Some More News - Even More News: Acorn Is The New Fentanyl

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Hi. On today's episode, The House of Pod host Kaveh Hoda joins Katy and Cody to discuss the shooting at the Chiefs' victory parade, acorn cops, the impending siege of Rafah, the return of Jon Stewart angering Democrats, and why we're seeing an increase in cancer rates among people under 50. Note: There was a dog barking outside Jonathan's window during the entire recording! Jonathan did not get a dog. Check out our MERCH STORE: https://shop.somemorenews.com   SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA   Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  

Hello and welcome back to even more news the first and only news podcast my name is Katie Stoll. Thank you so much for welcoming me specifically to the podcast. I'm Cody. Yes you are. How are you? I'm you just just us today no why that's not true bullshit we have a very special return guest it has been a while since he's been here that's right ladies and gentlemen and germs i don't know why i said ladies and gentlemen well it works We were just talking about illnesses. Kabehara!

Hey, thank you so much for having me back. It's so nice to be here. It's been so long. I miss you guys so much. I miss you so much. It hurt. And every time I come back, I feel, I think I've told you this before, but I feel like I've won some listener award, some listener

contest to get to come on the show. And it's really nice to be here. Thank you both. What a nice thing to say. Feeling a little choked up. I can't. Part of. OK, so we have our relationship of, you know, guesting on shows.

And the other one was Twitter. I'm not going to rant about Twitter because people are getting sick of me ranting about twitter but i haven't interacted with you on twitter in a while because it gives me hives to interact with me you're not the only one you're not the only people just people oh okay people yeah i get that um twitter i use i still use and I feel not great about it but it's really fun in some ways. I was just able to arrange a show for my podcast with Max Collins of Eve 6 and Peter Hotez

because of Twitter and I'm like I can't hate on it too much because it's giving me that opportunity but everything else about it is bad. Absolutely. If you can have the right mindset going into the space and you don't care about people being so scary the abuse and the harassment you know anyway we don't people don't like how often i rant about twitter so we're gonna move

on from this to celebrate some holidays what is this voice I'm auditioning today? I'm not so into it. Well, you got the part. Thank you. It's been a while since I've heard that. February 15th. Singles Awareness Day. Sad. Singles Awareness Day.

It's the acronym. I think they're aware every day. I don't think they needed a day for it. I think we're very, very aware, those of us that are single. Oh, sad. I get it now. Sad, yeah. It's not like, oh, sad.

No, you know what, you guys? It's not sad. Let's raise awareness for how cool it can be to be single as I sit here with these three men with partners. Some of us really enjoy our alone time. I really love it. You know, there are certain things that I cannot do anymore that single people get to do. Like be alone. That is so nice.

You have no idea. Oh, I do, actually. I mean, it's nice to poop without somebody trying to break into your bathroom to talk to you or show you what they're working on. I don't have to worry about shutting the door. Yeah. Oh, my God. That sounds awesome. Although I probably would still shut the door even if I live by myself.

I do frequently. But it depends on the day, how wild I'm feeling. Recording this podcast is the only time I'm alone in a room almost ever. And even then you got these cuts. Cut to like 4 p.m. We're recording this about 1 p.m. 4 p.m. Jonathan's like, no, no, it's still recorded in here.

It's a long one. Emergency pod. It's an emergency pod day. I don't know. Your baby's in there with you quite often, which I love. Yeah, sometimes there's some faint baby background. Maybe not during the show, I guess. Well, we'll see.

The new audio editing software, it's easy to get out ear piercing screens oh so amazing he is just a delight i will say that they you know this is the day after valentine's day like oh singles awareness day the day after valentine's day no it's valentine's day everyone yesterday was right but it cannot be two things all like most days are more than one single awareness day like they're probably more aware i'm not sure i'm gonna push back on that right right you're the acutely aware right everyone's doing their thing and well that's why the day right after is like okay you guys too you get a day yeah it does seem like yourself

love it's insult to injury i feel like i feel like let's just not mention it yeah we already did it the day's over yeah yeah let's move on yeah yeah let's move on february 16th national do a grouch a favorite day why

would i want to what does it mean everyone knows a grouch and some of us Why would I want to? What does it mean? Everyone knows a grouch, and some of us may even be guilty of being one. On February 16th, maybe you can be the one to find the sweeter side of a grouch. Suggestions include

baking them something, crumbling along with them, what? Offering to help with a difficult project. Look, depends on how prickly we're talking about if this guy's or girl or person if this person is a real grouch i don't know do i really need to be putting all that energy in yeah this week is a real emotional roller coaster there's a

lot of emotional dates packed into this. And the whole, like, you got to get to know the person. Once you get to know them, they're pretty great. I mean, yeah, but, you know, there's nice people who are also nice on the outside. I like those people, too. Yeah, the presentation a person gives is what they want the world to see, right? So if you're grouchy, you want us to think you're a grouch. So I guess you are. Look, if you have a friend who's you're grouchy you want us to think you're a grouch so i guess you are

if you have a friend who's in a grouchy mood that's something i can get behind bring up some cookies but if there is a certified grade a grouch a real curmudgeon a prickly pear i don't know that they want you coming over with cookies i just don't know feels like a waste of your energy eat your cookies for yourself because they're identifying as a grouch and you're basically saying no you i want to make you into something else that you do not want to be and i feel like that's not totally cool and yourself, I've just learned because I do have a thing of, I bet I could cheer you up. I bet I could make you smile. No, let the person be.

It's always bad for both of us. I feel rejected or embarrassed. I guess I celebrate National Do a Groucho favor day or i have in the past all the time every day yeah but no i've got boundaries now it's a little self-respect you sure i'm aware of it national boundary day oh that's one we could pitch yeah let's get well on the phone yeah get him on the horn Jonathan's writing it down I don't think they're gonna go for that it's not weird enough right do you not think I write things down

even when it's totally flippant like oh yeah we should do that I know you do which is funny this notebook is filled with gibberish things to do okay Super Bowl Kaveh how crushing was that?

