Shaun Newman Podcast - #569 - Heather Heying

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

She has a PhD in Biology, spent 15 years as a professor at Evergreen State College that ended in 2017 when violent mobs protested on campus and is the co-host of the Dark Horse Podcast.  Let me know what you think. Text me 587-217-8500 Substack:https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastE-transfer here: [e-mail] Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/ Email: [e-mail] Phone [phone] – general sales line, ask for Grahame and be sure to let us know you’re an SNP listener.

This is Danielle Smith. This is Tammy Peterson. This is Alex Kraner. This is Curtis Stone. This is Tom Longo. And you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Thursday.

How's everybody doing today? Thursday. I'm ready to go. How are you doing? I feel great. I do. I do. I really do.

And this string of guests this week has been just like, you know, a ton of fun. And whether you're, you know it or not? How would you know it? Here's some exciting news. No, you know what? Before I get to the exciting news and before you hear my phone going off in the background, I got exciting news. How about we start here though? Silver Gold Pole, North America's premier precious metals dealer, state of yard distribution centers in Calgary and Las Vegas. Did you know they were a bunch of Alberta boys from Rocky Mountain House that started this sucker up? That's pretty freaking cool. You know, Alberta doing it again. It's what Albertans do.

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You can feel the excitement here. I got some cool news coming today in like two minutes of time. Can I get back to Silver Gold Bullshon? Yes, I can. Yes, am I talking to the third person? Yeah, because I'm really excited. Hopefully you're smiling somewhere, listening to this. You know, when we did the Tucker Carlin,

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want to go just buy i get it i get it i get it i'm trying here i'm trying we're working out the details work faster i know i'm working on it silvergoblebill dot ca that's where you can go go down on the show notes if you if you've never heard of them never or nothing if your first time time on here, I get it. Go take a look at that and, uh, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. A couple extra seconds before we get to the exciting news. Okay. McCowan professional chartered account says, Kristen and team, we moved, uh, we moved their ad from Friday to Thursday. She was the one who came up. She just put me where you want me. All right. Thursdays. Only on Thursdays. Nice and easy. They're looking for another CPA. Why? Because they're full.

And if you're looking for a great accountant, which she is, and her team is, and they deal with this knucklehead, and let me tell you, I'm no easy customer, not because I'm hard to deal with, because at times, as St. Louis Jack knows, as probably my wife really knows, I really delay things. Not when it comes to podcasting, for whatever reason, if I could translate all these skills into life, I would be something. I mean, just, you know, I wish I could wrap my head around that one. Anyways, I'm sidangeting again, because it's Thursday, and I'm excited. She's looking for a CPA.

Back to the script, Sean. Here. She's looking. How's everybody doing? Great, great, great, good. This is where I wish I had somebody sitting across for me, just so I could ban for the good news.

She's offering amazing opportunity, above average wages, flex time, benefits, partnership opportunity. Great boss, great freaking boss who came to the for kids' sake meeting last week. You know, she believes in this show and supporting free speech. I think you know what you're going to get, all right?

They do full service accounting, consulting, tax, and financial planning services. She's looking for a CPA, folks. Where are you at? For more information, go to magalloncpa.ca.ca.ca. Now, here's the good news, okay? I've been reading these books. I've been reading these books, and I think you all have heard me talk enough about it. That's Frank Pretty, this present darkness, piercing the darkness,

and then a whole list of other books. You guys all know them. You guys, oh, they got. You haven't read those? Yeah, I haven't read them. Now I have. And I got them. Frank Pretti coming on the S&P.

And I got to give a shout out to Ben Trudeau for hooking that up. Because, you know, I was literally not banging my head against the wall, but, you know, it's like one of those guests where you're like, I don't know what's going on here. I don't know if I'm going to get this guy. I'm not going to get this guy. We got him. How's your Thursday feeling today?

I hope whatever you've been trying to do, because this feeling is fantastic. Frank Prattie going to be on the show. And I haven't even got to today's guest, who's unreal. And it's just 2024, we're ramping it up. We are the train that's moving, you know, and we are going bullet speed here. let's rock and roll, shall we?

How about we get on to that little thing called The Tale of the Tape? I think we should. She has a PhD in biology and a BA in Anthropology. She's the co-host of the Dark Horse podcast. I'm talking about Heather Heying. So buckle up.

Here we go. Welcome to the Shawneeuma podcast. Today I'm joined by Heather Heying. So first off, ma'am, thanks for hopping on. I am very grateful to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Well, I think I have to give a shout-out to Linda first. You know, I didn't know who Linda was probably, geez, what is that now?

Two months ago. And since then, I've realized she was two hours from me. I'm like, oh, my goodness. I've since read her book. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And then she's been in studio. And we got talking and, you know, with her background and where she's been in life and everything else, she mentioned, she's like, what would you want to talk to Heather?

I'm like, would I want to talk to Heather. Yes, I would like, I would love to talk to Heather. So I think this would have never come to fruition, or maybe it would have in some other universe, maybe, without her help. So just a hat tip, if I would, to her, to Linda for hooking this up, because I do truly appreciate that. I am so pleased to call Linda a friend at this point. We finally met in person a couple of months ago at the Genspect Conference in Denver, Colorado, and I think she put you and me in touch shortly thereafter. but she is fantastic and I actually listened to your conversation with her and I assume I hope

that your listeners have listened to it but I encourage them to do so it's really a terrific conversation and and what we're talking about is Linda Blade uh folks I guess I should have used her last name right at the start you know um I would really um encourage them pick up her book as well you know uh you know it's funny I do obviously lots of interviews and stick him with Linda Blade for a couple seconds. I had that book dropped off to me by an anonymous person almost the same day I heard of her. And when things just start, click all in the same, you're like, uh-oh, I better see who this Linda Blade is. And yeah, she's been, well, I've just, now I follow her and, you know, it's just funny. This is part of the world, Heather, that we live in these days, where I'm sitting

in Canada, and I should know all these great Canadians. But as we both, probably, we both, probably know very well, the censorship and everything else that has been going on. There's lots of great Canadians. I just interviewed Deney Rancourt. People might be easier to say Dennis Rancourt, but regardless. And I didn't know who he was until just a few months ago. And you think just the powers that be and how they keep us all separated. And once you run in these people are like, oh my goodness, I think as a Canadian, I keep thinking, man, where were these people two years ago?

oh, they were fighting a good fight, and that's what I keep finding out. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly censorship has a lot to do with that, but there's also an issue of scale. There's so many of us now. You know, there are eight billion people on the planet, and we have been led to believe, I think, most of us, that most people don't have much to offer, and I'm convinced that that's not true. And so there are intriguing people in every corner of every place on the planet, and almost everyone has something. thing to say, to offer, to teach that you or I or anyone could benefit from. And, you know, Linda and Denise are extraordinary across the board, as far as I know. I know Linda. I don't know

to me only by reputation. But I think part of what modernity does for us that is amazing, that's really easy to denigrate modernity, but part of what it does for us is amazing is it allows for these connections. Yeah. And, you know, I used to think the small things that didn't matter. You know, when you talk about everybody having their talent, their place. And I've been quickly learning, and I think I've been learning it for roughly a little over a decade, that the little things actually add up to really, really, really, really big things. And there's a ton of talent to people out there that really, when they use their talents, make the world a better place.

That's right. I was just reading in a book unrelated to this. A story is reported about the longtime life partner. someone who has died and his life's work was river restoration. A river restoration is both extremely important and small in the general scheme of things depending on where you are focused. And I think how many people actually haven't figured out where to focus on a thing that is actually meaningful both to them and the world. And it's not for lack of ability by and large. I mean, people lose If you sit doing meaningless jobs for a very long time for decade after decade, I think you can lose the spark.

But I also think that almost everyone can get that back. And certainly the earlier you say, you know what, even if it's not the way that I'm going to earn my income and therefore pay my rent or my mortgage, I'm going to do something, but I'm going to free my brain enough to figure out what to do with the rest of my time. Or if you can manage to make it your life's work as well and combine your passion with what it is. is that you're doing to make money, fantastic. And if it's, you know, it could be a lot smaller than river restoration, it could be bigger. But if there is something that you love and that you feel like, as long as I keep doing this, I will have done what I need to do in the world, then you're doing the right thing. Yeah, well, I think on this side, the audience, I can say safely that I'm case in point,

you know, in the middle of 2019, I started this thing. And here we are, you know, what, five years roughly later. Actually, I guess it's five years in about a month. I think it was February 2019. I think it was the first time I aired an episode. And it started working full time and doing this in the morning and evenings, late at night, weekends. I got three young kids, seven, six, four.

So you can imagine it was a busy time. But it was as soon as I started doing it. I'm like, oh, man, I enjoy this. And it's funny when you consistently stick with something. Heather. And, you know, naturally just by consistently doing something, chances are you're going to get better. And on and on and on, it's went. And, you know, in 22, I finally got to quit my full-time job and take the leap, if you would, of into full-time podcasting, which has been a realm that I didn't think was ever possible again. Once upon a time played hockey full-time. Very far from

the, the NHL. I don't mean to mislead anyone there. But I did get. get to do it full time and I never thought I'd get that ever back and sitting in this chair and talking to people such as yourself or Linda or the you know on and on the guest goes has been something that resembles showing up to play in a hockey game and compete for you know the 60 minutes I never thought that something like that was ever possible again and I guess I just mirror what you're talking about with with people and trying to find something that lights them up because case and point I'm sitting here yeah yeah you're sitting there And I think the downside, the tradeoff with being able to reach almost anyone in the world as long as they have an internet connection is that people, as they are still developing, you know, young people reach out into internet space and see what appears to be an incredibly wide variety of things, but actually it gets homogenized.

