives and what happens next. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. She's an infectious disease epidemiologist, a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and the director of the Center for Global and Immigrant Health, Anne Ramoyne. Thank you for being here.

Oh, it's my pleasure. So let's start with what's happening right now. You know, I think everybody's been seeing these charts that show cases in Europe declining, cases in Canada declining, and then you look at the U.S. chart and you see cases rising. The coronavirus seems to have taken hold outside of the places where it was first really exploding in the U.S., places like L.A., New York, Seattle, and now seems to be across the South. What is going on and what, to your mind, explains the continued rise of cases? Well, you know, the rise in cases is to be expected as we're seeing things open up. We've had loosening of restrictions. We've had

Memorial Day. We had Father's Day. We had protests. We had all these opportunities where people were not social distancing, very often not wearing masks, and creating the perfect situation for the virus to start spreading among people who haven't been infected. The fact of the matter is most of us are still not immune to this virus or have any kind of immunity to this virus. And so it makes perfect sense that we're going to be seeing increasing cases when we see people getting back together. Earlier in the year, there was this moment where masks were for health professionals and that idea took hold. And then we said, wait, hold on a second. We're talking too much about surfaces. We're talking too much about objects. Masks are the thing. It's all about masks. Like, am I interpreting that correctly? Has there been a real shift in

caring about masks versus caring about wiping down your groceries? What we understand about the virus now and how it spreads and how easily it spreads from person to person from droplet now really indicates that we should all be wearing masks. This is a new virus to humanity. And I know that people say this all the time. It's a new virus to humanity. We're just trying to understand what it means. And so recommendations are changing as we learn more. We now have evidence that the virus is spread person to person and that masks work. I think that people are not used to thinking about how scientists look at data, how we always want to be able to be sure

that we're making recommendations based on science and the science just wasn't there at the time. I mean, I will say it does make common sense. You put on a mask, it reduces spread of the virus, but we didn't have data. We hadn't had studies. We didn't really look at it in this way to be sure. Now we're sure. Masks do work. They make a difference. They could potentially reduce the vast majority of transmission in this country. It would be the door to opening up again. So yes, it's changed. It's very, very confusing to people. It's frustrating to people to think that maybe we could have done this sooner than before. But, you know, we've now been saying for many weeks that masks do make a difference. The problem is when you have all these mixed messages, politics gets right in the middle of it and makes it even more confusing for everybody.

This is a dumb question. This isn't a public policy question. It's just a question about what we should be doing as individuals. Are people still getting it from objects? Is that still part of it? Do we need to worry about surfaces or was that wrong? Like if I get delivery food or if I go to a coffee shop and get a coffee or I go buy something at a supermarket, do I need to worry about someone else having touched that object or was that the wrong thing to focus on? Well, this isn't a dumb question at all. It's a question that everybody's asking. Thank you. The fact of the matter is that everybody has lots of questions. How do I prevent getting this virus?

How do I prevent spreading this virus? And we're all still really trying to understand the nuances of it. The fact of the matter is you can get it from inanimate objects, from things that maybe somebody else has coughed on, sneezed on, wiped their nose, and then opened the doorknob. I mean, these are very traditional ways that respiratory pathogens and other pathogens spread. So it's not that it isn't possible, it is possible, but it's less likely to get it from that mode of transmission than it is just from somebody breathing near you. So the recommendations have changed. They're not saying that it is impossible to get it from inanimate objects. It's just less likely.

And the primary mode of transmission is person-to-person, being near somebody who is talking or breathing next to you, and able to transmit the virus. who is talking or breathing next to you and able to transmit the virus. So that's why good hand hygiene is still really important here. It's just not the if we had to rank them, the first thing would be social distance. The next thing would be wearing a mask. And the third thing would be hand hygiene and making sure that your environment is clean. If we got to 100% or near 100% mask compliance, how far would that take us towards opening back up? Obviously, we wouldn't have big, giant indoor events, whether they're concerts or Trump rallies or what have you.

But even putting that aside, if we went to near 100% mask compliance, would that be enough to get society open again? How big of a difference would that make? Wearing a mask would make an enormous difference. We're now beginning to understand the implications of wearing masks and that it could prevent almost all of the spread if everybody did it. And that's the thing. You have to have really good compliance. And that's what many of these other countries have been able to do.

In Asia, we've seen this all over the place that they really were able to adopt mask wearing culture and enforce it. And here in the United States, we just have not been good at getting that message out, getting people to do this. And if we were able to have people wear masks, we would be able to return to many activities and to be able to get our economy running in a lot of ways. I mean, certainly we still need social distancing. We still need hand hygiene. We still need all of these other measures. But wearing a mask is going to be the most important blunt public health measure that would reduce spread in such a measurable way. It's the way that we get some of our normalcy back. There's a price for everything here. We've been as a society very hesitant to pay

this price of wearing a mask, which in comparison to what we're paying for the economy is so low. It might be inconvenient. It might not be as comfortable as we'd like it to be, but it would be a game changer in where we are on this virus. We're starting to see a bunch of different plans, depending on where they are in the country, about schools reopening for kids. What are you looking to see in July and August in terms of, you know, reductions in the virus to allow schools to open? And what are you sort of hoping to see schools do as they try to figure out ways to bring kids back? The schools are such a complicated question because schools are important for so many reasons.