Yikes. Did you care? I do. I don't follow a lot of football, but I follow the 49ers because I am a Bay Area guy. I live in San Francisco. And I hate that it hurt me as much as it did, but it really did. And it was such a bummer. And I don't know how much of your audience enjoys football and watches it, but this game was, it was a great game. I can't argue that

they went to overtime. It was a classic game. But the problem with it is like after a game that you lose in a big one, you kind of want to pick one thing to be like, okay, this is the thing we can fix for the next year. And this one, it felt like there was just so many little things that happened. Like you don't know what to pick. There's so many little tiny things that could have gone a different way and they could have won the game. And it's really a bummer to me. And I'm sorry I'm talking about football.

Well, no, I asked you about it. And I mean, perfect setup. We are subjecting our listeners to this. It's obviously rigged, the whole thing. It's obviously rigged. Sorry, I'm tongue in cheek. But go ahead. it's obviously sorry i'm tongue-in-cheek but go ahead but you know i i i think we should maybe mention the the how they keep showing um oh my god i'm blanking on her name superstar

taylor taylor swift sorry i want to call her turner for some reason oh i like that yeah so uh i'm not i don't follow her music i respect her fine but um I know that she's accomplished a great amount in her life. And she deserves to be there at the game. She deserves to have fun. But the controversy over her being on air, I thought was kind of an interesting one. And it is funny to me that people get so upset about it. I mean, I'm a Niners fan. So every time they showed her rooting for the team, I instinctively didn't like it.

But I don't take any issue with the person herself enjoying it that's just how watching a game goes yeah yeah i mean every time she came on and my super bowl watch party it was a big cheer i don't know mostly because it annoyed a couple people so kind of weaned in right it's funny to me because it's also like obviously it where our culture is so stupid um uh and people are mad for really silly reasons but like when a celebrity is at a football game a basketball game a baseball game they show that celebrity on the screen yeah um even if it's not taylor swift so this like this like intense anger it's like ah taylor swift no no she's a celebrity they're gonna show her yeah yeah i mean we don't i don't know you think we'd have more we didn't on san francisco side we didn't we didn't

it would just like you know be taylor swift looking awesome and then like some random schlub from san francisco taylor swift looking awesome another random schlub from San Francisco. Taylor Swift looking awesome. Another random schlub from San Francisco. But this is because you weren't there at the game. I could be random schlub number three. That's true. You would be cave schlub number one. You're not a schlub at all.

That's what I tell myself. Rooting for the Chiefs. The world's biggest pop star. Rooting for San Francisco. Here's some tech billionaire everyone hates. Let's show them like the world's most hated men. Bill San Francisco. Here's some tech billionaire everyone hates. That's right. Let's show them like the world's most hated men. Bill Epperson's in the stands today. It's just not satisfying too because the Chiefs just like win.

God, they're just so good. It is annoying. And like the way it played out, boy, because I am not a football watcher, but I love it. I like to, when things get excited, I'll get there at the end, but I wouldn't grow up watching football obsessively in any way. And I don't really understand the rules. You know,

I like to cheer, but you know, we're in overtime. I'm like, this is looking pretty good for the Niners. And my friend is like, no, honey,

this is actually really bad. I was like, what? I said, bam, it was over. Well, a fun little fact. I don't know if you picked up on this. So in the overtime, they had a coin toss and the Niners won the coin toss and they got to pick if they received first or kicked first. And the strategy for the new rules are clearly that you should kick first.

You do not want to receive first. There's a lot of reasons for it I won't go into. But the players didn't know about the new rules. And so they were just like randomly like, oh, yeah, we'll get it first. Let's do that. The thing that we always do. The thing that you want. You want the ball first.

And you can hear there's audio of the players walking away. And the Kansas City players are like, I can't believe they did that. I can't believe they did that. So frustrating. I do think with the new rules, and obviously we can move on from football in a minute. But I love football. No, it's a sports show now. And I watch many games.

And I think about it a lot. And I do think with the new rules, it's not terribly obvious. It's not like where the analytics say, oh, if it's late, you go for two down eight. It's not like so 100% in that way. I see the argument for taking the ball first because then if it is tied after each possession, you get the sudden death possession, you get the chance to win it. But the Chiefs were clearly – if San Francisco had scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point first, the Chiefs would have matched with a touchdown and then gone for two to win the game. So there would not have been that third possession that Kyle Shanahan said after the game that he wanted.

But it is very notable that all of the Chiefs players were like, this is what we wanted. If we got to overtime, we wanted the ball second. And all the San Francisco players were like, what, the rules changed? What's going on here? They just didn't talk about it beforehand and then a bunch of san francisco players talked about that and admitted it in press conferences which is as a coach probably not what you want that's not great no but they're being honest okay we gotta talk about news i have one more question for you, but it is also news, so everyone slow your roll. Yeah, calm down.

Calm down. We'll talk about the news. Here's a question for Kaveh that includes news. What do you think about the new potential COVID guidelines? Oh, you mean in terms of getting back to work and testing those yeah you don't have a fever you're back to work baby i don't love it i do not love it i don't love it i think it i mean i feel like it's inevitable and i feel like that's what people are already doing out there and um there's the argument to be made that at least people will test now knowing that, because a lot of times...

Another argument to be made that the test won't test positive for a full week. Yeah, exactly. I think it's a mistake. I'm not too happy about it. I'm willing to see how it goes. I mean, we're at a better place than we were, you know, in the last couple of years. Our latest peaks have most places getting a little bit better. But in some places, the numbers are still going up. In some places, it's pretty steady. It was a rough, rough season with the flu as well. Yeah.