Right. So what what they see on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter is less diverse than actually human beings can be. And so they start channeling themselves. They start becoming canalyzed in the language of neurobiology and become more and more alike. And, you know, there are a number of these ideas that I think were extraordinary and got appropriated by some activist group. And so it's really hard to. to invoke them now without seeming like you're invoking something creepy, but this idea of let your freak flag fly, I don't know the history of it, but it resonated with me and for me until, you know, five or ten years ago, at which point I think it's just been taken into into ridiculous spaces. But the idea was actually you're your own unique person. And there are probably things about you that are true of you that are true of no one else on the planet. And, you know, it's possible that those things are awful and you need to cut that shit out, right? And it's actually quite possible that they're interesting and that you can combine them with other things that are more well known and create or discover or explore or heal or lead or, you know, any of these things that humans do so well.

And very few of us do all of those things very well. But almost all of us have something in us that is positive that we can bring to the world. And that doesn't mean that that thing has a name necessarily. You know, as you're chatting, you know, I'm, I got to ask a little bit of, you know, the audience, I do this from time. I get rolling right in and I'm like, it's the first time Heather's ever been on the podcast, you know, and I know exactly who you are. And I think a lot of people know exactly who you are. But in saying that, you know, there's going to be people for sure that have no clue who Heather Heying is. And I might be a little remiss if I just jumped over that little hurdle.

And it's always, I always find it fascinating to see what a person, you know, their journey and what makes them tick. Because you've got lots of different aspects through your life that are certainly for just one person, you know, like a real, like, wow, that's pretty impressive. But regardless, maybe for the listener, you could give a little bit of your background. And it's up to you where you want to go in the journey there. I'm along for the ride. Yeah. Well, there's a number of things that I could say, obviously. I'm in my 50s, and I've had an interesting and diverse life.

I grew up in Los Angeles, and I've listened to enough of your shows to know that you grew up in Saskatchewan, right? And I think L.A. in some ways is the polar opposite in terms of being a land of artifice and glitz and glamour. and because it is where Hollywood is, it is what you see when you turn on the television. And even if what you are looking at is not supposedly in L.A., it is informed by the sensibilities of people in L.A. And it may be on a back lot at Universal in L.A. And so I grew up with this sense of, isn't the world bigger than this?

Like, why whenever I go outside, do I see the same thing as when I turn on the screen? Like I feel like there's much more in the world than this. And, you know, one of my early jobs was I was helping catering in these backlots, like, you know, at Universal and such. And so I saw, I never aspired to be part of that world, but I saw it sort of up close of personal. And, you know, some of the seedy parts because I was, you know, I was Karen Tray's, Rand of Canapes as a young woman. And we all know how Hollywood is. And it made me think, I know that the world is more interesting than this. Like, I'm absolutely sure of it.

So in addition to growing up in L.A., I was also trained from a very, very young age as a classical pianist. And for two hours a day, six days a week, until I was 14, I practiced piano. And that both gave me the power of habit. I know that if you want to do something, you just get up and do it even when you don't feel like doing it. So, you know, when I was in fifth grade, when I was in seventh grade, I got up at 5.30 in the morning, and I practiced for an hour before school, and I practiced an hour after school. And it turns out, you know, you practice that much and you become good at a thing. But I didn't have particular genius for it. I did not have particular talent, and it was never my passion. So, you know, I stopped doing it and then was able to explore.

things like sport, you know, speaking, you know, going back to Linda Blade, which I'd always love, but I wasn't really allowed to participate in because I might hurt my precious fingers when I was when I was a pianist. So when you say that, your parents were like, listen, we would love for you to play sports, or maybe they didn't say it that way, but you're like, literally you can't damage your fingers. You know, it wasn't even coming from my parents so much. I mean, my parents, both my parents were very loving and very different from an other and I got me my dad was a was a computer scientist and an engineer and he insisted that I not that I not be helpless and so he insisted that I go outside and build fences with him and I play ball and

I wanted to play ball with him so he taught me how to play ball and shoot pool and you know do all the the boy stuff that I loved anyway and my mom was a bit more interested in me becoming sort of this is not entirely fair but sort of like the heroine of a Jane Austen novel you know a bit more precious than I was ever, ever interested in being. But it meant that I spent a lot of time in museums with her and learning to draw and learning to be a pianist and such. But because fairly early on I had enough talent that they had me with this maestro, who was my teacher, it was his insistence. So, you know, he said, look, if, you know, my students become professional musicians, and therefore we put this first. And when I was in elementary school,

and middle school. In middle school, I was beginning to question it, but in elementary school, I thought, well, I don't think this is what I want to do, but I don't hate it. I'm not, you know, I'm not, this isn't something that I detest, and it clearly has value. So here we go. And I also, I mean, this is, maybe this helped keep me compliant, if you will. I wasn't a particularly compliant kid, except when rules felt okay, and then I was absolutely compliant. But I also happened to be bored with very, you know, strange feet that needed surgical fixing when I was around 13. And until then, I didn't have a ton of ability to move around without pain. And so sitting at the piano for two hours a day was less of an obstacle.

And after I had that corrective surgery and went through sort of, you know, wheelchair and then a year in orthopedic shoes, I was like, ah, I'm actually going to go play volleyball now. Like, I'm going to run and I'm going to play volleyball and I'm going to play Frisbee and I'm going to do all the stuff that I want to do. and the piano's great, but I'm going to do something else now. What surgery did you have? Sorry, I don't know if my brain shut off for a second or if you skipped it. I didn't. I've never heard of anyone else.

I don't know the name of it. I had extra bones and misrouted tendons in both of my feet, such that I effectively had flat feet and shoes didn't fit me very well because I almost had two ankles. And so I had the bones removed and the tendons rerouted. And after that, everything is. was fine. It took a while, but everything was fine. So have you ever, so then I'm just thinking as a parent, and obviously I'm not your parent, but I got young kids and I'm going, okay, so I have a daughter

whose feet hurt all the time and she doesn't like moving around. So we get her in with a maestro who is like, she's going to be a great musician. She's going to be play the piano and she's going to get a job doing that and everything. I have that makes sense because her feet hurt. She doesn't want to run around. As soon as you get the surgery and you're like, I'm done, with this, your parents are like, oh yeah, that makes sense, and off you go? I probably conveyed it as if it was much more clear than that. I don't think it was clear to any of us, exactly. I mean, my mother also loved to hike. My father had his own crazy experience literally five days before I was born, almost died in a massive car accident that left my mother

effectively caring for two infants at once after I was born. And so his ankles got completely crushed on that accident. And he had been a lot. an athlete himself and wasn't walking a lot. And so I had this sort of model, but, but he would still occasionally strap on ski boots and ski, even though it was excruciating for him. And he, you know, he didn't play basketball anymore, even though he had before, because, you know, jumping was really not going to work for him. But he just did it. He was just this stoic guy who did it through the pain. And so, you know, I went hiking with my mom a fair bit even before the surgery. And it just, you know, I was like, yeah, I guess this is just what it feels like.

I guess people are just, I, you know, people, I'd go to shoe stores. Like, oh, does that feel good? Like, no, it doesn't feel good. Shoes don't feel good. The shoes feel good to anyone. And I think, you know, we all have had this experience of discovering that the, you know, as a child, so you have three young children, children are looking around going like, well, this is my experience.

Either children tend to think, this is what everyone has or this is what no one has. Like, it's, it's hard for kids before. they develop the nuance that comes usually in sort of teenagehood and early adulthood to imagine that actually this is an experience that is fully part of the human experience, but it's relatively rare that you are absolutely the only person who has ever had this kind of experience in the world, but it does happen, and it's relatively rare that actually everyone experiences this. But as a kid, you kind of feel like, oh, I guess, you know, shoes aren't good. I get that, you know, a lot of the modern world isn't well made for humans.

I already had that sense growing up in the 70s and 80s. And no, of course, shoes don't feel good. Of course, walking doesn't particularly feel good, but you do it because you want to be outside. You want to explore things. So it wasn't, I didn't get into piano because my feet hurt. In fact, I don't think I was saying anything to anyone for a long time because it just, that wasn't the kind of family we were. Like you're stoic and you grit your teeth and you're like, you do.

do it needs to be done. And then at some point, actually the same doctor who reconstructed my father after the accident that almost killed him five days before my birth ended up doing the reconstructive surgery on my feet 13 years later. You know, when I, when you talk about childhood and things that, you know, I don't know, format your your way of thinking or your view of the world, when I I think LA, you know, I've only been there, I think I could be wrong on this. I think I've only been there once. And I was pretty young. I don't know, like 10 years old, Disneyland, you know, like that's the great tourist thing.

And the only thing I can remember about it, like the, like, certainly I remember more, but the thing that sticks out the most is the smell. I just couldn't get over how the city like smelled and looked and it's just like, I'm like, what is this? I can't imagine living in this. But I come from the open prairies, right? Where you just have like nature everywhere. And you know, like I joke with my wife.

She's from Minnesota. We're driving and almost, you know, it's almost like it almost happens 100% of the time, especially in the summer we go down to her parents place and then we come back. And we almost just like you know what's going to happen. Get stuck behind a semi pulling cattle and you just smell the manure. It's just like, oh, that's a beautiful smell. I'm back home. And she's like, oh, it stinks.

