The Daily Zeitgeist - Bonus Episode: America’s Crush On Pedophile Teachers 09.25.17

Episode Date: October 9, 2017

In this bonus episode Jack & Miles have on one of the shows writers Alison Zeidman to talk about how America sucks at preparedness, Trump firing NFL players, & more. Plus guest correspondent Taylor Ortega calls in to talk about pedophilia on TV. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carrie Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil.

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founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister?

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New episodes every Thursday. Today, we review the president's wild weekend of sports. The war of words between KJU and Donald Trump. Will it kill us all? Probably. And Taylor Ortega looks into Hollywood's weird habit of making pedophile teachers preying on high school students seem sexy. Why America's ill-prepared for everything, and more on today's

Factor. Hello, the internet, and welcome to the Daily Zeitgeist. It's Monday, September 25th. I'm Jack O'Brien. That is my co-host, Miles. What a weekend. And before we get to our guest, Allison Zeidman. Yeah, what a weekend.

It was a weekend of sporting events, I guess you could say. A lot of sport. Yeah, a lot of sport. Starting on Friday night, the president was down in Alabama stumping for, what's the dude's name? Luther Strange? Luther Strange. Luther Strange. Sounds like a member of 2 Live Crew. He was stumping for him and, you know, going off prompter as he has wanted to do.

Doing jazz. Trump jazz. Trump jazz. I think mainly because he can't read. He hates teleprompters. I think mainly because he can't read. He hates teleprompters. And so he was just doing his riffing and got on the subject.

I don't think by accident. People seem to be suggesting that it was by accident. I think he has a sort of ineffable ability to zero in on whatever is pissing off his base of racist white people. And he landed on the subject of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, which had been a thing. Obviously, Kaepernick started it last season. There's a lot of controversy surrounding it. He was blackballed in the offseason to show solidarity. A bunch was dying out and then uh the don chose to to riff his trump jazz all over it and uh we're just going to play a small excerpt from one of the more subtle moments wouldn't you love to see one of

these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He's fired. He's fired! Wow. I mean, also, dude, it's interesting to think of that comment, too, in the context of him about to take another L on Obamacare. Right. So, like, he was already probably feeling some kind of way at that rally,

and then he's like, let me just get some other shit out that i know you guys are fucking not liking it's interesting that uh you know in the past couple weeks a lot of uh people in sports have have found their way into his crosshairs whether it's the nfl or steph curry or sportscasters at espn it seems like uh if you're a person of color with any kind of opinion right now, you're going to get – Oh, I hadn't noticed that. Yeah, those are all people of color. Yeah. That's weird.

And sports, when you think – the NFL, about nearly 70 percent black in terms of the players, the NBA, not majority white sport. But then he'll big up NASCAR in another tweet. He's like, oh, NASCAR, good people at NASCAR, which is conversely like the whitest sport in the country. And I think only recently they only had their first black driver since like 2006. Right. But yeah. Wait, what did he say about NASCAR? He first, after talking about, you know, the NFL is showing such disrespect to the flag and national anthem, which this is not about, P.S.

Then he goes on to give NASCAR some hat and say, hey, so proud of NASCAR and its supporters and fans. They won't put up with disrespecting our country and our flag. They said it loud and clear. This is the sport where it's cool to fly a Confederate flag right p.s so like yeah i i think we're starting to see uh kind of what maybe maybe what this is really about right yeah uh so just following the weekend just in general uh we now have it that trump is cool with nascar and uh the only team that will is willing to visit the white house uh are a hockey team which what are those two sports have in common uh very very white very white sports it's also a fan of uh lacrosse and uh

right and golf right i didn't think that the protest of of the flag uh which is not what it's about. Like you said, New York NYPD sergeant named Edwin Raymond tweeted, thinking NFL players are protesting the flag is like thinking Rosa Parks was protesting public transportation. That's funny. That was one of the most well-worn metaphors this weekend. Right. Yeah. That's pretty good. No, we were talking about this earlier. Is it because Trump really thinks this isn't about about racial issues and he's so sort of like, you know, in denial about what the state of race relations are or just the state of like systemic racism in the country that that's the only way he can compute what this is about? Right. As he was boarding his helicopter yesterday, he said he told, I think, MSNBC, this has nothing to do with race.

So he honestly believes that his supporters think that any sort of racial connotations to the positions that he takes are completely trumped up. There's this there's this meme going around that's a collage of pictures of Donald Trump shaking hands with various black celebrities. And it says, before Donald Trump ran for president, he was never accused of racism, which is a complete lie. And like Don King is so problematic. Don't act like that's your in. You weren't shaking. You weren't like trying to get – like wearing a free Mumia t-shirt or some shit. Right, right.