And I saw a ton of that. It was terrible. yeah uh and i saw a ton of that and it was terrible so i mean i i am a little nervous now that we're just things are starting to look up a little bit that we are tempting fate with this um so i am a little bit nervous about it yeah i don't love it it's it's it's interesting interesting uh i don't know if that's the right word, but moving forward. It's fun. It's a fun experiment. Fun and exciting. It's like, obviously, we're at a much different place than we were even the last time that we had you on the show.

And people have had it. People have been immunized. People, you know, and a lot of people have an experience of COVID that isn't too bad, all things considered. But it's as if we're just glossing over the fact that there's lots of people who don't. That long COVID, we're not even paying enough attention to the reality of long COVID or what is still happening to lots of people. Jonathan recently had COVID. Sorry to throw you under the bus, Jonathan. But you had it for you.

You don't have long COVID, but you had it a long time. I tested positive for a long time. For a long time, you know. And so I got over my infection. I was feeling much better after a couple of days. But there was a lot of confusion about if we could do Christmas with our extended family because I was testing positive on a rapid test two and a half weeks later. It was like, well, I haven't been symptomatic in weeks. I'm probably fine. I'm not going to spread this infection any further, but I had this tab that

was telling me one thing and there was very little guidance outside of that you know i just had to google and you know what to do yeah but just in general you know removing any sort of rate limiting ability for a person that to say no i'm not coming in today i i just can't i don't it you're putting so many more people at risk and in general i think culturally that is something that we should have learned over the last few years the flu does kill people i understand it's quote unquote just the flu until it gets you like that. But we should give people the space and time to recover and not prioritize their, you know, ability to work over their health.

You're exactly right. And this whole thing is in line to sort of bring Americans more, make our opinion of COVID more in line with, you know, flu and other respiratory illnesses that we already are dealing with and how we deal with them. But it's almost like we should be doing the opposite. We should be like giving, we should be treating more of these things like flu, RSV, like we've been with COVID and really trying to create more space for people to take themselves out of the public when they're sick and not spread it. So, it is true. I mean, the disease in general is causing less severe disease, but it still happens. And there's still

people who are getting it. And there's people who still do poorly with it, especially the immunocompromised people. And even some people who don't get these long COVID symptoms, which we're still learning so much about. I mean, it is a little concerning to like, because we still don't know. So much we still don't know about these long COVID symptoms. And that does concern me. I feel like there's a lot of COVID revisionism happening. And a lot of people have moved on from it. And a lot of people, and I get it. I mean, it was terrible.

It was a lousy couple of years. People want to move on with their lives and not think about it as much. And they want it to be less of a factor. But it's still a factor. It's still there. I mean, people try to pretend like it wasn't as bad as it was. And it's sort of slowly creeping in, even into like non-crazy internet like arenas. There's always been the people who denied COVID, denied treatment and denied the vaccine and all that stuff.

But there is this creeping feeling of like people be like, oh, well, it wasn't that bad. We got through with it. I mean, discounting all the deaths. Well, we have very short memories. Yeah, the COVID revisionism bothers me a lot yeah yeah and you wonder like how that will sort of leak into like when something like that happens again if another pandemic or something like that if those feelings of of like actually wasn't so bad and this is this if that will sort of uh yeah push that and people just generally being their alarmist or people are overblowing things and, you know, the distrust.

It's a lot to think about because we will have other pandemics. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's coming. It's coming. You know what else is coming? Even more news. Did we like that?

I thought that was good. That was good. That was great. That was probably an inappropriate transition, actually, to this first story. We're going to mention a breaking news story that is very depressing and related to our conversation about the 49ers. And that would be the mass shooting at the Chiefs Victory Parade. One person is dead. 21 people are injured, including 11 children. They're all expected to live.

The children, obviously wonderful, but not that wonderful considering the trauma they just went through. Apparently, this stemmed from an argument between several people. A couple of them were younger than 18. from an argument between several people. A couple of them were younger than 18. Wild to me that some argument escalates to the point where people are shooting so many bullets, so many bullets to injure all these people. And also wild to me is how quickly this will disappear from people's memories and timelines, et cetera, because it wasn't premeditated.

There isn't some angle here other than this is so fucking unnecessary and it's guns and people using guns to work out interpersonal issues. I don't know. Well, I do know. Everything I just said. Yeah, everything you just said. We said we may I mean this is speculation because we still don't know so much but I wouldn't be

terribly surprised to find out if one of the shooters was not in this initial argument and was trying to stop other shooters and that is how some of the people became shocked. I don't have any evidence for that right now, but in this kind of

situation with this kind of melee, it's unlikely that one or even two guns did all of this. I may be wrong. I do know, I think one of the shooters was apprehended by people without guns. That's something. Not one of the uh shooters was apprehended by people without guns yeah um so that's something not not

one of the 800 cops who were there interesting 800 cops such a fun detail uh boy do i would i have felt so much safer looking around at all those cops no i wouldn't have uh this seems semi-related uh i'm just gonna bring up there's a recently released uh video of body cam footage of a cop who just opens fire in a suburban street for way more than uh you expect um because an acorn fell nearby him and he thought he had and he thought he had been shot i'm sorry what it is it is it's very funny nobody nobody was hurt so i think it's okay to say it's very funny uh it is so embarrassing and absurd freaking out does like a triple barrel roll on the ground and just opens fire like a charlie

like you need to put circus music underneath it's like it's so absurd google acorn cop and you can find this yeah well acorn acorn cop is how many deaths every year of police from acorns guys come on let's be fair here have a little awareness cody i'm sorry the natural predator of the police slides acorns other things you find at parks are responsible for like a shirt that says acorn is the new fentanyl. Acorn is the new fentanyl. I was going to say. You can't be within 300 feet of fentanyl or you will freak out. God.