Get around this guy. And I'm like, this is the smell right here. This is, this is, this is Saskatchewan right here. Like, I know I'm close. And people laugh at that, but I'm like, that to me is like a very comforting smell, if you would. And I guess when I think of L.A., I'm like, man, I remember going there and just being like, the little, literally going to be here for a bunch of days and smell this? Like, it just smelled.

I don't know. I don't know how to even explain it. I wonder. So, uh, you are. your late 30s, is that right? 37. All right, so you said your age at some point in one of the conversations I was listening to,

I didn't just guess that accurately. So if you were there when you were 10, the air should have been cleanish by then. So when I was growing up in LA, the air was filthy. When you flew into LA, it was yellow. And that we were seeing through the yellow particulate stuff in the air. And this is actually one of the places

that has gotten cleaned up. You know, the L.A. Basin, which just collects all of basically the auto exhaust from all of the millions of cars that are on those roads every day. And, you know, this, and it was grotesque. And I think, I think maybe inland is, you know, Disneyland is a little bit inland. I was close enough to the ocean. There was one window in our house. And if you climbed up on the roof, you could see the, the ocean on the horizon.

walk there. This is, you know, in an era when parents are like, sure, you want to walk a mile through the city down to the ocean? Sure, go for it. And, you know, it wasn't, it was West L.A. It wasn't downtown or anything. But, and so, you know, being close to the ocean, it's, it always smelled fresh to me. It's one of the things I did appreciate about L.A., although I will say, I haven't been to Saskatchewan, but I now live in the Pacific Northwest, which I guess is the Pacific Southwest in Canada. You know, close, we can see the lights in Victoria from, in our drive to our house from the market.

And the smell here in the forest when you get out of, you know, when you get out of a car, when you've been blocked from the smell or go out of a house that has been blocked with all the windows closed because it's winter or whatever is extraordinary. You know, it's the, it's the wetness under needles and moss and the cedars. breathing in some way that releases these organic molecules that I don't know and I don't honestly care exactly what they are, but it smells like home and it smells like life. It's amazing. Yes. Yes to all. You know, I don't think I realize at times how fortunate, you know, like we got, it is minus 38 here today. Like it's minus 11 here in Celsius and that's

incredibly cold for here. Like it never gets that cold. It'll never get that cold. It is brutally cold here. But you know, it's, it's, I don't know, it's just, it's just part of living here, right? Like, I mean, it sucks. Don't get me wrong. Like, it sucks. But, uh, I love this area. I love it. I just, I just, and I forget sometimes how fortunate you are. You go, you know, go to Minneapolis, close to where my wife's from. And, uh, you, you go into the downtown city. I'm just like, I just, I just can't imagine. No, I've lived in like, a, like, a couple of couple different cities for very short stints. I just, I just couldn't do it. You know, we live in the city now, but it's a city of like 30,000, right? And the countryside is three minutes away kind

of thing, you know? Like, it's, it's different in my mind. You know, when you've got your PhD in biology. And if my notes are correct, Michigan, correct? Right. Yep. How does a girl from, you know, my wife did the same, it was something about Michigan. She wanted to go to Michigan, too. You know, we ended up in Wisconsin. What is it about Michigan that attracted you? Nothing at first, really, honestly. And if I tell you, you know, the soundbite that I used to tell people,

you'll think it's even more ridiculous. I went to Michigan for grad school to study tropical biology, which obviously makes no sense at all, right? But it's, I mean, it's just one of the things about academia, which is you go where the excellent people are and the excellent programs are and where they let you in. Like, it's that combination, right? Like where you have figured out this will be a good fit for me and they have decided this is a good enough fit or this is a great fit depending. For us, you are a great enough fit for us that will let you come. And so I was, you know, we had what was what's called in academia, the two body problem.

because I was already at that point together with my now husband, Brett Weinstein, which is, you know, he and I do the Dark Horse podcast together and wrote a book together. And frankly, since then, we've had the same job our entire lives. It's very strange. But so we were, we had been friends in high school. We'd gone to different colleges. We dropped out at the same moment. Ended up finishing up college at the same place, living together.

And then had traveled through Central America together. and had decided that we really wanted to go to graduate school for evolutionary biology and applied to a number of places. And Michigan was at that point one of the top-ranked biology programs in the country, but it was also of the places that we applied, the top-ranked one that accepted both of us because we had very different skill sets. And we had looked very different on paper. We looked very different in life as well.

And so, you know, some top schools let me in and not him, and some top schools let him in and not me. And Michigan said, yes to you both. And so we went. And I have to say, I had a number of friends in grad school who were from the Midwest. And I love the West. I love the ocean and the mountains and the, you know, not being able to see, you know, a flat horizon.

I have enjoyed the prairies, but it's not where I feel at home. And so I would be moaning about what I saw as the flatness. silence, ah, you could see all the way to Canada from here. We were in southeastern Michigan, and you shouldn't be able to see the Canada from southeastern Michigan. And the phrase that they invoked, three of my friends, all of whom were from the American Midwest, said, nope, you're missing it. There's a subtle sensuality here. And at the time, I thought, this is ridiculous. You just don't know mountains. Like I want the mountains again. But over time, I came to really appreciate it. And, you know, Michigan, Southeast Michigan is in glacial moraine territory. It's not prairie. It's rolling hills.

and you get these oak hickory forests and and streams, not major rivers, but it is, it is gorgeous in its way, as is every place that we haven't turned into a post-industrial hell, honestly. Yeah, we just drove back through Wisconsin, and I'm like, man, I miss this place. Like, it's, it's just, it's beautiful. It just is. Minnesota is beautiful as well. Did I hear that correctly?

I want to make sure that I heard this correctly, that you and Brett went to high school together, and then, but didn't date, correct? You're just friends. You both go off in your separate directions. You both drop out at the same time. You both come back home. Like are you, this is a different world of just like shooting a text and saying,

hey, Brett, I'm going to drop out. You want to drop out too? Yeah. Yeah, we dropped out. together and we didn't come home as you might imagine at the point that um that 19 year olds drop out of their elite institutions that their parents are paying for their parents aren't too pleased with them and so all four of our parents were i think you know quite pleased with the relationship they they they both liked the the kid that their other kid was that their kid was was dating but um

the idea that we would drop out of school like we we weren't those kinds of people uh what what schools did you drop out of and um what was schools did you drop out of and um what was What was it about your respective program or whatever you were in that you're just like, I just can't do this? Because I mean, you go on. Like your list of like accolades of what you've done in on the university scene is like immense. So what is it right at the start when you're 19 that you're like, hmm, this isn't it? Well, so I had started at a little tiny college called the College of Creative Studies,

which is within the larger University of California at Santa Barbara. which was a little disappointing to my parents because they wanted me to go to one of the ivies or one of these elite liberal arts colleges. But CCS, College of Creative Studies, really attracted me because it was 100 people total. And what I wanted to do when I started college was write science fiction. That was my goal. And I still have that as a goal. And I've got an unpublished, completed novel sitting here somewhere that has not seen the light of day yet.

But that was what I wanted to do. And so the literature program in College of Creative Studies, along with being able to take astronomy and geology and biology in the broader research university was incredibly appealing. But once I got there, I was not as excited by it. I got to, you know, I had great reading list. I had a, you know, I had a class on Kundra and Solchonidson, my very first quarter in college, another one on Joyce and, and Lauren, D.H. Lawrence. And I had creative writing. And I got to take, you know, the astrophysics and the geology. And I got to do a lot of the stuff I wanted to do, but the culture was still SoCal.

It was still Southern California. And I was never really at home in what I used to. So would you say then? It was the people? It was the culture. And the thing that I said at the time, and I guess I wondered how complete an explanation it is. Because when you have something that you say from a long time ago and it felt, like your truth then. It's hard to know to what degree you were actually right. But I had a lot of

male friends and I was having a hard time finding women who didn't just turn off their brains whenever men walked into the room. And I really wanted to form female friendships. And so I went to transfer and I ended up transferring. Henceforth Linda Blade folks, because that's a lady who is on fire. She is extraordinary. Yeah. And honestly, you know, jumping forward a lot, briefly. One thing that I've discovered in the wake of Brett's and my lives blowing up with our university careers at Evergreen in 2017, how many amazing women I have come to know. And I have, you know, I have a few very close female friends from early on in my life, one of whom is from actually Smith, which is where I transferred to, one of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, a women's

college in Massachusetts. That's where I ended up going. And I only lasted five weeks. there for reasons that I can go into if you want. You drop out of your first one and then you last five weeks in the second one? Yeah, so I stayed two years at UC Santa Vibra and I made some friends there and I was interested in the work, but I also felt like what was happening in literature was not serious. Like I knew that I wanted to write, but I didn't feel like the other people around me who wanted to write also wanted to know other things. And so my sense was, I should not be studying literature.