You know, the most obvious reason, the vehicle for learning. But people depend upon schools to be able to have a place for their children to go during the day, for children to be fed. And it plays such a huge role in development, just the personal and emotional

and mental development of children. So the school issue is so complicated. The problem is we still don't really understand what transmission is like in children. We don't understand what role they're going to play in spreading it to other people. And we don't have the systems in place to be able to protect teachers and staff who may have, you know, they may be older, they may have underlying conditions. And so there's so much to think about when we think about bringing kids back to school and how we're going to manage it. And I don't think that there's going to be a one size fits all solution here. I think that they're going to have to be hybrid solutions. I think we may think of cohorting kids. We may need to think about ways of bringing in

young student aides where the older teacher may be on Zoom. We have to be creative. Life is not going back to normal right now. It's just not. We are not in a place with this virus where we can just fling the doors open and say, here we are, we're going back. We need more testing in place. If we had really good testing in place, we'd really be able to identify where the cases are. And then we need the really good contact tracing in place and being able to reach these people. And if we had all these things in place, then schools could open very safely. If we don't get our arms around this before school is starting again, we're going to have to just be very, very creative in terms of how we do it and really be measuring risk for everybody involved. So, you know, I think that this issue always comes back to the same

thing. Where's the national strategy? How are we going to be mandating testing in the country? Where is the testing capacity? Why hasn't it gotten better? You know, think about LA County, just as a perfect example. On Monday, we just had 2,903 cases reported in LA County. So let's just take that as, let's say we have 3,000 cases reported. If you're going to do contact tracing, even if it's just by telephone, that means you have 3,000 people that you have to contact that day. And let's just say that those 3,000 people had maybe an average of three contacts that they were in contact with, 15 minutes or thereabouts within six feet of contact. Then you're also going to have to call those three people. So that's already 12,000 phone calls. And then for those people who have been in contact, they all need to be monitoring their symptoms. They need to be isolating. And then if they

infect people, you're going to have to call those people. So you can see how very quickly this multiplies. So to be able to have a really good system in place, you have to have the manpower on the ground, the contact tracing. And just the other day, you know, we heard Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci saying, oh, you know, we got to start using the communities and we got to start, you know, making sure that communities are being contacted by people who really understand the community. I mean, this is like, this is not rocket science. This should have been the discussion from the very beginning. We all know it works.

It's June. It's June. It feels like you're talking, I mean, like, oh, we need to get the testing capacity up. Oh, we need to get masks to people. We need to do contact tracing. This is the conversation we have now been having since March. It's just not happening, which means it's not going to happen. So it does seem to me it's up to us at the local level without contact tracing, maybe without even sufficient testing to just mask up and protect ourselves? Mask up and protect ourselves because we can't count on the government to assist us in the way that we would have anticipated. All of us infectious disease epidemiologists, I think in modeling what was going to happen in this country, none of us

really took into account the total lack of leadership, the lack of national strategy, the lack of resources, and the toll that the defunding of health systems and our public health system, the toll that it took. Nobody really knew how bad the situation was until now. And I will say, just last week, we had the press conference conference and the two big messages is that we're going to now start looking at pooled testing. I mean, pooled testing is an old strategy. Of course we should be looking at pooled testing. What's pooled testing? So pooled testing is a strategy where you take multiple samples. So let's say you're, you're testing a hundred people. You could divide them up into groups of 10. And you take 10 people samples, and you use one test to test those 10 people. And if they're all negative, then they're

all clear. If you get a positive, then you have to parse it out and figure out who's positive and who's negative and retest those 10 people. But if you have so many negatives, then what that does is it really reduces the number of tests that you should be doing. But the problem is you can't just go ahead and just do pool testing. You have to validate the protocols. This goes back to the science and why we have to be really careful with the science, make sure it makes sense. So all of the laboratories need to be validating this protocol, make sure it works with the platform that they're working on. Why weren't people doing this from the very beginning? I don't know. I've been asking this. I've been running studies on COVID myself for the last couple of months. I keep asking people, well, why can't we do pool testing?

Well, we don't have the protocols validated yet. I mean, I think that everybody's just been so behind and we're chasing behind this virus. We're not in front of it. It's crazy. So the first press conference that we had in two months, the two takeaways were we have to do pool testing. That's like the oldest strategy in the book for doing efficient testing. We all know we should be doing pool testing and use the community for contract tracing. I mean, like these are basic public health measures. Why have we not been talking about this from the very beginning? This is just a perfect example of why things are as they are. It's June, as you said. Why are we not further along? One question about California. We've seen bars open and then bars close. How frustrating is that to you watching this unfold as an epidemiologist? Should the bars ever have been opened? Was that a mistake, obviously, from the start? Or do you understand the position that the local leadership is in between dealing with the fallout in the economy while trying to sort of control the spread of the virus?

This is always going to be a problem. It's the push and pull between public health, public safety and the economy. So I do think that we opened up too quickly because of the economy. We, you know, perhaps we're not as careful as we could have been. And sure, like, do I want to be able to go out? I think this is the thing most people don't realize. As an epidemiologist, I'm also a person, and I would love to be able to go out to dinner. I would love to be able to celebrate events.