Yeah. So Katie, check that video out. It's fun. Getting back to the shooting thing. If I was going to say something I mentioned about the Kansas City shooting. The thing that I don't know if you guys do this. Maybe it's because I'm Middle Eastern and I grew up doing this

with every news story. It's almost like the stress of waiting to hear what the ethnicity is of the person because you know it's going to be spun into something terrible, like no matter what it is, the narrative is going to shift

and you're just like quietly sitting there hoping, like, oh God, please don't don't we don't need that story now um it's not a good game to play i don't like that i play it but it happens in my mind every time one of these things happens and yeah and every time uh like there's there's a shooting or an injury or something because i because i know there's the initial trauma of it but then there is the new cycle that follows it and it i don't i guess i don't have anything to say about other than it really bums me out yeah i don't know if anyone else does that a really good point yeah i mean the response to it is yeah a huge part of it i always cringe slightly while we wait but i yeah being a a white woman i probably i know that i definitely have less of that reaction um and thank you for sharing that because i think that's really important

to point out how stressful that must be for people of different ethnicities and yeah you know well not that i've been like you know yeah go ahead i've seen a lot of also recently a lot of um like right-wing accounts and um you know they're like twitter blue nazi kind of stuff um uh sharing like uh pretty blatant misinformation about like trans mass shooters and how like all mass shooters are trans now um and i think it's just like everybody is just sort of like i hope that the shooter isn't like anything you know like it's it's such a uh an easy tool for people to use to manipulate and uh and spread that kind of stuff okay our next story even more depressing can you believe it uh we're gonna we're gonna talk about rafa now jonathan would i would you mind setting this up

for us i would not i could just be like quick and sharp and just interject we'll see yeah um well the israeli military is reportedly planning a full-scale assault on rafa in southern gaza this is where about 1.4 million palestinians are sheltering, many of whom have already fled their homes elsewhere in Gaza. There was a bombing attack in this area over the weekend, reportedly to rescue two hostages, according to Israel. Health officials in Gaza said 74 people died in that raid. And one of the reasons we wanted to bring this up was because this coincided with the super bowl like but when this raid was happening we first started learning about the new threats on rafa uh the super bowl was happening and then after the super bowl ended

and the chiefs won uh the joe biden twitter account posted that dark brandon meme with with biden with laser eyes with the memory from the president and with the text just like we drew it up and uh it's not a good look yeah it felt a little bit uh tone deaf maybe not for most people who saw it but uh if you were as many people do watching the super bowl following things online you know reacting with people at the same time you were seeing highlights from the super bowl things from the halftime show and then horrific images from rafa at the same time so i'll tell you what i would be firing his social media manager some of these things. Just like, not that you've made an overt mistake, but it's tone deaf.

Also kind of an overt mistake. You know, I want to talk about Rafa, but also as a side note, I do, compartmentalization is an interesting conversation to have. We're allowed to watch the Super Bowl. We're allowed to enjoy the Super Bowl. You're not a bad person for holding space for that and living your life right now and taking time to celebrate and relax. However, we also need to be

paying attention to what's happening and the president of the United States posting that in the midst of that. It's not good. Yeah, it's really odd. Also, I mean, it's I think people have varying opinions about this. And again, we'll get back to the actual story. But even if this assault wasn't happening, it's still a weird thing to post because it's sort of dipping into this like weird, like very specific culture war aspect of the Internet specifically where it's like why is joe brandon doing this like cryptic tweet that's basically in response to like benny johnson and tim pool videos you know like that what a waste of time and then it just comes off as like very odd and the half people are like why did he post this what i don't even know what this is about and then the people who do know what it's about are like i'm gonna i'm obviously still gonna i

was gonna vote for you know like it's just a weird approach to politics to like wade into that i feel like he's i mean clearly he's trying to seem younger reach out to the younger people he's trying to stay connected and he's it's working i you know actually i'm not so sure that um anyone you know is gonna get i don't think they're gonna see this in any way It's working. aren't really going to question, aren't really upset about Biden's stance in the Israel-Palestine issue. They're not really paying that much of attention to it, purposefully probably. So I like to say that a lot of people are like us and kind of saw that as like, dude, that's weird. This is weird. Why are you doing this now? It's so weird. I think a lot of people just saw it and they're just like, oh, that's funny. I get it and that was it he's he's being cool it's

a cool meme i want to put a pin in that slightly because we're going to talk more about biden in a little bit but you're making excellent points about this you know the battalion that is there to protect and have blinders on about joe biden and will defend him to the ends. But I want to bring this back to Rafa because it's more important, in my opinion. Jonathan, you said, you know, is reportedly planning, which is the appropriate way to phrase this. However, I want to point out that Netanyahu said to ABC News on Sunday, quote, we're going to do it. We're going to get the remaining Hamas terrorist battalions in Rafah, which is the last bastion. But we're going to do it. We're going to

do it while providing safe patches for the civilian population so they can leave. And yet what safe passage is that? Leave to where? Leave to where? What are you talking about come back to what so while we are saying reportedly we have netanyahu saying oh no it's happening uh yeah i mean that's all that's uh par for the course for this entire uh i mean conflict forever basically like you know oh like all their reports like biden's very concerned behind the scenes they're like oh they may do this no no they're saying it out loud all the time they say it all the reports like Biden's very concerned behind the scenes are like, oh, they may do this. No, no. They're saying it out loud all the time. They say it all the time what they intend to do. And if you know you're you keep telling people in Gaza to keep going south, that's the safe place to go.

Keep going. Keep going south. And then they keep bombing the place where they tell them to go. Eventually you get here and then like you're saying, like what? What next? Where do they go now? It's really horrific. And it feels just like this disconnect of what is obvious and what is being reasonably reported on. The thing that really troubles me, I look at it, it helps me to keep me sane, to only look at this from like a medical perspective.

to keep me sane, to only look at this from a medical perspective. And you take millions of people and you relocate them again and again to smaller and smaller, smaller areas where there is no infrastructure, nothing to help them with any sort of sense of hygiene. There's one toilet for hundreds of people, one shower for thousands. People have to do their business in the streets where it contaminates water. We see, it's already, it's hard to tell because disease surveillance systems are so hampered. They were hampered before, but almost nonexistent now, but rises in scabies, lice, infectious diseases, hepatitis A and E, diarrheal illnesses, and these people who have nothing, nothing to take care of them.