He was shaking – like, yeah, the pictures are of him shaking hands with Don King and I think Omarosa and the picture of racial blindness. But, yeah, obviously he was famous during the 80s. The one sort of event that he really leapt on and took a political stance on was when a white woman was attacked in Central Park. Black teenagers were accused and I think convicted of the crime before DNA evidence exonerated them. But Trump came out strongly saying he took out a ad that said, bring the death penalty back, suggesting that we kill these wrongly accused black teenagers. And then, by the way, when that issue was brought up during the election, he came out and was like, I stand by it. Yeah, right. Somehow. Double down.

Just just, I guess, have them executed for being wrongly. Well, and also, like, Trump like trump like fails to see like that like like by definition like it's you're gonna have trouble trying to divide a sports team too like by being like oh like i don't know what he expected from the teams because you know you have to inherently work together to achieve your your shared goal of victory so i don't know like it seemed like i don't know if he thought he was going to really inspire other people in locker rooms to maybe try and get their teammates on board. I guess it's another one of those things where it's so wacky to me,

I'm failing to understand what the actual strategy was here. If there was a strategy or if this was just a crazy guy venting, because everyone just – he really just united everybody. I read a tweet that was like he managed to like unite Cavs and Warriors Twitter like with each other, which is really amazing. Yeah, I guess we should talk about that, that Steph Curry – so as you mentioned, Steph Curry had been saying in the past weeks that he wasn't sure if he wanted to visit the White House. Right. He wanted to visit the White House with his warriors, the champions, one of the most iconic teams in NBA history, won the championship in the NBA. They obviously are expected to visit the White House. He was saying he didn't know if he wanted to.

He was asked about it again on Friday. He said he still wasn't sure he wanted to because he would rather draw attention to some of the social issues in the country. And then Trump, you know, after coming out against black NFL players who were had brought up the that he might not want to go to the White House. And then 20 minutes later, Trump tweeted this. Yeah, he goes, going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is hesitating. Therefore, invitation is withdrawn. Right.

I'm a dump you before you can dump me. Right. Yeah. Like, wow. You can't fire me. You can't quit. You're fired. Yeah.

And actually, LeBron James came back with. Oh, my God. The greatest clap back of all time. Yeah. Like, first he said what everybody already knew. He was like, he already said he wasn't he didn't want to go. You can't disinvite him, idiot. And then he called going to the White House was an honor until you showed up, which was really, really well put and kind of a sick burn. And Trump somehow managed not to. Yeah, I think that was cutting, you know, that's right. That was the LeBron.

Like he has been called a dotard. He's been called a bum. Right. He's not having a great week on Twitter. Right. Or just in general. I mean, but i think we're saying that about the president every fucking week right um but yeah and then then

pretty much after like all that between that and then the nfl a lot of people just came out and you know in their in a unified voice i mean there were a lot of people kneeling on uh on the games yesterday uh one of my favorites was seeing uh you know legendary asshole ray lewis taking two knees with the ravens on the sideline this is the same guy who went to meet with trump who told the ravens not to sign con cappernick who you know i'm pretty sure he murdered somebody to uh taking two knees on the sideline acting like you know he didn't even say i mean he even like talked against black lives matter so you know, he didn't even say, I mean, he even like talked against black lives matter.

So, you know, Ray Lewis, you can do your good, nice try, but we see you. Right. And NFL owners even came out, which NFL owners have been like very widely like Bob craft, the guy who fucking gave him a Super Bowl ring, right, has been a big Trump supporter. Rex Ryan, the coach who had like invited him on stage and, you know, introduced him at a at a rally during the presidential election. Everybody was coming out being like, you know, fuck this guy. Like, I don't know. This isn't good.

Yeah. Even Tom Brady, who's like a big, was a pretty vocal Trump supporter. He was even like, yeah, I don't know about, I don't know about these comments. Like Tom Brady's like, I believe in love and unity. Right. I mean, he supported his teammates in the most bland possible way. That's true. Because I mean, it's end of the day, like, you've got to throw your ball to somebody

who's going to have to catch it. Right. Yeah. The owners can, you know, support their players all they want in words. I still want to see one of them, you know, bring Colin Kaepernick on. He is better than, I'd say, over 50% of the quarterbacks, like demonstrably better than over 50% of the quarterbacks they have on rosters, that's when they will actually demonstrate that they are for freedom of speech. I think in this case, they just realized they sort of jumped on

and surfed the wave of public opinion. By the way, the WNBA, there's a tweet going around right now of WNBA players taking a knee. So they're also protesting. Yeah, and even, who was it, someone on the A's yesterday took a knee too. So it's the first guy in baseball. A rookie catcher who, again, it's never the players who have the deals and have like nothing to lose. And it's always people who have a ton to lose and, you know, or as demonstrated by Kaepernick, you know. Well, it's a shame, too. I mean, because, you know, many times people have likened the NFL to and this might be snowflakes.