I would love to be able to go and socialize with people. But the fact of the matter is that the virus is still spreading. to go and socialize with people. But the fact of the matter is, is that the virus is still spreading and flattening the curve was only supposed to buy us time to get our ducks in a row. And unfortunately, this time, as Joe Biden just said in his press conference, the time was squandered. We were not able to do what we needed to do to be able to prepare for an inevitable rise in cases. So yeah, I think it was unfortunate. It was too soon. And we didn't have some of the things that we needed to have in place. If you're going to open up the bars, you have to be able to ensure that people are

staying six feet apart and that everybody is wearing a mask. Unfortunately, people want to congregate at a, you know, and they want to talk to each other. It's human nature that we want to do these things. It's just the problem is, is we have this virus spreading and we don't have the contact tracing. We don't have the testing. We don't have any of the backbone. Our foundation has been rotted. And so we were literally sinking under the pressure of this virus at this point. What a hopeful note. No, it's a tragedy. It's an enormous tragedy. What would you say to people listening that are just saying, OK, I'm as angry as you are. I want to do the right thing.

What should people be doing in their day-to-day lives to be sort of good citizens, not just obviously wearing masks, but beyond that? I know that everybody feels so out of control right now and feels helpless. But we shouldn't feel hopeless because there are things that we can do. And sometimes things are, you know, they're going to get to the breaking point and then people are realizing. I think that people really are coming under the realization of what needs to be done. Wear a mask, social distance, use good hand hygiene. So I just had a big birthday and what I really wanted to do is spend it with my mom. So what I did was I quarantined for two

weeks because I really wanted to see her. I mean, mom. So what I did was I quarantined for two weeks because I really wanted to see her. I mean, I'm generally a careful person, but we all know that it just takes a very small crack in the armor here and you can potentially be infected and not know you're infected. So I was very vigilant for two weeks

and then I was able to spend my birthday with my mom and it was so worth it to me. And it was such an important moment for me and an important gesture, you know, as well that I think, you know, my mom for sure appreciated, but that I personally will always remember that, you know, I, I got to spend my birthday with my mom in the middle of the pandemic and to be close with her, but that's the deal, right? There's a price to everything. So you've got to decide what price you're willing to pay. People ask me all the time, well, can I do with my kids? Can my kids have play dates? Can we do this? Can we do that? Right now, we still don't

understand transmission between kids and what roles kids play in terms of infecting adults. So I say, listen, you have to pick what it is you want to do and figure out what your risk threshold is. So if you're going to quarantine, if you're going to be extremely careful, if you're quarantining as a family, as a group, and you're really not seeing anybody else, you're doing nothing that is going to jeopardize anybody else. And you have this social contract with those people that are in your very, very close sphere. You know, your kids can have playdates with those kids. You can do certain things, but you just have to decide what's your risk threshold. What are you willing to risk? And for me, I'm not willing to risk my mom. So I was willing to quarantine to be able to have what

I wanted, which was to spend my birthday with her. Yeah, it does seem that, you know, we went in, we, you know, especially in California, New York and and other places like that, where we made this deal. We're going to do our best. We're going to shut down the economy. We're going to really hurt people's livelihoods and businesses. People are going to lose work. We're going to really try to destroy this virus. We're going to do our part.

We did that. And the government failed to do its part. And so now I do think it's important to have these conversations because if this is going to continue for a long time, people need those outlets. They need to figure out that risk assessment, like when they can go see somebody when they can't, seeing someone outside with masks six feet apart, take the mask off, all those things. Like I do think there needs to be now the space for people to have those kind of risk assessments, because otherwise we'll just crack and we'll end up in the situation that Arizona's

in or in the situation that Florida's in where they either never took it seriously or gave up. I totally agree with you. I think that it's all a matter of what's your risk threshold? What are you willing to do? And I think that the United States is starting to understand that we do have this interdependence and that we all, you know, I said this at the very beginning, but here we go again, we need to pull together by staying apart. And I think the thing that we all have to also remember is that this is not forever this is for right now and if we can just take this you know a period of time by a period of time and really just double down do what we need to do but also really push towards getting the things that we need in place. We need the testing in place. We need the contact tracing in place. We need to have national

strategy in place. But we can all do our best by wearing masks, by staying apart and not congregating. We can make a huge difference here. Our generation and the generations before us, you know, have not had to deal with these kind of out of control scenarios where they really didn't know what the future was going to hold or how we were going to manage. And this is a real test of the generations right now and what leadership will be like in the future and what we want our future to look like. I think that this will have an imprint for a very long time. And hopefully, you know, with all the suffering and the death and the loss of jobs and the terrible consequences that we'll have, I hope we all learn our lesson that we

must all be good citizens and do our best, and that we must have safeguards in place. and do our best and that we must have safeguards in place and that, you know, a virus is just as much of a threat as anything else. You know, we've spent a lot of money on defense. It's not that defense isn't important. It is, but we also need to have defense against viruses and we are paying the price for not being well-armed against this kind of enemy. Dr. Annamoyne, thank you so much for being here. It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me. I really do appreciate it. Don't go anywhere.

This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Emily, has this ever happened to you? Back in 2016, right after Trump was elected, lots of dumb people would come up and would say things like, but he's good for comedy. Yes. And they were wrong.