We're talking about kids too. Babies taking care of babies. It troubles me so much because I really do worry. I've said this a lot on my show as well. We've talked about it. And I don't know if it's getting enough attention. The amount of death that's going to occur just from the disease process alone is in the trauma. And I'm not even talking about psychological trauma because everybody in Gaza is going to have trauma.

You know, everyone. But like, what's going to happen to these kids who are growing up so malnourished, who are being born into this, who aren't given the most basic shot at health. That's really concerning to me. And I see it, they're just getting them into smaller and smaller areas, less and less infrastructure, less and less support of the 36 or so hospitals that started that back in October 7th, maybe only a couple are somewhat functioning still. The Nassar Hospital that's there in Southern, the Nassar Medical Complex, that's like a 350-bed hospital and they have thousands of patients in there, not to mention that over 20,000 people are just sheltering there. It's terrible. It's terrible, the amount of illness that's going

to rage through that. And I hate to have to do this, but I think it's important for Americans to understand that this will affect them too. If we end up seeing some sort of novel virus or some mutation that's started in Gaza, I will not in the least bit be surprised. And I hate to use that card to get Americans to care. But I mean, I'm willing to do that. I don't think it'll work. Maybe not. I don't think they're looking for cards. But I mean, what we've seen from COVID is that, you know, if the disease is not controlled in other places, it's going to affect us here. And I don't see how it's not going to happen over there too. But anyways, I mean, it shouldn't even require that. It should just require like a basic sense of like oh that's

that's not great you should not this shouldn't be happening to innocent people civilians yeah i mean even like yeah it's uh that perspective is very interesting i think hopefully compelling to people too because you can i mean you can look at all the devastation the bombing the repeated bombing and all this stuff and go well that's genocidal that's what's going on right now but even what you're describing is that too you're concentrating on people you're affecting like it is how you deplete a population and yeah i don't have nothing else to add to that it's just very uh disgusting that there doesn't seem to be i don't know i just keep seeing all all the time just people like look they uh look at all the food they have there like look at like i it's just so much disgusting misinformation and uh not acknowledging what's actually going on there so uh speaking of the u.s and trying to get people

to care where where is the u.s at this point? Have we... We're frustrated. Oh, are we frustrated? Increasingly frustrated. Increasingly... You piece of shit. Sorry, here comes all the people that are going to be saying he's not as big of a piece of shit as Donald Trump. Donald Trump's diarrhea, okay? This man's still a piece of shit.

That's good. Yeah. If you're you'd rather have one than the other. The fact remains. I'd rather not have diarrhea. You put it in terms that I, a gastroenterologist, can understand. I promise you, I thought out in advance. Yeah.

No, Biden is reportedly increasingly frustrated behind the scenes he calls him he calls netanyahu names in private uh he uh in private he does all oh you should have seen him he was mad man he was mad anyway it has been four months of this would have loved to see him be mad about it like you are not increasingly frustrated, man. And I do feel, you know what, I don't feel bad for these guys, but there's this guy, John Kirby, that is a spokesperson that has to go out there and explain. We are supporting Israel in all of their endeavors, but also we think they should care more about the civilian casualties. And we care a lot about that. And there's only so much we can do.

And every single day he has a really hard time balancing these two obviously incongruent ideas. But this week he said, Israel cares so much about protecting civilians. Here's his quote. They're taking actions, quote, that even I'm not sure our own military would take. The fuck? What? I didn't hear that. It's wild.

Probably, if it's true, it's really bad. If it's not true, it's still terrible. What a weird thing to say. But also, like, dude, what's your job? Who do you work for? Like, what are you doing? What does that mean like what i mean he's probably he would in his mind there's probably one specific thing they did that he was like oh that was nice and

disregarding all the other things that they did that are killing the civilians he wants you to ignore literally any photo or video that you can see from this area right now and say like they're doing so much to protect these people like our we would just bomb them all. That's what the U.S. military would do. They shot some of the hostages. And that's kinder than what the U.S. would do, I guess. I. Oh, God.

Yeah, that is troubling. That is troubling. Increasingly troubling. Yeah. No, those guys, it's always interesting to see the sort of like the really just tragic dance that they have to they have to do. Yeah. Like and like you said, like, I don't feel bad for them.

It's an impossible job and they should quit the job or like do it better and be maybe a little more honest. The other is the other guy. Is it is it matthew miller matthew miller's the state department guy little god that guy i can't even listen to him anymore it's just he's it's such a weaselly job to have to do and he's so like quote unquote good at it because he's still doing it but he's so bad at it because it's so obvious yeah that's the job the job is just to suffer that is the job is to just go out there and

do that and just to take it go up eat shit on camera every day every day everybody sees it we all know what's going on but john kirby i want to say his official job title because i didn't know it uh verbatim or by memory is coordinator for strategic communications at the white house national security council so he coordinates the strategic communications at the White House National Security Council. So he coordinates the strategic communications where he just strategically decided to say that the U.S. military sucks. It sucks and is bad at like...

Yeah, and likes blowing people up. Real strategic. Sorry, Kirby. Oh, what if he was Kirby? All right. The video game character? Is there something there? Yeah. Nope's that's what

i meant yeah no that's all that's all we need to do so the first thing we're gonna do is circle back to to what you were starting to say just a few moments ago about jibiden but we'll set it up by saying john stewart is back y'all hosting The Daily Show again on Mondays, leading up to the election. And he had his first episode this week. Not bad. Yeah, it's fine. I didn't watch the whole thing. But people are mad about something.