I'm going to take the reading lists and I'm going to read all the stuff. But I don't want to sit in another damn literature seminar. They drove me crazy. And the creative writing seminars drove me even more crazy because the teachers, literally my first day of college, I walked into my first creative writing class. And I had had an extraordinary creative writing teacher in high school. He was one of the beat poets and he is now a Buddhist monk. and he welcomed me in to a world that I knew that I wanted to be part of,

but these were real people who had had real experiences and had things to write about, and were also exquisite writers. And the landscape that I was in, at least at Santa Barbara, was too small. And so I both wanted to go, and said, like, you know what, I'm going to be a scientist, and then I'll write on the side, and I also want to find more smart women to talk to. So I transferred to Smith after two years. And that whole time, Brett had been at Penn, which is one of the ivies in Philadelphia. But he had been, I'm not going to tell his story, but he had been wrestling with the powers that be at Penn for the entire time that he'd been there almost because he had managed to get a really awful fraternity kicked off campus for doing some nasty things.

with prostitutes at one of their at one of their parties so I'll leave I'm just gonna leave that dangling there because it's not my story to tell so summer between sophomore junior year I think I'm going back or no at that point I've just I've transferred I've applied to these schools and I'm going to Smith and Brett's going back to Penn for the being of his junior year and we start we start dating and we have you know great summer we do this road trip across the country We spend some of it actually in Quebec. You know, we go up through the UP of Michigan and up into Quebec and down, spend, you know,

the eastern part of that trip in Canada, come back down through Nova Scotia and to Maine. And he sort of, you know, deposits me in Massachusetts and goes back, goes down to Philadelphia. And from day one, it's just not a fit. It's just not a fit for me. It's too precious. And like I said, I made one of my lifetime friends there in five weeks. She's to this day one of my closest friends. So we've literally never lived in the same place except for that five weeks in 1989 at Smith.

But it felt very, I think I've used this word a few times, but it felt very precious and very cloistered and just not like anything I wanted to be part of. And it didn't help that my roommate was a born-again Christian who spent every evening hours on the phone reading Bible passages to her boyfriend who was, I don't even know where. So there was just sort of no peace for me. There was no place for me to go and just be alone with my thoughts. So we dropped out together and drove back across the country. The car that we were in caught fire in the middle of Nebraska in a snowstorm. And we were thus stranded in Nebraska with no vehicle with just the duffles that we had pulled from the car because we'd seen

too many TV shows in which as soon as smoke starts pouring from a car, it's probably about to explode. So we didn't get anything else out before the firemen arrived and, you know, and destroyed everything by putting everything out with their foams and such. And at that point, we called her parents and they said, you know what? You figured this out. You just drop out of some very fancy schools, which we were paying for, you're welcome. You've got what you've got. Figure it out. And so we did. So, it's funny, folks, I actually want to talk about Evergreen. I want to talk about all these things, but I'm just like, okay, so you figured it out. So you just hit your ride. You rented a car. I just want to finish the thought. That's all I want to do. I just want you just dropped out

at two universities and, you know, it's like, I'm just a little bit curious, Heather. That's all. Yeah. I won't tell the whole story, all the ins and outs. But we made our way to Oakland, where we had a friend, a friend from high school who was at Berkeley. And he had an apartment in Oakland. And we crashed on his couch for a little bit until we found a place up in the Berkeley Hills, little tiny A-frame cabin up in the Berkeley Hills that was that was inexpensive enough. I found a job making pasta. I was making, I was, the hours and, you know, my, my early life practicing piano early every morning allowed me to make this work.

I got up at like 4.30 every morning and biked down the hill from the Berkeley Hills back into Oakland where the pasta shop was, where I made pasta. It was wholesale pasta for all the Bay Area elite restaurants. And so I'm making pasta from like 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then I'd bike home. And then ultimately, it took a little while, but ultimately, Brett found a job at a bike shop. And so he ended up learning how to be a bike mechanic. And very quickly we realized, actually, we like being college students.

Like, that was a good deal. And so we went back, we got into UC Santa Cruz. Do you believe in love at first sight? Or was this something that kind of just like grew? Because I'm like, you know, like you guys have now been together for quite some time. I think anyone who knows exactly who you are probably knows who you are because of the Dark Horse podcast. I have to assume my audience. That's exactly how they found you.

I'm sure there's going to be a couple circumstances where they had found you before that. But like you two together on a podcast is fantastic, right? Like, it's, it's a very, I don't know, I don't, you know, like, it's just, I don't know, natural. I don't know. Is that the, is that the right terminology? Um, do you believe in love at first sight? Like, was that what it was or, you know, like, because you're like, this is, I did not see this coming, Heather, I guess, is where, you know, you read your story and I'm like,

I am, okay, yeah, sure. And this is, um, this is a journey. Like, this is a fun little journey if, if I'm being honest. Yeah. No, it is. And yeah, I'm thinking about what all to say. There were more twists and turns, too, that I haven't mentioned. But I don't think, I do believe in love at first sight.

I don't think that's what this was. Brett might tell a different story. You know, he may say. So I was at this high, so this really interesting high school that I was at from seventh through twelfth grade. It was actually, I went there as a music major, which like music majors don't exist in seventh grade. what are you talking about, but it was specifically a school for the arts and sciences.

And so I was there studying music theory and doing like the math part of the music, which I loved while I was still doing classical piano. And Brett didn't join that school until 11th grade. And because he had been invited to leave his fancy other school, which is another story that is his to tell. But he came to this elite school in Santa Monica, California, in Los Angeles. And we met and we became friends right away.

And we, you know, we, we were basically, we were very close friends almost from the beginning. He had, the school he had been invited to leave was a boys' school. And so he didn't know all that much about girls and the fact that if you tell the friend of a girl something that she is likely to tell that, that girl, the thing. And so he told one of my close friends that he was interested in me. And so I knew that from an early in our relationship. And I loved him, but we were friends at that point. And that was it. I already had a boyfriend.

I had, you know, I had, it wasn't even an option on the table. He knew that. And at some point, halfway through my sophomore year of college, we'd remain friends, even though we were at opposite coasts for the first two years, college halfway through my sophomore year of college I thought you know what I've now I've now seen enough I've you know I long since broken up with that boyfriend and had a few more and I thought I know who I want to be with I I very much know and so I wrote him a letter and said do you want to try this and we did a that's super cool um you know I've been with my wife

now 16 years going on 17 years I guess not married but I guess this year March 10 years of marriage. And I find it really cool. The reason I'm probably, you know, I don't know what the audience thinks when I get in these rabbit holes of like, just get on to the other stuff, Sean, just get on to it. I'm like, I don't know. I find the personal journey of what makes a person tick to talk about the things that are going on today.

Very fascinating. And when a marriage is as tight as what it appears yours is, I'm like, how on earth does that happen? And the journey you're taking me on is quite fascinating. And I hope the audience is enjoying the ride as well. You know, I think it's Linda in her podcast. And maybe, you know, I believe you've listened to it. I think you said that at the start.

She talks about her and her husband and how it was, it was a letter. And I'm like, I just don't think I can even comprehend getting a letter from a girl from across the country saying, hey, you remember me? Let's do this. And you're, and I'm like, oh, yeah, let's go. Like, I mean, it's super cool. That's a wild story. Yeah. And it's, I mean, she does tell that story in the conversation that you have.

And you have exactly this reaction then. You're like, I cannot even comprehend it. People now could not comprehend waiting and how hard it is and also the value of it, right? So, I mean, later, I was working in Madagascar. I did my dissertation research in Madagascar living on an island actually off the coast. to Madagascar was sleeping a tent, I was bathing in a waterfall. I put together the solar electricity system so that I could run my laptop so that I could do data entry and write. And I wrote my first book there. And then, you know, there's no ability to communicate at all. So I'd write

letters into the abyss. And, you know, she, Linda says in her podcast with you, like, maybe she get a letter back in three weeks. I was like, how did that happen? Like, at least Madagascar in the 90s. I was like, I'd be lucky if I got something back in eight weeks. from anyone. And Brett is a terrible correspondence. It was never from him. But I was getting from my friend who I met at Smith and from my oldest, dearest friend who I had known since elementary school and from my parents and other people.

But it was at least four or five weeks. No, it was at least three weeks before anything could get one way. And sometimes it was more. So I had letters that I had written from middle of my five month field season that would arrive months after I'd returned. And it would be like, well, okay, now you can see. see what kind of crazy life I was living out there in the jungles of Madagascar. And so, you know, we were, Brett was with me on one of those field seasons of Madagascar,

but not all of them. And that's also super useful for, you know, it was extraordinary for me as a scientist being like, I'm, I'm here alone. I'm going to figure this out. And I'm going to, I have the tools I brought. And, you know, I have duct tape and paracord and, you know, and some, you know, some pH meters and, you know, other things that I'm, I have the tools. I thought I might need for the hypotheses I think I'm testing, but literally I had to pack everything. I had to figure out how much toilet paper I would use in five months because there's just nothing to be bought there. And that gives a real sense of self-sufficiency. And when you do that and you come out of it, you're like, oh, I actually have great data. I have a great scientific

story to tell. And I know it's true. And I ended up with accolades for the research. Like, okay, I know that, but it's also really good for a relationship. You know, you don't, you don't want to spend most of your time apart, but having time apart reminds you of those things that you thought you were really irritated by that actually aren't the guy at all, aren't the other person at all. It's like, oh, I'm somehow bringing that on myself. Like, that's a, that's just a, part of being a human being. And it also just resets. Like, it is not always true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it can. And I think relatively frequent times apart, which Brett and I had a lot when we were in grad school, because he worked in Panama and I worked in Madagascar,

and we both acted as each other's assistance for one of those field seasons. So I was down in Panama with him for several months, one year, and he was in Madagascar with me for one of my longer field seasons the following year, I think. Both of all of that was extraordinary. both at an individual and in a relationship development level. They would teach you things that, like my wife's from Minnesota, obviously, and we went to college together, but every summer we'd live apart.