It's really hard to write jokes about Donald Trump. Low hanging fruit, huh? Yeah. Fun to make fun of this guy. Uh-huh. Covfefe. Hey, you ever notice he's Cheeto colored? Covfefe.

Drumpf, etc. Well, here we are four years later and we're tapped out. All right. It's hard to make fun of this person. It's exhausting. We're sick of it. And because it's a holiday weekend, we decided to take some time off from making Trump jokes and let our fair listeners do the work. And so today we're having a segment. It's called Phone It In So I Can Phone It In.

And we're going to call audience members and see what kind of a Trump joke they can come up with. And then Emily and I will rip it to pieces. So we asked for listeners to tell us some of their best or worst jokes, their own personal artistry, what they could come up with. And Emily and I are going to see how they did. All right. Maybe we'll love it. Maybe we'll leave it. Maybe we'll leave it. Maybe we'll leave it. Ew.

So let's see what people could do. Let's see if people can beat those minion memes, you know? Oh, yeah. Well, let's not hold them to that high of a standard. That's impossible. Should we call somebody? Let's do it. Hello.

Hi. Hi, is this Joe? Yes, this is. All right, Joe. Very brave of you. Thank you. All right. You're here with Emily Heller.

Hello, Emily. Hi. And you have a joke and you're going to share it. Let's hear your political joke. Let's see what you got, Joe. All right. So I just think it is time to change the name of our political parties right now.

So the Democrats, you know, they're kind of boring, always trying to pass legislature and bills and stuff like that. So I think for them, we should call them the Z party, you know, like snoring. And for the Republicans, to keep things simple, we can just call them the Nazi party. So we got the Z's and the Nazis. You know what, Joe? You know what, Joe? I got to tell you.

I got to tell you. We went on a journey with you. Yeah. About three quarters of the way through the journey. I thought we were going to have to leave you behind. Yeah. Or just move on. And then, you know what?

You kind of brought it home. Emily, what do you think? Yeah. I feel like that was quite a twist at the end. At the beginning, I was like, this is sort of like Ziggy Marmaduke territory. And then it's a hard turn into Doonesbury that I was not expecting. Yeah, that was the point. That's exactly what I was going for.

Joe, what part of the country are you in? Where are you? I'm in Cambridge, Mass. Do you go to Harvard? No, I went to College of Charleston, the Harvard of the country you're in where are you i'm in cambridge mass do you go to harvard no i went to college of charleston the harvard of the south that's what we call it i went to uc santa cruz which is the harvard of the uh recreational marijuana movement nice i'm all for that joe that was great thank you so much for joining yeah no problem thanks for having me great joke great all right we're one for one all right great that was the first one that was the first one you wet our whistles sweet hopefully

it's the best one is that what no wet our appetites sorry no never mind i take it back joe get off before emily hits on you some more all right have a good one guys thank you thank you wow really way to uh john way to put the onus on the victim of the sexual harassment to stop it from happening to them instead of going after the perpetrator, which is me. Yeah. No, I definitely hear that. I hear that. Did you see what he was wearing? I'm just kidding.

All right. Let's call somebody else. Hello. Hi, Hannah. Hi, Hannah. Hi, Hannah. You're on with John and Emily. Oh, my God. Emily, I love you.

Emily's Garden Show. Yes. Oh, my God. Wow. I wish I could say it. I have sunflowers. Do you want to see my sunflowers? No, no, no, no.

This is not happening. No, we are not doing this. How tall are your sunflowers right now? They're taller than the roof of my house where they are. So probably about 11 feet. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for you. I have one sunflower that survived and it's taller than me,

but it's starting to tilt over a little bit. I've lost control. This wasn't even unbelievable. Unbelievable. I just feel like, John, what you need to face is that there's a public mandate for this. A groundswell. A groundswell, if you will, to use a gardening term.

We're not doing the gardening show today. We're just doing boring politics jokes. All right. All right. Hannah, thank you for being here. Now, this is we're ready. Obviously, you know, we've heard a lot of Trump jokes over obviously you know we've heard a lot of trump jokes over the years you've heard a lot of political jokes over the last couple years you've got your

own let's see what you've got all right so i'm gonna mix it up and do a mitch mcconnell joke okay okay okay all right that is cheating but i will allow it all right um so i work for a turtle rescue organization we save turtles hit by cars and I think I am tired of the turtle slander. Like stop comparing Mitch McConnell to turtles. Not nice to turtles. And there's some key differences. I don't know how much biology you remember, but turtles are vertebrates.

Thus they have backbones. Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr. has no backbone. And also turtles live in a wide variety of environments, not just swamps. So please stop the turtle slander. They're wonderful animals. And Mitch McConnell is awful. Hannah, I think that was great. That was kind of a story, a kind of an observation. You're like kind of more of that observational comedy. That's what your brand is. And I love that for you. I love that for you. I do too. All do too all right how dare we compare mitch

mcconnell to a turtle turtles are great they're wonderful they're wonderful what would you prefer that we we compare mitch mcconnell to um an asshole oh man next we're gonna get someone from an asshole conservation service society being like do not denigrate the majestic asshole. Asshole conservation society? You mean Congress? That is what I mean. We're going to get someone from Congress on.