Watch out. They call it high paid slavery. Yes. my snowflakes watch out they call it high paid slavery yes when you think about you know it profits off of black bodies basically wearing themselves down and not looking after them after they retire and within that metaphor like they're making an example of colin kaepernick in front of everybody else saying you you get out of line and this is what's going to happen and you were saying something interesting like i think he's in a doubly tough spot, too, because he's also a black quarterback. Black quarterbacks are sort of one of the most underrated racial sort of hot points.

Black quarterbacks Warren Moon, one of the best quarterbacks In the history of the league Has had to start A support group for black quarterbacks Because it's so difficult To be a black quarterback Because you get hate mail, you get death threats Because, and this is

Why This is so controversial To have black players Kneeling during National Anthem in the NFL in particular, is because it's all about sort of a symbolic encoding of the very specific racial thing that these people who don't realize that they're racist who are racist love about the nfl is that you have the white quarterback who sits back and is like smart and like picks apart the defense and he has he has these like weapons as they're called by nfl commentators who are you, black speedy athletes who he like tells where to go and everything.

Juxtapose that with the NBA, right? There's no fucking support group for white point guards. You know what I mean? Like Jason Williams, everybody loved him. Right. And he wasn't a great point guard, but he played with style, but nobody was hating on him because he was like in a traditionally black position. Right.

I mean, let's be real. I think every position in the NBA is traditionally black. But like, yeah, there was no hate on that side. So, you know, choose your sports wisely. Right, right. Yeah, it was interesting because there were a couple ways that people were protesting, right? You had the people who were kneeling. You had the teams that weren't even coming out.

Tomlin specifically, the Pittsburgh coach, said he was doing it to avoid the conversation. But three separate teams decided not to come out for the national anthem. There were other people who were just locking arms with their teammates rather than, you know, whatever they normally do. Yeah, having like a kneeling section and a standing section. They're like, OK, we're all together. We're all together. And that tended to be how white players like Tom Brady showed that they were standing in solidarity with the Kaepernicks of the world. Or keeping their head down. Right. That was the other thing, too. Right.

And weirdly, the way that white players chose to protest the locking of the arms, that was the one form of protest that Trump just came to be out and be like, yeah, no, those guys are with me. They are not protesting. That's how they show that they're Trump supporters. Yeah, they're in solidarity with the people who respect the flag. Right, right. So, yeah. Huh. So just to recap, Trump doesn't like the players who are kneeling, who. So, yeah. Huh. So, just to recap,

Trump doesn't like the players who are kneeling, who happen to all be black players. Likes the ones who are locking arms, happen to all be white players. He is cool now only with NASCAR and NHL hockey, but it's not a race thing. No. Yeah, so I think Trump

is totally making sense on this one. That's going to be it for just our weekend in review. We're going to be right back with Alison Zeidman. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you.

Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up?

Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago.

We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away.

I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right, in our own world. We're two space cadets.

And totally normal humans. Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right. And if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde.

Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey! Join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes listen to in our own world as a part of the my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and don't worry we promise to avoid any black holes most of the time hello the internet and welcome to this monday edition of the Daily Zeitgeist. My name is Jack O'Brien. I am joined, as always, by my co-host, Miles Gray. Wagwan, Internet.

And we are joined today in studio by Allison Zeidman. Hi. Hey, how's it going? Good. How are you guys? Thanks for having me. Great. We're great. Allison is a writer for Adam Ruins Everything, Great. Allison is a writer for Adam Ruins Everything and, most importantly, a writer for The Daily Zeitgeist. Oh, I've heard of that. Yeah, it's a prestigious role. We'll maybe talk about how you got that.

How you got your start there. How you got your start there. It's a real up-for-my-bootstraps kind ofps kind of inspiring American dream type stuff. But real quick, there are no cats in America. That's the new Horatio Alger. That's the most inspiring American story that I can think of off the top of my head. My head is. The devil goes west.