And although during that time, you know, we're 2007 to 2011. So, I mean, everybody always laughed to me. I hate cell phones. I still hate cell phones. So I wouldn't have a cell phone. So at college, everybody would call her to get to because I just didn't, you know, I just, I had no time for it.

Honestly, I still have no time for them. But in the, in the, in the, the, the breaks, you could at least, um, contact one another, right? Like I just, I guess why I react to it all the time. I'm like, it's, it's not that long ago. It's like a really short time ago that, uh, we didn't have this ability to like, she hasn't text me back. She hasn't text me back. What is she thinking?

What is, but you know, and you can just see like poor kids today. Like, they just don't understand. And in fairness, although I understand a bit, I still get the same, you know, I still have the same bloody reaction because it's just like, it's a cool story. I think it's a really, really cool story. You brought up Evergreen. And, you know, if I go back and listening to Joe Rogan, when I first heard, you know, the first time I listened to Joe Rogan was the inspiration, I guess, to start this, because I just heard it. I was like, oh, my goodness. This is, this is something.

The next thought I have when I think of Joe Rogan is probably Jordan Peterson followed by two concepts. One was Evergreen, and I remember thinking, this is the most bizarre story I have ever heard. And the other one was Universal Basic Income. And I remember thinking, these things will never come to the middle of nowhere, Saskatchewan. I'm like, these people are far out. And how small the world has become. I mean, we both lived through COVID, and I know Dark Horse, you, that world has its own story to tell there. And we can certainly get into that.

We can certainly get into men and women's sports, you know, like, oh, man. But I think, you know, on the storyline, Evergreen, you know, when I go back and watch some of the videos again, I'm just like, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around all this. And if the audience doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about, then I really think. we need to to revisit just briefly as long as you want to go Heather but just to lay out what on earth happens there yeah absolutely and I recommend Mike N-N-A-N-A-Y-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A three-part documentary you find it on ever on YouTube it how how what I'll do is how do you spell the last name N-A-Y-N-A okay um he was involved he's a he's a he's a document He's a documentary filmmaker who was also working with the new Soglox guys with James Lindsay and Peter Begozhen and Helen Pluckrose.

And we all got together because we were all sort of thinking in similar areas. And Mike said, oh, there's the evergreen thing. You want to just say a minute about that. We're like, it's not going to be a minute. You're going to end up going down the rabbit hole. And so he did. And he put together this, it's like three 30 minute episodes. So what I'll do for the audience is,

Just so they get to the right place, I'll just go look it up and put it in the show notes. That way they can just scroll down, click on it, and off to the race as there are. Because I know exactly what documentaries you're talking about because I just watched them recently. And I'm like, oh my goodness. I didn't know who James Lindsay probably was at the time, but I'm like, there he is. And obviously he's been on the show. And he's been to Canada. He's been to Alberta.

He's talked here. So anyways, that's my own side trail. Yeah. So Evergreen was extraordinary. I started at Evergreen in 2002. I was lucky to have a choice. I had two job offers, two academic job offers at the same time, which usually people don't get. So, unlike, I mean, Michigan was also a choice, but I really felt like I chose between Brett and I chose.

He hadn't been hired yet, but we chose together, obviously. Between Evergreen and another small liberal arts college, which offered much better pay, much better benefits, much nicer climate by some people's standards. And I just loved the model that Evergreen had, the educational model, the pedagogical model of these full-time programs where the professor had the students for 16 hours a week. It was expected that whatever program you were in as a student, that was your full-time job. You were expected to spend 40 hours a week on that. And sure, you know, a lot of students, a lot of low-income students at Evergreen in the U.S. The indicator of that is, are you eligible for Pell Grants?

And we had a ton of students on Pell Grants are eligible for Pell Grants. And a lot of non-standard age students, a lot of veterans, a lot of mothers coming back to school, you know, grandparents who had just, you know, who would retire from their awesome, you know, blue-collar jobs. So you know what, I think I'd like to actually go back and get a college degree. So a lot of non-standard, not straight from high school students, but also a fair number of straight from high school students at Evergreen. And as a faculty, you had total intellectual autonomy.

You could teach anything you want. If I was hired as an evolutionary biologist, and if I had decided that I wanted to teach medieval Japanese poetry about which I know nothing, I could have done so. Now, it wouldn't have gone well, and the classes wouldn't have been full. And at some point, the administration would have been like, you really should go back to something you know about, right?

But it was my right as faculty. And that is, I think, otherwise unknown in academia. You are always slotted into particular kinds of courses. And that wasn't a thing there. And the students also had tremendous freedom. And those who already know the Evergreen story will say, ah, well, see, that was the problem, wasn't it? And I would say no.

And I'm going to pause you just there for a second. Just so people in their mind sitting here in Western Canada can frame it, Evergreen College, whereabouts would you say it is? Like, obviously, I know it's Washington, but like, do you call it Seattle? Do you call it? No, no, no, that's not where this is. This is, where would you say evergreen colleges? Yeah, so Evergreen State College, named because Washington is the Evergreen State.

So it's one of the six public institutions in Washington. It is at the southern end of the Puget Sound. Seattle is higher up on Puget Sound. It's about 60, it's about an hour's drive south of Seattle. It's the capital of Washington, and it's actually at the southern edge. The Puget Sound marks the southern edge of the last glacier during the last ice age, of the southernmost glacier, the Cordillian ice sheet in the last Ice Age. And so the geology, the landscape, the biology is all fascinating.

And the Puget Sound is itself, you know, a tremendously interesting and vibrant, although the farther south you go, the less vibrant it is because it sort of gets stuck, the water gets stuck in Eddie's down there. But place where forest meets saltwater and there are rivers flowing in and there's flood plains that flood regularly. And it's, and, you know, you can see the cascades to the east and the Olympics to the northwest, you know, both of which are big, new mountain ranges. so craggy and gigantic. And Mount Rainier, which is an enormous volcano, looms large on the horizon. So it's this gorgeous, gorgeous spot. And it's on 1,000 acres. So it's mostly forested.

It has some waterfront. So, you know, beachfront where you can just, you can be on evergreen. It's this public land because it's a public school. So you have all of these just miles and miles of trails that you can walk and and you know we lived we lived just off campus but because it's a thousand acres of forested campus our commute was biking through a single track trail through campus to our offices you know a quarter mile bike ride through through campus sounds beautiful it was amazing and you know I used to say it was uphill on the way there and you could bomb down on the way back and I would say to

Brett like any day I get to do this is a good day like almost no matter what else happened if I get to just fly down this trail and here's the forest and I'm on my bike and I'm alive and you know as long as I don't hit a route or you know make an error and fly off of it and hurt myself which never happened um it was just it was extraordinary and the the students were amazing that said what was happening hardly only at evergreen but everywhere but evergreen was a particularly um i hate that this word has has become tainted like this, but a particularly progressive college

in terms of the politics. And so Brett and I were progressive as well, but not in the way that has since come to mean. And we started to see in 2013, 14, 15, signs up in faculty windows that basically looked like they were either interested in bringing compliance for the others or they were they were advertisements that they were on board. And so, you know, in the wake of, I'm going to skip around a little bit, but in the wake of

George Floyd's death in the summer of 2020, at the point we were living in Portland. And Portland just, you know, it was, there were literal dumpster fires everywhere in Portland and the whole city became, became an utter mess. There were the signs that were up on shops in Portland, proclaiming Black Lives Matter and all of all of these epithets that you were supposed to adhere to in that era, I started referring to as don't hurt me walls. This is a request to the terrorists, basically, Antifa and those associated with them and adjacent to them to like if I shop am advertising that I am, you know, LGBTQ owned,

I'm woman owned, Black Lives Matter, you know, don't hurt me. Please don't smash my windows and destroy my business, which is an insane way to live, obviously. but long before I had framed it in that way, like, these are don't hurt me walls. We were seeing these signs in faculty windows on campus, including Black Lives Matter signs at that point. And I didn't know that Black Lives Matter was a fraudulent, awful organization at that point. The sentiment seems awesome. And yet there was something about those signs. Even back in probably 14 was the first time I saw this, maybe it was 15.

I can't remember exactly when, like, when all the precipitating events happened. But even then, Brett and I and a couple other people on campus were going like, what is that? What is happening? Like, why are we suddenly being told the obvious in this bold font in a way that seems like we need to adhere? We need to comply to something with something that didn't even need to be said. Like, there's something wrong here. And so there were murmurings among, again, a handful of us on the faculty. But Brett and I both. So by that time, Brett was on the faculty as well. And we were both, you know, we were both teaching science mostly. I mean, I was also, you know, I got to drag in all this stuff. So I got to drag in philosophy and sometimes music and literature and some of the other things that I, you know, that I love. And anthropology, which is what my undergraduate degree ended up being in. And because of who we are and what we taught and how we taught, Brett's and my programs are always full. We always had waiting lists. And this was at a time. when enrollment was already falling off a little bit.