Congress. All right, Hannah. That was delightful. Thank you so much. All right. Have fun. Say Ronan hi and pundit. Pundit and Ronan. I'll tell them both hi. All right. Hannah, that was delightful. Thank you so much. All right, have fun. Tell Ronan hi and pundit. Pundit and Ronan, I'll tell them both hi. All right, great, thanks. Bye.

Let's get another joke. Let's get another joke in here. Let's get another Emily's Garden Show fan on the line. Hey. Oh, there's Will. How you doing, Will? Good, how you doing? Good to see you. How you doing, Will? Good. How you doing? Good to see you.

Did you count beans? Yes. I've got more since then. We can't cover your bean hoarding. Emily, Will was previously a contestant on a game we call Show Us Your Beans, where we saw who had successfully hoarded. I believe Will won the game. But we have a new challenge today, which is you're going to tell us after so many years

of so many endless political jokes, your political joke, and Emily and I are going to judge it. All right. Two professionals. Yeah. One professional and me. Yeah. Yeah. Donald Trump retweeted a video of a supporter shouting white power while claiming he never

heard the words white power. I haven't heard this much denial since Lov discovered that ronan carried him through diablo three i gotta admit i don't understand the reference but i do get the sense that it is humiliating to love it so i'm gonna give it a 10 out of 10. So, Will, let's unpack that. Obviously, I like the structure. It was a classic structure. Worked really well. I like that it attacks the host.

That takes a certain amount of... Chutzpah? Chutzpah. Chutzpah is the perfect word for it. Now, however, I do take issue with the implication of the joke, which is the suggestion that somehow in our Diablo 3 multiplayer mode, while we were on various campaigns taking on rifts, the suggestion being that I had some kind of a weaker character and would follow behind Ronan's mage, that my barbarian might follow behind Ronan's wizard while he kills all the bad guys. And I'm just sort of swiping aimlessly, making no impact, unaware of this because I'm in some kind of denial about the weakness of my character. That's horse shit, Will. That's horse

shit. All right. I didn't spend all this time racking up Paragon points to be insulted by the likes of you. Oh, this is the denial I was talking about earlier. Yeah. I mean, I don't know who to believe. Will Olson. I don't know who to believe Will Olsen I don't know who to believe because that's what you would say if you were in denial about it also Will shame on you I'm horrified I regret you being included in this episode me? no no Emily

can stay I have my issues with Emily but Will specifically came on to my show and attacked me alright someone who I consider to be someone who was a kind of a friend of the show, someone, a reliable, a stalwart, a previous contestant, invited back out of the goodness of our own hearts, then treated like shit.

A real lesson about, I think we learned something, not even about comedy, we learned something about will, really. We're talking about, Trump, I gotta say, you are demanding a type of loyalty from your listeners, a lack of sort of like being held to standards that I gotta say is reminding me of someone. Oh my God. Now I'm receiving it from both sides. Will, great joke.

Thank you so much for being here. Delightful as always. Thanks, Will. Do you know what climate zone you're in? No, no, no. We're no doing no more gardening. Will, hang up the phone. You're done. We're done with you. We're done with you. Thanks, Will. That was great.

Thanks, Will. Thanks to everybody who called in. That was very fun, despite the real animus directed at me, personally. When we come back, talk to Hari Kondabalu. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or leave it coming up and we're back he has a comedy special on netflix called warn your relatives and is the

writer of the documentary the problem with apu which is now on hulu harry kondabalu welcome back to love it or leave it hello john how are you i'm okay it's good to see you you know i wanted to talk to you because you're someone that's actually been talking about a lot of the issues around entertainment that have been in the news lately. Obviously, your documentary, The Problem with Apu, I think, caused a huge controversy around The Simpsons. But I'll just be honest that it caused me to examine things that I just didn't think about when I was watching something as a kid. And in the past few days, we've seen white actors who voice people of color in animated shows step down. That includes The Simpsons.

They'd already announced that Apu was going to be either, I'm not sure if it was just Hank Azaria wasn't going to voice the character or they were going to retire the character, but they were addressing it in one way. And now they've decided that across the board, they're no longer going to have white actors play people of color.

What was your reaction to that? I was kind of shocked because it took this long. And for a show that's cutting edge, you know, as The Simpsons was, it's like, so you decided to do this three years after this documentary. And after, you know, there was criticism about a white dude doing an Indian voice that is way over the top. And after there's been a national conversation about the brutality of racism in this country. already started to make their own weird concessions, like getting rid of the Aunt Jemima box, and after Family Guy beat you to it. I was surprised it took so long. I was annoyed because of, like, just the way they've handled it, the arrogance of it, and the fact that at the end of the day,

it's not a particularly big deal. Do you know what I mean? Right. Like, what they're giving up after 30 years is not a big deal. Do you know what I mean? Right. Like what they're giving up after 30 years is not a big deal. And what this is really about is people of color being able to speak for themselves, represent themselves, especially in a climate like this. We know what a caricature looks like. But for some reason, when it's animated, do we forget that it's the same thing? It's a group of people that has a limited amount

of representation portrayed in an over-the-top way for others to laugh at like what is Apu then like Apu you can say well he they've developed the character yeah that's true but at the end of the day he's just a series of stereotypes strewn together and they're trying to like put sprinkles on shit right and it's not i don't even hate like the the character overall in the context of the show yeah i'm not saying he's not funny because he's funny this has nothing to do with funny but this has to do with like this is kind of obvious i think to a lot of people of color who have had similar experiences that when you only exist in one form and people behave and treat you in a way because of that one form, because as much as people will say,

like, well, you know, people are smart enough to know it's just a joke. You would be surprised. And honestly, based on the fact people are refusing to wear masks because the president's not wearing masks, people are easily manipulated. This wasn't even about the goddamn cartoon. It's been 30 years. It has nothing to do really with Apu. I had to get myself angry again to put on a performance for a documentary in order to express the frustration many of us felt for two to three decades. But at the end of the day, it's about the future for like two to three decades. But at the end of the day, it's about the future.