But real quick, we want to run through what's going on in the news right now. Currently dominating some headlines is the war of words between KJU, as the kids call them, and Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un. Allison, you said you were reading an article where a defector from North Korea was saying that. Oh, no, not a defector. Not a defector. Just a senior fellow at Yale Law School. She's a North Korea analyst. And she, along with a lot of other analysts that are tracking North Korea, the situation there, their opinion is that Kim Jong-un, he's not a maniacal, evil, crazy, unpredictable type guy. He's not a maniacal, evil, crazy, unpredictable type guy.

It's like, yeah, he's in his mind. He's building up this nuclear arsenal to to keep his regime going and keep his country safe. He's not going to act irrationally. You know, deterrence can still work as a strategy with North Korea. So they're not so much worried about him, but now they're starting to get very worried about the kinds of things that they're hearing out of the White House and the attitudes of the administration. So General McMaster has long kind of said that Kim Jong is just this like crazy madman and we have to be preemptive about it and kind of on guard and ready to strike first if we need to and with the language that trump used the other day where he called him a rocket man is apparently what's particularly troubling uh to this to this analyst myra rap hooper because she's saying it seems to her as if he's coming around to this this type of view

of like oh this guy's crazy and unpredictable and like we got to do something before he does instead of kind of trying to maintain the status quo where we're all just like okay let's all just we're going to color some names but we'll just chill out but yeah they're starting to get very worried and it's just interesting that it's like the little hint of that in the language of his speech is what's the most alarming to analysts right it's like he's becoming a unstable cartoon character in Donald Trump's version of the world. Right. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, because over here, the media just loves to paint Kim Jong-un, Master P's favorite dictator, like as, yeah, this crazy guy, rather than like every person who specializes in like Asian policy and things like that are like, no, his whole worldview and everything that that motivates him is built around maintaining the status quo for him.

He sees it as like a survival thing. Yeah. And it's not like not because I'm trying to kill everybody. It's just like like I need something in my pocket in case people try and remove me from power. Right. Right. He saw what happened to Gaddafi and he's like, yeah, I mean, that dude was building a arsenal against, you know, the U.N.'s wishes. He was still showing up to the U.N. with young women with machine guns, but he was disobeying their orders and, you know, building a nuclear arsenal. And then at a certain point he capitulated and was like, all right, I'll stop building the nukes. And he was immediately overthrown.

Wasn't that because Reagan bombed the shit out of him when he started to come around? Because didn't they have a little back and forth that eventually escalated with us striking a lot of those facilities? I don't know. But I just know that that is what's being used by North Koreans as like the right explanation for his reason for wanting nuclear weapons. It's not like he's in a race to build nuclear weapons so he can blow up America and, you know, end the world. He's getting them because he feels like it's the only way to ensure that he won't be invaded and taken out. Yeah. The more that we that, you know, our policy is to see him as like suicidal, like this crazy maniac that we can't predict the worst things are going to get.

And I was reading another thing, too, is like in North Korea, like they don't actually through their news channels to the people don't report that Trump is calling him Rocket Man. And they're saying some of that has to do with like, A, because they would never want to portray Kim Jong-un as being like ridiculed in other places in the world. But they were saying that they could somehow spin the Rocket Man thing into saying like, oh, that's just the West, you know, verifying that like our nuclear program is second to none and advancing at a quite rapid rate. So it's interesting to see like how there are so many sort of variables to this whole thing. Yeah.

Also, if somebody called me a rocket man, I would definitely like tell everybody. Yeah, I'm rocket man. Well, what's funny, too, is like Kim Jong-un took like real shots at Donald Trump yesterday. What was the line? Oh, yeah. Ventally deranged U.S. dotard. Yeah. That's in response to rock. I was reading this Washington Post article that was tracking North Korean insults throughout history.

And leaders of North Korea have a long, colorful history of beautiful Shakespearean-level insults. When Lyndon Johnson was president, North Korea's major general called him a war maniac and a living corpse, which is just so insulting. They got next. See, that's not fair. Like they they have ghostwriters. I mean, for this, like, I don't know. Kim Jong-un's being like they sit around like their war room doing punch up. Yeah.

They're like, OK, so we got to clap back. What do we got? And like, don't like. And meanwhile, Trump is like Rocket Man. Right. I was like, Rocket, man. Right. Well, because his insults are either things he's coming up with off the cuff or things that fucking Stephen Miller, C-plus high school, Santa Monica fascist, Stephen Miller came up with for him.

He's got like one writer. It's not a great, we're not winning the war of words, I would say. No. And yeah, it does. And it makes sense to like that, that analysts are worried because suddenly, like, if our rhetoric's changing, then they're going to start thinking like, wait, are they about to? Right. Are you about to? Yeah, that's a great point. Like, the more that they think that we're unpredictable and volatile, the more it's like, well, maybe we have to do something first. Yeah. Right. And just all other Asian nations like Japan and South Korea are like, none of them get freaked out Kim Jong-un is talking all this shit, but they're absolutely terrified of Trump.