And so most faculty didn't have full classes, didn't have full programs. But we got to be choosy. Like we got the best of the best of the students. And that meant that we didn't see what was happening in other parts of the college where there were some faculty who really the only thing that they were offering

was how to be an activist. Like this is what your college education is going to be. We're going to teach you how to be a victim, how to see all the ways in the world that you haven't had a fair shot, and how to take that out of the streets and be righteous and be angry. And by, sorry, let me see, in the end of 2016, the college hired, or maybe it was some time in there, the college hired a new president, and he basically precipitated the downfall of the college, because he signed on with a bunch of these activist faculty in order to

accomplish what he wanted. don't know exactly what he wanted to do. But he basically enjoined them to form committees that would then have authority over the rest of us on campus, where we had had the greatest faculty autonomy of anywhere. Suddenly, we were being told that we would have to do X, and we would have to do Y. And also, some of these documents revealed,

we weren't going to be allowed to hire anymore, the way that we had always hired. And there's a lot wrong with it. academia outside of this particular ideological takeover that you can call the woke you can call you know you can call it a lot of things DEI diversity equity and inclusion but you know that's that's kind of the the analogy I've used it's like the whole cake is rancid if academia is a cake you can't scrape the the woke icing off the top and have an intact cake inside like the whole thing has become a mess and it didn't start with the DEI madness with the woke madness but that didn't help that made it

obvious to the world in a way that wasn't obvious before. So by early 2017, I'm on the first sabbatical of my career because one of the things Evergreen didn't do was offer good sabbaticals. So I finally had two quarters off, and that's actually when I wrote my science fiction novel. And I said to Brett, as things were ramping up on campus, I said, I have got to not pay attention to this because I finally have the thing that academics are supposed to get, which is time and space to think about what they want to think about and create what they want to create and that's what I'm doing. And so, you know, I went off, you know, I went up to Vancouver Island and I went

down to New Mexico and I went actually down to Portland and, you know, also spent a lot of time in Olympia because we have two kids and, but he would be going to all these meetings and come home and say, things are getting crazy on campus. Like this is the 2016, 2017 year, things are getting 2017 academic years. Things are getting utterly crazy. This was, so Trump was elected in 2016, in November of 2016. And that was the excuse that a lot of the activist faculty gave. This is the end of everything. This is the end of democracy.

This is the end of the hard won rights for, you know, for gay people, for black people, for trans people, for disabled people, for women. And, you know, this is clearly the end. And therefore, we must destroy everything. Like, that's how the logic went. And you could just. even I could feel it. I was, you know, again, living a mile from campus, a mile from my office, but trying not to be there because I didn't have to be there then. It was the first time since 2002 during the academic year when I wasn't there every day, right? May 23rd, 2017, I'm actually up in

Tacoma with my younger son at a medical appointment. And so I'm going to tell it from my perspective because that's what I lived. And the perspective that Brett lived is all over YouTube. I'll tell it as well, but I'm up in a waiting room 30 miles from my home. First, just a regular doctor's appointment for my younger son, but it's a long way. Like we're going to be there for a while. I don't remember what it was. And I get a call from one of the deans, a guy who I know, who I liked. I thought we were friends. And he said to me, something has happened. Something has happened on campus. Something has happened in Brett's classroom.

He keeps on correcting. Something has happened outside of Brett's classroom. There are a lot of people. The police have been called. I said, what has happened? What's going on? He said, well, something has happened, and there's a good chance that the media are going to be reaching out, and I would ask you not to talk to the media. He said, what has happened?

Like, you're talking about my husband. You called me for a reason. What is going on? He said, and also, we can't reach Brett. Would you ask him to call me? something has happened, the police have been called, the media may reach out, you don't want me talking to the media, and you can't reach him, and you didn't lead with that. Like, this is a school that I had been, that I was tenured out, that I'd been working out for 15 years,

that I loved. Loyalty is one of my highest values, and I loved this school. I mostly loved the students and the philosophical framework that it was built on and the ability to take, like, I took students into the Amazon. Like, I could take students so many places at the school. And this dean calls me at the point that what turns out it happened was a mob of naive activist students who were literally sent by another faculty member. Most of them didn't even know who Brett was, what his name was, what he taught. They had been told, here's his name, here's where he's going to be, here are your chance, go.

50 enraged students show up outside of his classroom and start demanding that he resigned because he's racist because all scientists are racist. all of this nonsense. And what they didn't see coming, a few things, what they didn't see coming was that Brett students, like my students, actually liked him, actually respected him, because he actually liked them and respected them, because we treated our students like real human beings unlike an unfortunately high number

of faculty, not just at Evergreen, but everywhere. And so we had actual real relationships with these students, and he was actually actually teaching about the nature of mobs. Like that's a piece of the story that isn't even like out there much. But like he was literally teaching in part about sort of the evolutionary nature of witch hunts and mobs that week in his class. And he had his students split between three floors in this building, the Sem 2 building at Evergreen for breakout groups before we brought them back together to talk about sort of the prompts that he had given them. And that's when the mob shows up. And what he did was he talked to them.

And what his students did was that they also tried to talk to the mob. And they also completely stood behind Brett. I mean, not like literally, some of them literally. But like, they just, they backed them because they're like, what you're saying about this guy? He's our professor. We know it's not true. Like, you're just wrong. You got the wrong guy.

Like, probably they're racist around, but like, not this guy. That's not it. Right? And that was shocking. And it just, it was like a do not compute on the part of the, the mobbing students. They, they had never occurred to them, I think. But also what they did, and this is, you know, thank you to them. But they recorded it and they uploaded it to the internet because they thought they were winning.

They thought this was a win for them and that they were on the right side of history and that this is their righteous moment and that they were, you know, showing it to the man and science and racists and, you know, all these things that they thought was growing on. And of course, they were wrong. And Brett was calm and collected, and he tried to talk to them. And a lot of people have said to him, like, how did you do that?

How did you not freak out? How did you not start yelling at them too? And what he said is, I was doing my job. My job as I understood it in part was to talk to confused college students. These were the most confused college students I'd ever seen. So here I was going to talk to them. So what happens next is the mob takes over. The college allows the mob to take over. The president tells the police that are a campus police force to stand down. They literally the police are forced to barricade themselves in the police station on campus. There are roaming hordes of these activist students on campus who really have no physical ability at all. But they're armed with baseball bats. And they're like roaming the campus. And the police chief who we come to know very quickly calls us. She's awesome. And she says to Brett, don't.

don't go on campus because they're now searching car to car looking for a particular person and they won't say who it is, but we know it's you. We, Olympia is in the state capital. So two days into this, that was on a Tuesday, on a Thursday with a lot of Brett students, we go down to the state house, we go down to the Capitol and we try to get an audience with the governor say like, do you know eight miles from here? Like this is happening. You've got anarchy on a public campus. Like this is one of the six public institutions. four-year institutions, the state of Washington, and there was literal anarchy, they are hunting people,

and it's insane. The governor may or may not have been not there, but we were told he wasn't there, but we were given an audience with two of his aides, I think his aid on civil rights and his aid on higher ed, I think. And we talked to them for a while, and they seemed to hear us, and they seemed shocked by the stories that we were telling, and they promised action, and nothing happened.

No, nothing ever. happened. And it was weeks of chaos, of complete insanity. We ended up at one point at the strong urging of our friends and family at the point that things got particularly heated. They said, you have to leave. You have to leave the state and you have to get. And so I ended up going what's what's sorry, Heather, what's particularly heated? Because I feel like baseball bats roaming the college campus is beyond particularly heated. So at what point does, it escalate from that? I'm trying to remember what the precipitating event was.

Oh, I know. That caused us to leave, finally. And you know, we didn't leave forever, but we left for a few days. We flew down to LA where we had family. Some idiot in New Jersey called in a bomb threat or it. wasn't a bomb threat. It was I'm going to come to campus and shoot a bunch of people. Turns out he was in New Jersey. Turns out he either wasn't armed or wasn't like it was, it was a farce, right? But the police at that point had been allowed to start doing their jobs again and they had to take it seriously. And it was announced on campus in such a way that, you know,

from the beginning, the administration made it clear. that they were not on our side, that they, that they too were interested in a witch hunt and that they'd found their witch and it was Brett, and then it became Brett and me. And so this, this farcical non-entity of it, again, I can't remember, it was bomb three. I don't think it was a bomb threat, I think I'm saying, I'm going to come and shoot up the campus, was conveyed, like, okay, everyone has to get off campus, everyone has to leave, and there were only a couple of ways off campus, and so you had this, like, traffic jam. And people were freaking out because they feel like,

oh, at any moment, someone's gonna show up and I'm trapped in my car and someone's gonna shoot me. And somehow it became the meme that this was Brett's fault. That if he had not stood up to the mob, if he had not, with the media ignoring this entirely, with the governor ignoring this entirely, with no help coming at all, at the point that Tucker Carlson called, his people called and said, well, you come on my show

and talk about this. We said, gotta. Like there's no other media. Like this is happening. And they've uploaded these videos to YouTube or to the internet and we knew they were out there and the people were beginning to talk, but it was very slow and at some point,

and at that point we collected them like, okay, these videos are gonna disappear. They actually prove what is happening on this campus. It proved the crazy, but still no one is talking about this. So Brett went on Tucker. It was actually hugely important. and hugely positive. But that further divided everyone,

because in the minds of the woke, he's Satan, right? Like you don't talk to Satan. And our position then was, I don't think he's Satan, but also like, would anyone else like to talk to us? Hello? Like New York Times, NBC, CNN, like anyone? No, okay, we'll talk to this guy. And at this point, I feel incredibly positive

about him. I was merely grateful then that he had allowed there to be any public, mainstream discussion of what was going on at all. But that had further polarized everyone, and in the midst of that comes this threat, I'm going to come and shoot up campus. And so at that point, the online, there was doxing of Brett students. A couple people showed up at one or two of Brett's houses threatening them. And it was clear that everyone knew where we lived and that even though most of these kids really had no idea how to wield a baseball bat, much less anything stronger. We had children and it wasn't safe to be there. And so I had to go to their schools in the middle of the day and pick them up.