And how are we moving in the future? And all these concessions are great. But I want more people of color producing, writing and controlling art publicly. We've seen this in a few different forms. There's the casting issue around animated shows. There's the decision for that Tina Fey wanted to take down several episodes of 30 Rock that involved blackface. There's this Golden Girls episode that was taken down for an example of blackface that was gone with the wind, removed, and then

put back up with sort of like a mediated experience to sort of say, like, let's create some distance between entertainment and something we observe as almost like a historical relic. But it seems like we're in this sort of surface conversation, which is obviously these are examples of culture that didn't respect voices of color, didn't see them, didn't appreciate them, didn't view their criticism as valid or never even would have heard them to begin with. It was just sort of a separate thing that didn't touch the kind of white spaces where these things were created. In these cases, it seems like we're reckoning with the acute manifestations of a problem, but not yet actually talking about the problem. And I think that sort of, to me, speaks to some of the, in the past, the problem with the Simpsons response, but even what Tina Fey is saying now, which is, let's, okay, you want to address the output, fine, address the output. But is there going to be a conversation about not just

why you did this, but why this was fine at the time? This wasn't that long ago. In all those examples, it's not like there was this major epiphany all of a sudden. A lot of this, I think, has to do with, you know, and this is maybe the most cynical view, but their corporate decisions. It looks bad. Racism looks bad now. And maybe some people aren't just too sensitive. And maybe the culture is changing. And that culture that's changing has money. And people are not going to spend their money there if they get annoyed. So, you know, it's not like people weren't saying shit about Tina Fey and some of those choices back then. I love 30 Rock, and at the same time, there were times I certainly said, like, that's weird, and was hushed. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean?

It's not like everyone is a killjoy that is unable to enjoy good art that still has issues in it, because if people of color or any marginalized group did that, you couldn't enjoy anything ever, right? Because it's always been through a white lens and the white gaze of like, this is what we find interesting. This is what our audience is going to enjoy and appreciate and accept. So that's not like pretend they just figured it out now. Like people have been screaming this shit forever. I mean, the Simpsons example to me is because it's recent. It's over the last three years. There's a documentary I made. It was written about like a new controversy, even though

it really wasn't. What controversy? This is it's 30 years old. It's not a con. The Columbus controversy. Did he steal the land? Like what is the controversy? It's just the truth. Yeah, this is why I'm glad to talk to you about it. Because the taking down of things in blackface, it's almost like a corporate culture seeking an objective reason for making these decisions, right? Rather than looking at the kind of ways in which these problems were infused in these systems. Was Aunt Jemima any less offensive before the murder of George Floyd? And what does one have to do with the other? Yeah, yeah. It's guilt. It's also partly there are probably people in these places

that have been like, we got to change this, let's change this and people ignored them. And then all of a sudden, it's like, okay, I think it's time. Also, this stuff is so mainstream. Now police brutality videos seeing like the truth that black people have talked about for generations. It's mainstream. It's unavoidable. If the news doesn't cover it, the internet will. The guilt that one could suppress and not think about, there's no way to suppress it now. I think sometimes we confuse, I've come to realize this was wrong, which is, I think,

easier for people to say than what is, I think, in more cases, the truth, which is, I've come to realize this was wrong, which is, I think, easier for people to say than what is, I think, in more cases, the truth, which is I've come to care that this is wrong. Yes. I feel like your experience of watching, you know, whatever, whether it's 30 Rock or The Simpsons, right? Like I've had it watching The Simpsons. I've had it watching movies like Knocked Up.

Like there's, for me, you know, there's a scene in Knocked Up where they're just going back and forth about basically a bunch of homophobic jokes. It's the classic joke of, you know, two men wake up in bed together and they're cuddling and then they realize they're both men. Like I've seen that my whole life. And, you know, as a gay person, it bothered me because it was sort of a homophobic directed towards me. Sort of jokes that I kind of recognized as being offensive as part of of the Simpsons bothered me because I knew that they were icky. But we make a decision whether it's about us or about people that aren't us to just

sort of decide how important it is and to choose to decide it's not important. We do that all the time. Also, as a creative, we know it's low hanging fruit. Yeah, yeah. It's not like racism, sexism, homophobia. low-hanging fruit yeah yeah it's not like racism sexism homophobia those are all like easy targets like people who are not those identities enjoy historically enjoy laughing at other people uh or feel like i can't believe they said that that's so funny because we can't say what we're thinking like this is it's all it's all hat like when you see that scene you know there is also a