Jonathan, what are they mad about? Well, they're mad at him for doing a segment about how Joe Biden is old and may have cognitive decline and how Donald Trump is old and also may have cognitive decline. And they are accusing him of both sides in the issue or making it seem like both sides are equally bad. Equally bad. Just for we don't have time to show this eight minute segment. I don't think that's what he did oh you're correct because he didn't you think you don't think that because he didn't say that um he did spend some time on joe biden because he's the president of the country um and

if you are purporting that you are up against this horrifying threat, Donald Trump, you would want a really strong candidate to be able to defeat that person confidently. And there are concerns about Joe Biden and his ability to do that due to poll numbers, all kinds of things. due to poll numbers, all kinds of things. But he also spends time talking about Donald Trump's many crimes and the ways in which his oldness manifests differently. And maybe it's worse. The idea that he is both sides in it by pointing out that they are both old, which they are, is absurd. I also will get to the rest of the stuff. I saw a few people like they're so mad. Also, we'll get to the rest of the stuff. I saw a few people like they're so mad. The just for lack of a better term, Blue Maga.

I'm sorry, folks. But like, come on, get it together. So many people are like, John Stewart is back and he's only back. He like he doesn't have the spotlight anymore and he just needs the money. And like they're just bringing him back. He like begged them to do that. I am sorry, folks. Comedy Central begged him to do that i am sorry folks comedy central begged him to come back they've been recycling hosts for weeks and months like there's no host

to the show they begged him to come back so people would watch the show and they did and they did like it's just so good at it and he's good at it like let's just point out like he's good at it was funny uh he did a good job it's fine calm down everybody i guarantee you that in five months when the election is actually happening he'll probably be a little more nuanced and point out all the things that donald trump is gonna do that are bad but like but this is february guys it's february i there's one thing i don't think i quoted it properly but the gist of it was he said it is the candidate's job to assuage concerns not the voters job to not express them yeah yeah that's fucking right if I can say when he left I was one of those people who was I was okay with

him going like his energy didn't see him into it I was a little annoyed by the whole like rally for sanity whatever that was and I was there it was very disappointing I was one of those people that was like this both siderism nonsense is is bad and then also I discovered your guys's youtube stuff and I felt like that like niche had been filled in my brain because you guys do such a great job there. But that being said, like seeing him do it was nice. I mean, nostalgia hits us all at some point, I guess. But you have to admit, he does it well. Like when you see like the other Daily Show hosts go and do it, and then he comes up and does it, you're like, oh yeah, that's what it's supposed to sound like.

Like, I mean, he does a really good job about that. Actually, what else? You know, he did something else that really bothered me. The movie Rosewater. Did you guys watch that movie he made? I did not see that. I haven't seen either of his movies. So it's about a true story about this Iranian journalist.

And he gets like zero Iranian people to play in the movie. Like none. And it's like the Gail Garcia Bernal, who I do love from Werewolf by Night. Great movie, by the way. I highly recommend it. Anyways, but like there was no Iranian people. I'm like, if Jon Stewart can't figure that out to like get like actual Iranians to play Iranians.

And trust me, I've been to LA. There's plenty of us there. There's so many of us there. We're every fucking where in LA. You could find a couple. Find me, Hollywood. I'm here. Anyways, that annoyed me a lot too. But I thought, just like you said, this show, this episode he did, I thought it was really funny. And I thought he really clearly was just being honest about something that we need to talk about. Like it needs to be discussed and to like sweep it under the rug

and get mad at people who are like, even questioning Biden. I think it's a really bad strategy. It's a really bad strategy. Oh yeah, it's not gonna, yeah. It's important. It's necessary. It's valid.

And, you know, I do have a problem with people. I don't know how very many people on the left are saying this, but people, you know, I do have a problem with people. I don't know how very many people on the left are saying this, but people, you know, immediately jump to dementia, this, that, either. Like, stop it. You don't even need to go. You're not we're not in position to diagnose. He's an old man. And this is a very hard job.

This is an important conversation because he's 81 right now. It was an important conversation before the last election because he was almost 80 and he's just getting older. And we see it doesn't do anybody any good to pretend as if we aren't seeing a person that is noticeably aging very quickly in this office. I'm not trying to shame the man it's what it does it's what it does to you it's it's valid to say people are too old and yes donald trump is also old and yes donald trump is unhinged and says wild shit and gets away with it. Yes. But Joe Biden is markedly worse for where after not even a full term yet. That's valid and important. I want to point out where I think, you know, the Keith Olbermann's of the world who are very mad at Jon Stewart are coming from,

because I do think they're right about one thing, because there is a double standard in how the media is approaching this issue and i think it's because when biden says something that doesn't make a lot of sense we attribute it to his advanced age and when trump says something that doesn't make a lot of sense he's been doing that for years clown man yeah right so so it's no longer news it's to us it's no longer a news story this last week he said that if he loses the election, they're going to change the name of Pennsylvania. And it's a very funny clip because he says Pennsylvania. It's very funny. But that's not national news because it's like, well, Trump just says stuff like that. Like, who cares? Like, move on.

We've tried to make it national news so many times and it's like there's where do you begin sorry well that's well yeah because that's like i think it is important to point out like that's a media problem the issue of like joe biden's age and his terrible poll numbers and all this kind of stuff that's valid to bring up if you're not bringing up the horrific stuff that trump is saying then that's a problem but and i do feel like stewart like kind of addressed some of it at least and again it's february he'll get to it um but i think we do see that issue of like in the media just like you don't see a lot of reporting on it especially also i think because we were in a lot of ways we were done with him he's out of the office we're good we're good on

trump he's not funny anymore uh he's lost the juice all this kind of stuff now he's running for president again and so it's gonna start leaking in more and more and he's gonna say more fucked up stuff he's gonna talk about his plans to like kill all democrats or whatever like he's just gonna say that kind of shit and hopefully the media will actually catch on there but i do yeah that is a right and that's not what john john stewart was not saying right biden saying that al-sisi was the president of mexico is the same as trump saying like can't wait to ban you know muslims again or whatever like he He wasn't equating those things. Yeah. If I can get back to something Katie said, and it's going to sound like I'm giving Trump credit. So before I do that, let me make it very clear, anyone listening, that I would vote for a barely sentient doorknob over Trump. And so I want to make that very clear. But you do see how much the job ages almost every president.