And our younger son was just about to graduate from elementary school. He missed that and he was beyond spooked. of course. Like I'm being pulled from school in the middle of the day and we're taking a flight to L.A. Like, cool, I get to see Grandma and Grandpa, but what's going on? Like, what is happening? And we hadn't tried to obscure any of it from them because it wasn't possible. This was everything in our lives. But it was the point at which what was happening on campus inherently affected our children was the point at which I started to get really angry with the people. who were letting it happen. Like I had been, I had felt betrayed. I had felt like, wow, these people, these people are not who I thought. This institution is no longer what I thought it was. People I

thought were friends are not friends. I, you know, Brett and I were always heralded as these, because we were the most popular professors on campus, like we were heralded as, as everything, everything that Evergreen should be, and that just turned around a dime. Okay, like that was hurtful and it took a long time to get over and all, but it didn't, hit me in the gut until we had to upend our children's lives in order to keep them safe. It's like, okay, you know what, guys? No, not okay. You've gone way too far. And how dare the adults let this happen? I, to this day, I don't, yes, the students had agency. They were 18, 20, 22, whatever. These were all kids. These were all young kids. These were not the,

there was no veterans among these. These were not mothers. Like, these were the, these were the young, straight to college out of high school, protected, who's been fed a bunch of lies by activist faculty and had gotten roiled up into a mob. Mops are exciting. They were part of it. They were wrong. I hope some of them have figured that out at this point. The faculty, though, and the staff and the administration, they should have known better.

You know, I have two thoughts. And the first one is a name you mentioned early on in this, and that was Soljeanetson. and I the only reason it comes to mine is I I was cleaning up the house they had just a stack of books sitting beside the bed and I'm like you know I gotta organize this feel like Jordan Peterson you know I'm like yeah I get but clean them stuff so clean your room one of the books was Solgenesis and so I opened it and I'm like ah I haven't I haven't flipped this open in a couple years and I'd highlighted one thing and I now if I wish I had the book here I'd read it to you but basically said They come for the outspoken, the, the, the, the way I internalized it, Heather, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but the best of you, right? The people that are independent, that's what they go after first. So when things really crash, there's nobody to turn to to lead them out of the, you know, the disaster coming. And I don't know why that comes to mind other than I think, you know, when you, you know, you probably have had to justify this to people for so long. But now we've been through COVID and now we've seen all that.

So, you know, it's like, but back then it's like, no, all of our students love us. Like we're great. We have full, you know, what is going on here? And I think of Solgenin-insin. I just think, you know, in this in this world that has been created here over the last, however many years people want to put to it, Soljianinson talked about it in his book, you know, the Guleig Archipelago laid that out. And it's funny because I just stumbled.

back across that like this past week all highlighted and that's you know like I've read that and it just like it's a tough like a sobering thought it's true um yeah he would he was he was well prescient is the wrong word because he lived it uh you know he he lived it in the gulag um there are a number of voices from the 20th century in the late 19th century who have who have seen versions of this. And Britain and I were just in Prague for the publication of our book, Hunter Gatherers Guide to the 21st Century in Czech. And it was published by this amazing organization that's interested in reforming voting structures so that they are actually more democratic, among other things, among other things that the organization is doing. And we met just an amazing crew of people

there and were inspired. I had been in Prague once before in 1996. at a conference, the scientific conference, and had loved it then, but it was new, newly out behind the Iron Curtain at that point. It hadn't been out from behind for all that long. And it felt like, and this was confirmed by many of our new Czech friends, that the, that there is a spirit in the Czech Republic, that there's a spirit in the Czech people that is this sort subtle resistance. Like, you give me a rule, and it's very like that I'm going to push against it first. Like, and I've written about this, and I think we talked about it on a dark horse too,

but my favorite, just the epitome of this, of this happened on our trip, our trip there. We were in a pub late at night with a bunch of check people and our host, who is among many other things, this great musician had brought a guitar along because we had been trying, we've been hoping to have an actual campfire, which is a theme in our book, that campfire brings people together, right? And it turns, it was, it was, I think it was raining. Like, something happened meteorologically that prevented campfire, and so we went to a pub instead. But he had his guitar anyway, and it was in the first floor of a building that was residential, and it was like a Monday night or a Tuesday night, and it's one in the morning. And,

he breaks out his, he breaks out his guitar and he starts singing and there's all these Czech folk songs that every Czech person knows. And so everyone but the two of us in this pub starts singing. And not only that, but a guy at the next table breaks out a violin and starts playing along. And a guy at the other table breaks out an accordion and starts playing along. And you have this musical abundance, and it's so amazing. And everyone's a little bit drunk, and it's late, and they're singing, and, you know, people, I guess we're fitting in enough, or they're just joking with us, but a few of the guys are like, come on, sing along. We're like, we don't know these songs. We don't know this language.

But this is amazing. This is just like the most amazing moment I could imagine. This is what collective music does for people, right? And the guy, so it's a multi-room pub. There are only these three big tables in the room we're in. but people are like coming in from the other rooms in the pub to like sing and dance. And the guy from the bar, which is in the other room, comes in and like whisper something in Adam's ear, our friend with the guitar.

And it's clear what he said is, look, dude, like, I appreciate it. But like there's people sleeping. It's a weeknight. Like, you got to stop. You can't do this. And Adam's like, he like smiles at him. He's like, yeah. And the guy turns away.

And he just ups at a notch. And, you know, he finishes the song on this incredibly. loud, jubilant note. And then he stops. But he makes it louder at first, and everyone's happy and thrilled. And afterwards, the guy from the bar ends up saying to Adam, yeah, I would have done exactly the same thing, man. Like, I get it.

I didn't want to be the guy imposing some rule that I really care about. And this is the energy that we saw in the Czech Republic. And I attribute it in part, and this is, again, consistent with what people there were saying to us to the fact that they have lived through it. They've lived through totalitarianism recently enough. Many of the people there are old enough to have actually lived through it, but it's in living memory for everyone, you know, whether it's through their parents or grandparents or whatever, that they know it when it happens. They know the early signs and they can see it and they are seeing it in the West, right? They are seeing it. They're in the West, but at the event that we

did, one of the people in the audience referred to us here and like the West. West, West. So like here in the West, West, West, West, we're experiencing all of these signs unless it was happening with DEI and wokeness on campuses. And oh, my God, if COVID didn't show it to you, I don't know what you were looking at, right? And there are a lot of people, man, there's so many people who can see the DEI on campuses things and still can't see the COVID version. And to me, that, you know, that's one of the more pessimistic observations. Like, oh, boy, then then it's going to happen again. Then it's going to come worse again sooner.

Because if you can see how insane that mob at Evergreen was, but you can't see how insane lockdowns were and how amazing and jubilant the trucker's convoy was and how that brought people together in a way that no one had imagined before then. Oh my God. Like, wake up then. I got to ride in that convoy. Yeah.

And, you know, to any American who hasn't heard me say this that is tuning in right now, because Canadians get it. But the road we have that connects this country, you know, I mean, park, and I don't want to give anyone bad ideas, but like park a tank on one point of it. And she toast. Like, there's no getting through. And then it's minus 38 here today. You know, we're sitting at January 12th.

So in essentially two weeks, roughly. time the trucker convoy started two years ago and that is probably the most Canadian time for it to start but it is the worst time for it to start we're talking like minus 30 or worse every single day as it drives across a highway that in parts you know northern Ontario in particular single lane like not great uh my father drove truck across Canada for a chunk of his life you know and there's just certain parts that are like the most dangerous treacherous pieces of highway. The fact that thing went from coast to coast, essentially, had zero, you know, accidents, fatalities, anything.

When people were on the shoulders of the said highway burning fires, standing out there thinking, you know, like, I remember thinking like the one day was supposed to take, uh, on like map quest or whatever you want, like seven, eight hours. took like, I think it was 14. Like we were supposed to be there. And you can imagine if you're watching a website, oh yeah, they're going to come by at 4 o'clock. And then we come rolling through at 8 p.m.

And you've been standing out around a fire, freezing your butt off. And like those memories are just like seared into my brain. And the thing about media, you know, when you tell your story, I'm just like, man, it has been going on for a long time. And, you know, and I keep hearing these stories. over and over again. I think it's good for me. I think it's good for the audience to understand. This just wasn't COVID. Certainly not. And it's been going on a lot longer than Evergreen. And we get into that with a whole list of guess. But like the thing that just shocked

me, you know, the CBC here is dying. Like, I mean, it is on if I don't even know if I can call it life support anymore. It is just, it is just absolutely going down the drain. And you go, wow, let's let's let's get it. Let's let's revive it. All they had to do is get him one semi and just literally live streamed that entire thing. And you would have had the biggest audience you've ever seen in Canada. And they didn't. They actively. That's right.

And they vilified everybody who's a part of it. And the problem was in Canada is most people knew at least one person who went to Ottawa, roughly. Anyway, that doesn't make sense. Sean's a Nazi? I don't, I didn't see that. It was a giant mistake because in today's age with the ability, especially at that, point in time with the amount of podcasters and and social media people and everything else. Everybody has a phone. So everybody just started like live streaming from there and you could just

pop on to like 17 different threads and you just watch different things and you're just like and it is it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. I have to say. They showed their cards. Yeah. That's all I was going to say. No, they absolutely did. It was, um, it was the first, uh, activist event for lack of a better term protest.