part of you i'd imagine that's like oh this again how is this creative yeah yeah like anybody with it this is hacky this is humping the stool this is stuff that you you should not be able to pitch and get away within a room because people will make fun of you that that's what you came up with the apu conversation for example you know it, it's been happening since I was 10. Do you know what I mean? It's not new. I already knew, okay, we're funny to them. You know, when I started doing stand up at like 17 or 18, I did Indian accents because I knew white people found it funny. And I also knew people of color found it funny because we were raised in a white society yeah i did the accent because at the end of the day it's about laughs like i get it i get why it's funny i get why it's funny to others i get it that's not what this is about yeah at the end of the day the real demand is give us power give us what we we've earned and deserve you've used our images you've used our voices okay well give us chances to make our own things let's see what we can because we've already proved time

and time again our voices can be mainstream like insecure is a fucking hit do you know what i mean like there's lots of shows by people of color that have unique experiences that are hits now that are award-winning now people have followings that you know we couldn't prove before that we had followings and now it's like you can't deny 2 million youtube subscribers that can be monetized so just give us the keys let us tell our own stories you know it's good creatively for hollywood because you can't repeat the same stuff over and over again like no person has the same combination of life experiences and feelings and thoughts we should never be repeating plots. It should be impossible to repeat the same stories if we actually like spread it out a bit more.

Hari, last sort of question, just because just to sort of look forward, you know, this conversation around the representation of cartoon characters, right, is not that, not in the grand scheme of things in a moment where we're protest systemic injustice. But what has surprised you in recent weeks in watching this sort of connection being drawn between systemic racism and brutality and policing and the culture of Hollywood? Do you do you see anything positive coming out of this connection between the way racism manifests itself in creative work and the way it manifests itself in policing? Well, one connection is the cause and effect aspect of media. Like if you see images of black people only in these roles of criminal, you know, gangster, it's either that or superhuman, you know, then all of a sudden you can imagine, like, okay, that will fuel people to fear black people, especially if they're not around black people all the time.

They don't have black friends. We live in a very segregated society. And then you apply force, which is absurd, not only because of cruelty, but I would imagine you imagine superhuman strength. You know, the white imagination has led to lots of deaths. And I think that's true with not just white people with all of us like we have these images of the other whoever the other is based on a limited number of inputs right whatever we've been taught by family friends whatever media that we have consumed and when we interact with those people when we have to hire those people when we have to you know befriend those people have to, you know, befriend those people, that all comes into play. So there is a cause and effect. And I think that's one place

of intersection. Media matters, right? This isn't every place in the country in the world is not where I grew up in Queens, New York, right? It's not like liberal enclaves like Berkeley or Oakland or whatever, like that's not what it is. And so media like that, you know, there's a reason why a guy like Trump is trying to control the narrative. There's a reason why he's constantly distracting people and changing the story. There's a reason why he calls Joe Biden sleepy Joe

because he knows that'll stick. What we do in all facets of media, whether it's news, whether it's making cartoons, we're influencing people. We're normalizing things. We're giving people experiences they haven't had before through someone else's eyes. And I think it's time that we finally get to see these things first, that people of color and other marginalized groups get their eyes on it first, get to write it, get to approve it, and get to share realistic stories. Because the way it is right now,

it certainly hasn't helped us at all. Hari Kondabalu, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, John. It's good to see you. Good to see you too. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Before we get to today's high note, Emily, I know that there's a big local race taking place in Los Angeles. And I think it's actually speaks to a lot of what's going on in the rest of the country, too, in terms of some pretty big primaries and runoffs. So I just wanted

to know what you've been doing as a volunteer. Yeah, I mean, I know, like you asked me what I wanted to promote at the end of the show, and I don't really have anything going on for myself. So I wanted to talk about a candidate in a local race that I'm really excited about. I know that like it's important to have candidates in down ballot races that you feel really passionately about. Angeles named Nithya Raman, who has one of the most progressive platforms I've ever seen. And one of the things I'm most excited about with her especially is her environmental platform. She's got great plans for battling climate change on a local level. And in Los Angeles, especially one of the things that she's really passionate about that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about is stormwater capture. Los Angeles isn't actually a desert. It's a Mediterranean climate. And about 60% of our stormwater runs into the ocean. And we have great possible solutions for how to attack this problem that we just aren't pursuing aggressively

enough. I'm a fan of Nithya's, by the way, just so you know that I'm a fan of Nithya. I'm a supporter of Nithya. She's great. I'm just so glad to hear this from you. Yeah. One of the problems in L.A. is that we import so much water and we lose so much of our rainwater that we could be letting sink down into the earth and replenish our underground aquifers, which is a local source of water. And a big part of her plan is retrofitting around 4.5% of residential properties with water capturing strategies like storm gardens. And now it's time for Emily's Garden Show.

No! Let's talk about the turf replacement rebate that I took advantage of in order to get rid of my lawn and install a California-friendly garden with storm capture features. You said you agreed. It's a violation of our agreement. You snuck an Emily's Gardening segment into a Nithya endorsement, an endorsement I support. You played to my emotions. Yes.