But it feels to not age Trump that much because I think clearly he's like something's wrong with him. He's emotionally disconnected from the reality of the job. If you are dealing with this job and you're reading all the stuff you're supposed to be reading, which we know he didn't really. Yeah, he needed his charts and stuff. If you're listening to the people you're supposed to be reading, which we know he didn't really. Yeah, he needed his charts and stuff. If you're listening to the people you're supposed to be listening to, if you're paying any sort of emotional attention to anything that's going on around the world, you would age.

It would age all of us. We would all look terrible. And Biden looks like he's aged a bit. So I'll give Biden credit because that means he's probably human. And Trump does not seem to age as much because he's he doesn't care he doesn't that's a good point because like he's not staying awake all night yeah he's bloated through that presidency in like emotionally and like in terms of like his attention look worse but oh yeah he definitely like did look worse and uh you know almost got him um but that is interesting that like there is an element

of like you he doesn't he doesn't care um he's not like i'm stressed out about the job he's like i'm the president i can do you know he's got a different outlook on it so it's not the stressful job that it is for a normal human being exactly it should aid you like the crypt keeper you should not come out of that thing looking normal. Right. But he's going to be up. He wakes up at 11 to watch Fox News. Yeah, executive time. His executive time, exactly. And so if you're so separated from the actual world of being

the president, then yeah, you're not going to visibly age as much. president, then yeah, you're not going to visibly age as much. I'm wondering if this year will start to age him because his first, like he's going to have some trials that are starting. He can't push them all off after the election. The road of trials. And those might start to stress him out. If it looks like some of these things are not going to go his way, or if he looks like if he doesn't win, he might go to jail.

I think that would impact him emotionally in a way being president never did, where he was just totally on well done steak. Yeah, it's his get out of jail free card. Like he I think you're right. Like as we get closer, because it is the way he can not go to prison is by being the president. And he's got a lot of cases coming up. And he knows that he needs to win these or win the presidency. And he'll start to feel a little bit like a cornered little rat. So finally, I want to sneak in one more quick conversation before we're gone, because we're going to be talking about this all year.

Yay. Kaveh, what's up with the rise of colon cancer, especially in young people? What's up with that? What's up with that? What's up with that? I'm so excited to talk about this with you guys. Okay, so for the listeners who don't know, I am a gastroenterologist. So what I do is I study all the digestive organs in your body from your liver to your colon. And

good news is that colon cancer overall is getting better. We have better treatments. We are detecting things earlier. The rates of it overall are going down, and we're able to prevent deaths, we think, with our colonoscopies and our screening process. But what we're seeing is that there's an increase in the number of people under 50 who are getting colon cancer. So it's not a huge amount, so I don't want everyone freaking out. You know, now everyone's getting to get colon cancer. About 10% of colon cancer are going to be these younger patients. And there's probably listeners who are like under 50, still sounds really old, but like that's like young to doctors. So, you know, that's very concerning because we don't know why.

There's a lot of ideas about it. You know, whenever you have like a birth cohort like this, where there's a group of people who seem to be experiencing something different than the people before them, you have to start thinking about things like diet, environment. These things have been linked. We don't know exactly what genetic factors there are there that might be triggering this. Some people have linked it to obesity and the rise in obesity, but I don't know exactly what genetic factors are there that might be triggering this. Some people have linked it to obesity and the rise in obesity, but I don't know if that really holds true. I mean, we see young patients who are not obese in any way and it doesn't seem to connect. So,

it's not clear. I mean... Microplastics? People have talked about microplastics. People have talked about cell phones. Even the younger people always have a cell phone with them. It's in their pocket. And some of these cancers are lower down in that area. Maybe it's related. We really don't know yet. Sedentary lifestyle too, maybe like, yeah, not like overweight, but like, just like, yeah, you're sitting at a desk for 15 hours or whatever. No, you're exactly right. I mean, I, we don't know if that's the answer, but I think it's a

very reasonable thing to think and to question because, you know, you do exactly right. I mean, we don't know if that's the answer, but I think it's a very reasonable thing to think and to question because you do know that sedentary lifestyles can affect your gut in a lot of different ways and the gut motility. So is there something like that that's happening people who don't have any family history or genetic problems to 45 for colon cancer screening. We can talk about what those options are. Yeah. Maybe we can push it back. I want that distant from me. Well, if anything, it's probably going to go the other way, but we'll see. I mean, the thing that's... Because what's tricky about it is at least half of these younger patients are people in their 20s and 30s. And not everyone should be getting colon cancer screening. And somebody out there might be saying, well, why doesn't everyone just get a colonoscopy in their 20s? And certainly people come up to us and they're the benefits of doing these screening exams. These tests, whether it's a non-invasive one, like a stool test, or a colonoscopy, which is invasive, or even other, we have other modalities too, they all have some degree of potential risk, things that could lead to risk. If you have a colonoscopy, it's not without some risk, things can happen. We always talk about that with our patients. You always have to get their consent to do it. So we have to be able to focus on what is causing

the problem, why there is this rise in youth, so we can focus on those patients and the patients with increased risk. So we haven't figured it out yet. It's a very hot topic right now, and there's lots of people looking into it. There's clearly going to be, I think, with more... There was a paper that came out of Cell in 2000 that showed racial disparities. I don't think that'll surprise anybody to find out that people of color are more likely to have cancers and die from them. So a lot of that is just not getting the healthcare that they deserve. So we're going to see some of that play into it as well. And I think in the coming years, I'm feeling confident that because it's being studied, we're going to have some more answers for that. But what I would say for listeners who are like, well, what should I be worried? I mean, no, you're not. It's still a low risk. But if you do have symptoms like