Um, that I have ever known about that I've desperately wanted to be at. I desperately wanted to be there. It was so clearly galvanizing. And, you know, I live close to Canada, but I'm vaccinated. And, you know, I don't have fake papers. So I couldn't. But for that, which was exactly the point, right?

Like, it was exactly the point of it. And I heard, I ended up publishing a number of pieces on my substack about the trucker's convoy. because it was I so wanted to be there. It was the only thing I could think about for some number of weeks, but I just actually mentioned a couple of names here. So Tara, who's the mother of three beautiful young women, one of whom died during COVID by suicide and wrote her story for me, and attributes her death in large part to the lockdowns that came imposed

from your government. Dan Arcand, writing from Northern Ontario, about the experience associated with the convoy and then in Ottawa. And then Daniel Leponte, who's a photographer, whose photographs from Ottawa, I shared. And there were more. There's more voices that I shared on natural selections, which is my substack.

Still, as you say, in a couple of weeks, it's two years, which is hard to believe. It's as hard to believe as in a few weeks, it's four years since people became aware of COVID, right? But that did feel like that was the first real sense of hope that a lot of us had felt in a long time. And maybe you guys who are actually there don't know that a lot of us who weren't able to be there felt that too.

It was extraordinary. Well, I think I got a couple thoughts here. going back to your check story when they say they've lived it I think here in Canada we lived it in an easiest way you can ever experience totalitarianism

we got our we got our dose now you can say with COVID and you can say oh it wasn't that bad it wasn't it but but to the people who know and there's more and more people that know and they just want to come to terms with it or what have you.

We had our little thimbleful of like, this is what it tastes like, do you want this for the next 100 years? And thank God for people like Chris Barber, Tamara Leach, and the cast of characters who all showed up in Ottawa. I point those two out because they're still on trial. Right. There's the Coots four, but Coots blockade. There's four people in Alberta.

There are still political prisoners, and you're just like, this is still going on. It is still wild. And without those people, you just don't know. They all go, all the mandate. I love politicians. All the mandates were coming off anyways. That's a load of a lot. That's just like an absolute lie.

We all know it. This changed the trajectory of the world. And if it wasn't for people like that, because I interviewed Chris Barber, who is the lead trucker of the convoy, like a week before they were leaving. and I'll tell this over and over again, Heather, I thought, this ain't going to work. But I, you know, and I just kind of walked away from it. And then part of the convoy left from Lloyd to start a small little part. And I went and experienced that and I started, I'm like, I'm going to have to interview people every single day. And it was only like day two in.

I'm like, it's time to get in your car and drive as hard as you can across Canada and catch up to this thing. Because this, you could, in the air, you could feel it. Every encounter you had, every conversation you had, everybody was talking. This is something. This is really something. And I think we've had our thimble full of totalitarianism. And I think, and maybe I pray or hope, that that has been enough to give us our medicine so we don't careen into that life.

Here's one thing that occurs to me hearing you talk. So it was shocking to us Americans, many of whom would always joke when elections went the wrong way. oh, I'm going to Canada, right? Like Canada always seemed like the safe place, right? The safely democratic place. And COVID real that that wasn't an option, right? That all of the English-speaking world got real stupid on COVID, right? Australia and New Zealand were worse than you guys in Canada, and Canada was maybe a little worse than Britain. Britain was a little bit worse than here in the U.S., but we were like, none of us did well. We were like all of our governments treated the citizens very badly indeed. And I don't think that the dose was high enough in the United States to be a

reminder. It was much more stringent in Canada. I know a lot of people who fled just before the mandates came down from Canada. And that sort of thing wasn't happening in the U.S. as far as I know. And it's just it's a bigger country. And boy, our media that, you know, the CBC may be dead. but unfortunately CNN and MSNBC and the New York Times and the Washington Post are not. So, you know, they still have a grip on a lot of people. But Australia and New Zealand did particularly badly during COVID. And here's the one little bit of hope that I get from your observation that maybe the bit of totalitarianism that the Canadians have experienced

has made you more robust to future inroads to democracy. Australia, which did absolutely terrible things. things to its people, especially those who were unvaccinated during COVID, was, I believe, the first country to refuse to sign the Who's New revised pandemic treaty, which is going to a vote in May of 2024. And I'm glad you bring that up. So, you know, when I saw that, I was like, that must be a typo. Australia? Like, Australia has been awful. Australia's going to go all in on this. But like, no, actually, we used to think of Australia having this kind of verve and, you know, like being able to stand up to it. And, you know, the mainstream that we who aren't in Australia saw from them is probably the same thing that if you weren't paying much attention, the mainstream that those in Canada would seem to be, have been experiencing was like, oh, everyone's all in.

Trudeau's lovely. Everyone thinks he's great and his lockdowns are fantastic. And maybe the same thing was true of Australia. Like, actually, there were a lot of people who could not believe what was happening. And somehow that has percolated enough that Australia said, oh, no, not this who. Nope, we're not going there. Well, Australia, you know, we were, I was just talking about this with a recent guest, Ross Kennedy. And, you know, whether you talk, I guess New Zealand is the one that comes to mind for me. but New Zealand with the the Haca, right?

Like their past. Canada, you know, like there's certain things in the world wars without Canadians. A lot of things would be different. And that's in our past too. And we've just, whether we've forgotten it or what along that lines. And, you know, I was just at a meeting, you know, a couple cool things from the Canadian side, especially in Alberta here, you know. I don't know of many politicians, if any, have apologized.

Now, it was a brief apology, but Daniel Smith, when she got voted in as Premier, apologized. Yes, she did. That's the province I'm sitting in. Yes. You know, the guy I had on last week, folks, if you haven't listened to that, Ken Drysdale wrote an 89-page forensic report on COVID-19. He's from Manitoba. And then he became one of four commissioners who went across Canada and did the national citizens inquiry. And he was just telling me, if you go to, and I'm forgetting the website, and I apologize.

apologize, but it's a 700-page document. He just spoke in Lloyd here, and he was saying, you know, it's a toolkit. So you can literally go to two of the sections and see the recommendation what they came through and the stories that gave them why they do the recommendation. So it's two sections where you can just go back and forth. He says, you should use it for your churches, for your school, for on and on and on and it goes. And he was saying, you know, as far as they know, it's the only citizen-led inquiry of that went across a country, compiled the report, interviewed, I forget how many people is it,

folks? Is it 300 and some? I apologize. It's 300 and some people, I believe. And, like, there's just hours and hours and hours and hours of testimony. And so, you know, that gives me a lot of hope, too. Like, there is, it's almost like the old engine needed to be fired. And COVID, although it took some time, kicked it up. And it is, it is, it is, is rumbling, right, is warming up. It's minus 38. it takes a little bit of time, you know. But once it's going, it's going. And I don't think they realize at times. This is at least what it gives me home.

Because I look at, you know, I listen to Brett's interview with Tucker. Yep. And I'm, and he had a recent tweet that I've really, really enjoyed talking about, you know, lone wolves and how people, you know, in COVID, but it's this galvanizing force. We're all woke. We all woke up. I mean, we're all woke. And, you know, we just met here in my hometown.

we met at a meeting and you go, huh, there's, yeah, you're back, right, that tip of the cap, right? We're all here and whatever they're throwing down the pipe because we're all seeing all these different things coming from the globalist side of things. Something's coming, but at least we know who each other are now. And I think increasingly people recognize that even those, even strangers are often more awake than they think. And so I've been encouraging, I have done something that is kind of not within my normal personality, but I've begun to actively make conversation with people who I have fleeting interactions with, you know, at a coffee shop, at dry cleaners, you know, Uber drivers, which is the standard thing. A lot of people do that, but it's not generally my

tendency. I prefer to, you know, observe rather than participate and try to get information out of people this way. But I've been doing it. And since, gosh, well, we're living in Portland during the summer of 2020. So begin. in the summer of 2020 in Portland, that was about the stuff that was happening in the streets of Portland. But very quickly it became what was happening with in the vaccines that were coming down, alternative treatments, you know, what is actually going on, which of all of the stories that we are being told might actually be true and how certain are we? You just indicate a little bit of hesitancy, just a tiny bit of hesitancy about the mainstream narrative that we are being told by the media, that we all must believe and that we all do believe.

And almost to a person, people open up. They're like, oh, yes, and. And at the moment, the conversations I'm having end up being about, you know, the lies that we are being told here in America about how awesome the economy is. And, you know, everyone goes grocery shopping and can see that their bills are getting higher and higher and higher. And we are being told that things are getting cheaper and awesome. Heather, it's not a big deal.

I don't know what you're concerned about. On one hand, it's not a big deal. it's not true. Like, okay, it's not true, but if it is true, it's not a big deal. And like, neither of those things is true. And maybe you don't know that because you're richer than God, and therefore you don't have any idea how much eggs cost or bananas or anything else. But I can promise you that everyone who actually lives a life is seeing how expensive things are. And therefore, these stories about the economy being awesome, which are being trotted out to Americans in, you know, advance of the election, you know, the cluster fuck, excuse me, but this, this, this

this newest election. I think that is a step too far. Like, they overstepped because everyone can tell. Everyone could tell that the economy is not doing just fine. Thank you very much. Well, man, I've, I've really enjoyed this. If you've got a couple extra minutes, we're going to flip over to substack. So we're going to take a break here, folks.

And if you want to come here, the last couple of minutes of Heather and I's conversation, This has been a lot of fun. I mean, as heavier topics, we kind of delve into. But I want to ask you one final question. We'll do it over on Substacks. We're going to take a quick break. If you want to come on over there, folks, please follow us over.