I feel used. As you should, but you know what? This is the 4th of July. We're celebrating America. What is America if not a land of broken promises? as you should but you know what this is the 4th of july we're celebrating america what is america if not a land of broken promises i am being a true patriot right now to talk about the fact that if you live in los angeles if you live in southern california you need to get rid of your lawn and install plants that will better survive drought conditions because here's the problem with lawns

if you want to keep them healthy you have to use way too much water. And if you don't use that much water, they dry out and they die. And then your land becomes less absorbent of the rainwater that it does receive. And the soil becomes compacted and the water runs off your land into the gutters and into the ocean, carrying trash with it. And then we lose valuable water that should be sinking down into your property. So install rain barrels, install rocks, whales, install. This is now an environmental slash gardening segment.

I support the environmental cause you're espousing, but I deeply regret you forcing us into an unsanctioned Emily's Garden show episode. an unsanctioned Emily's Garden Show episode. I feel like there is an unnecessary barrier on this show between political content and gardening content when what I want you to understand is that

it's absolutely unnecessary because gardening is political, my friends. In Southern California, I got into gardening because I applied for the Southern California Waterwise Turf Replacement Rebate. It's $3 per square foot of lawn that you get rid of. I got into gardening because I applied for the Southern California WaterWise turf replacement rebate. It's $3 per square foot of lawn that you get rid of.

That is a lot of money that goes toward getting rid of your lawn and installing California friendly landscaping. Love the message. Hate that it's being offered against my will. There are free classes offered by the LA Department of Water and Power on sustainable gardening. And let me tell you, when the bug bites you, you're hooked. Are we going to do the theme song

or no? Oh yeah, let's do the theme song. It's Emily's Garden Show. For the garden things you need to know. If you want to talk soil, she's your coil. It's Emily's Garden Show. I can't wait to talk about rain chains as soon as this theme song is over.

When this theme song is over, we're going to go to commercial. No, a commercial for rain chains that I'm recording. A commercial for rain chains. Do you know what a rain chain is, John? I don't. Okay, I'm going to tell you what a rain chain is. Can you say it quick? Here's what a rain chain is, John? I don't know. Okay, I'm going to tell you what a rain chain is. Can you say it quick? Here's what a rain chain is.

So you know how your gutters just go straight down? It's just like a pipe that goes straight down. Here's the problem with that. When water reaches your land, it pools up and then it runs off

into the street if it doesn't have time to absorb. What a rain chain does is it replaces the downspout of your gutter so that it slows the water down in a little fountain. It's like a bunch of little cups. And then the first cup overflows into the second cup into the other one.

And then it slows the water down so that it has time to absorb into your property and then sink down into the underground aquifers that becomes our usable water. When we come back. This is technically gardening. We'll end on a high note. This was a high note. We're ending on a high note with Emily's Garden Show.

I brought a rant wheel and everyone is about rain chains. Yeah, alright. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's landed on rain chains. Yeah, all right, all right. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It's landed on rain chains. Oh, man. All right, let's end on a high note.

Because we all need it this week, here it is, this week's high note submitted by you, the listener. I love it. My name is Amanda. My high note of this week is I am now a registered voter and American citizen. I was a Canadian living in the

U.S. when Donald Trump was elected and really didn't want to become a part of this awesome country under him, but with much convincing from my husband and information from everyone at Crooked Media over the last few years. I felt inspired to take my oath a couple weeks ago, and I just finished registering to vote in Michigan. So, yay! Hi, this is Molly. I'm leaving my high note. last week, me and 84 other volunteers from college Democrats chapters across the West made 2,500 calls to young voters in Arizona about early voting and racial justice. This election can be won. We just have to do the work. So shout out to all my college Democrats and young Democrats out there doing the work. Davis College Democrats, I love y'all. That's my high note.

Doing the work. Davis College Democrats. I love y'all. That's my high note. Hey, love it. I'm thankful that my three-year-old has finally taken a shit on a toilet instead of holding it in until she goes to sleep. Fuck you, diapers. I'm out.

That's our show. If you want to leave us a message about something that gave you hope, you can call us at 424-341-4193. Thank you to Emily Heller for joining us for this entire episode, despite the Emily's Garden segment that was thrust upon us. Unsuspecting listeners. It should have been the whole show. I'm sorry about that. It is 100, 122 days until the election. Sign up for Vote Save America right now to defeat Donald Trump, keep the House and win back the Senate. Thanks to Emily Heller. Thanks to Dr. Anne Ramon. Thanks to Hari Kondabalu for joining. Thanks to our listeners who called in, except for that Will with his mean-spirited joke about my Diablo 3 capabilities. Thanks to our grocery workers,

our truck drivers and delivery people, our restaurant workers, flight attendants, everyone who had to choose between staying safe and earning a paycheck right now. Thank you to our doctors and nurses and EMTs and first responders. Thank you to our whole staff working to keep this show going out and crooked going strong. Emily, what a delight as always. Thank you to our sunflowers. Have a great weekend, everybody. Happy 4th. Happy 4th. Love It or Leave It is a Crooked Media production. It is written and produced by me, John Lovett, Elisa Gutierrez, Lee Eisenberg, and our head writer and the president of the east side or biden writers travis helwig jocelyn kaufman alicia carroll and peter miller are the writers our assistant producer is sydney rapp 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 mcclain and jamie skiel 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 and milo kim for filming and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast. And to our digital producers, Nar Melkonian and Milo Kim for filming and editing video each week so you can.