abdominal pain, rectal bleeding, blood in your stool, or you have a low blood count, they can't figure out why. You get your blood working, your blood count's kind of low and they're like, it's probably just heavy menses. And you're like, oh, not that heavy. And it's one of those things where I'd be like, consider it, talk it over with your doctor. So those are the things that I would really be on the lookout for. Abdominal pain, so many people get abdominal pain. Most of the times it's not going to be, you know, cancer. So don't worry. Every time you have pain in your abdomen, it's not going to be cancer. But if you have these consolation symptoms, then you should definitely be talking to your

doctor, even if you're younger. Because I think it's clear now, colon cancer, I think this is changing and there's going to be some GI doctors out there. I don't know how many GI doctors listen to the show, but there's probably some. Tons. It's a huge demo. Sound off in the comments. I bet. And there's probably some that disagree with me on this one, but I would say colon cancer is no longer a disease of the elderly, of older patients. I think now it's- It does not sound that way. It's a little bit for everyone. Oh, good. We love inclusivity.

We like equity yeah just a little question i'm curious so you mentioned briefly like microplastics might be part of the issue and stuff um do you see a lot of like any you see like research and like uh any development on just like microplastic ingestion in general because i was just thinking like the other week like remember when we found out there's like all this microplastics in our bodies then we all didn't talk about it and like surely people who know what they're doing and are smarter like looking into that and they are but it hasn't made it i mean to my knowledge it hasn't really made it into the medical journals per se i mean it's in like the more esoteric sort of like journals that like, I as a doctor, I'm not reading, you know, the deep science ones. But I do think there's going to be more discussion in

medical journals, you know, to cross over to doctors, there's going to be people much smarter than me being able to make that transition. I don't think it's really happened yet, not in a really robust way, but I think that's coming. And Jonathan? I don't know if that's the answer, though. I don't... That to me doesn't concern me. It's just...

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I think the phone one kind of bothers me a little bit. Well, I do feel that lots of things get pinned on phones a bit, you know, so it's hard to,

but they're very, they're very young. And we could add another thing to the phone list. I wanted to ask real quick, because we were just talking about colon cancer. And it's my understanding that we have seen similar rises in many different kinds of cancers, it's my understanding that we have seen similar rises in many different kinds of cancers, but there has been higher rises in younger people of lower body cancers than upper body?

Yeah, it does seem to be affecting more than just colon cancer, but colon cancer is picking up a lot of steam. So, for men under 50, colorectal cancer is actually now the leading cause of cancer-related death. So if you have a person under 50 who dies of some cancer, it's most likely that it's colorectal cancer. For women, it's now the under 50, it's now the second most common cause. So yeah, there are some younger patients. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree.

And I think the good news is there's a lot of attention on it now. And with that comes more and more studies. And I think we're going to have more information. Again, I want to reiterate to people so they're not freaking out. Like, it's still rare. 10% of colon cancers are people under 50. So it's still not something you see commonly. But yeah, people like myself and much smarter are trying to figure out why that is. Thank you. Hey, you're welcome. It's the least I can do. Thank you. Seems like a really important thing that you're doing. So thank you. And for taking the time to come here and talk to us about it.

I love coming here so much. I appreciate you guys having me. You guys are so great. I've told you this every time. And I love listening to your- Let's bring him back every other week at least. I listen to you guys. I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't think most of your guests listen. I think most of your guests are too cool. I don't think they either. I think most of your guests are a little too cool for school. And they're like, oh, I'm like a podcaster and cool. And I do comedy and I'm funny. So I don't have to listen to my friends who do it. I listen to you guys and watch.

And I think you guys are fantastic. And I really appreciate what you guys do. Thank you. We feel the same about you. And now I want you to be our other co-host. Yes. Done. You're busy.

For Hobbits. Kaveh, tell our listeners where they can find you, promote your stuff. Yes, let me do that. I have a podcast. I would love to. I have a podcast called The House of Pod, and it is sort of a humor adjacent medical podcast. We look at like the intersections of public health and social equity and pop culture. And sometimes I'll just do an episode about the Spartans and how much I dislike them

for no particular reason. So, there's lots of stuff in it. It's fun. Our guests have included all the people you're hearing today. Jonathan still has not come on yet, even though I've begged him. One day I will get you on. And so, it's all people that you're going to like and enjoy. And I think people will like it. Even people like I don't want to listen to a medical podcast. I think you might actually like it. It's not too in the weeds. You will like it.

Expand your horizons, folks. Come on. Open up your minds. God. That's all. That's all I got. Open up your minds. I think that's a perfect note to leave this on.

Great show. Great talk. Great to see you. I think that's a perfect note to leave this on. Great show. Great talk. Great to see you. Great, great, great. What am I forgetting? Oh, that's right. You guys. What?

I don't. What? I want you to know that we love you very much. Much. And I mean it. Sometime in the early 80s, REO Speedwagon's airplane made an unannounced middle-of-the-night landing. This is my friend Kyle McLaughlin, the star of Twin Peaks. And he's telling me about how he discovered a real-life Twin Peaks in rural North Carolina, not far from where he filmed Blue Velvet.

What was on the plane was copious amounts of drugs coming in from South America. Supposedly Pablo Escobar went looking for other spots, quiet, out of the way places to bring in his cocaine. My name is Joshua Davis, and I'm an investigative reporter. Kyle and I talk all the time about the strange things we come across, but nothing was quite as strange as what we found in Varnumtown, North Carolina. There's crooked cops, brother against brother.

Everyone's got a story to tell, but does the truth even exist? Welcome to Varnumtown. Varnumtown is available wherever you listen to podcasts.