We have a Trump. Right. Yeah, especially in Japan, like having to reconsider like whether or not as a country they're going to have to arm. Yeah, military, which we've been a pacifist nation for almost since the end of World War II. the end of World War II. So there's a recent study that was published in the scientific journal Political Research Quarterly that is suggesting that this whole Russia story about Trump is just basically wishful thinking on the part of basically non-Trump supporters who have been unable to cope with the reality of him winning the election. And they point to, you know, all the conspiracy theories that popped up after Obama won. And, you know, there were quite a few when Bush was in office. And for a long time, people thought that George W. Bush stole that election with lawyers in Florida.

Right, right, right. election with lawyers in Florida until they actually – I remember there was a story that came out three or four years afterwards that was like, oh, actually, he really did win in Florida by like 200 votes. But yeah, I don't know. It does seem to be different in some respects. There's definitely seems to be evidence. Facebook is releasing evidence as we speak that seems to suggest that the kremlin was trying to put their thumb on the scales but it does feel like dessert a little bit talking and thinking about that well it's just i feel like you know a lot of liberals have like this insane tunnel vision when it comes to trump and russia like it for some people it's like their whole like

their reason to live is just to be like well when when muller figures it all out like this nightmare will be over and like sure that could happen but there's just as easily a chance that there might not be compelling enough information to sort of support this sort of way out narrative that people are trying to kind of come up with and like yeah like you say i think it's more of like a pendulum that just swings with power basically like when you're not in power then you get to be the people you know talking about whatever conspiracy theories you have you know because like with obama it was like crisis actors and like you know if he was an agent of islam or something and now like you know there are like a lot of left-wing crazy conspiracy theorists out there who like we don't like not many people are are sort of paying attention to but we have our version

of pizzagate and things like that we're not our but on like if people are sort of paying attention to, but we have our version of Pizzagate and things like that. We're not our, but on like if people are more left-leaning, you know, there's people like Louise Mensch. I think we can acknowledge that we're not Trump supporters in this room. But like Louise Mensch, she published a story about how Andrew Breitbart was assassinated by Russian agents to make room for the rise of Steve Bannon. Or that like Russian intelligence entrapped Anthony Weiner by creating a fake Facebook profile of a 15-year-old girl. There are bizarre stories, too, that sort of... Yeah, there's definitely...

Yeah, and a lot of research around conspiratorial thinking definitely links it to the sense of a loss of control and what you need to do to cope with it is try to connect the dots and come up with all these theories and explanations for why the thing that you don't understand is happening. So it totally makes sense that that is a thing that would like strike members of either political party. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Do you guys remember that? Like right after the election, there was this medium post going around where this guy I don't I don't know if he's done anything other

than that medium post, but he was basically like, oh, the travel ban is like purposely being rolled out in like a bumbling way because it's like a trial balloon for a coup. I guess like a ban. And I don't remember exactly what it was. It was just basically like and like a bunch of my friends were like sharing it around. And it's just like, OK, like we got to we got to all calm down because it's also like the more that you focus on like the crazy conspiracy stuff, the more that you're going to miss the stuff that's legit and that we actually need to focus on. Right. And I think Russia is like a great example. Like there's probably I mean, clearly we're seeing that there are a lot of connections and it seems like there was definitely some collusion there. But how much of the real stuff are we missing by like going after like the

crazy and most like salacious rumors right all i know is once trump is impeached and mike pence takes over what all our problems will be solved because that guy seems super chill and uh like he has some really progressive ideas yeah well he and he and his uh his wife mother will yeah mother will lead the country. So fucking creepy. All right, we're going to go to a break real quick. And when we come back, we're going to have Taylor Ortega, one of our writers, who has a really interesting observation about pop culture that makes some of your favorite teen dramas feel a little creepy. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life.

It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session session 24 hours bpm 110 120 she's terrified should we wake her up absolutely not what was that you didn't figure it out i think i need to hear you say it that was live audio of a woman's nightmare this This machine is approved and everything?

You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. How do you feel about biscuits?

Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the Biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? The Boone County Rebels will stay the Boone County Rebels with the image of the Biscuits. It's right here in black and white in print. A lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch is a leader. You choose hills that you want to die on.

Why would we want to be the losing team? I just take all the other stuff out of it. Segregation academies, when civil rights said that we need to integrate public schools, these charter schools were exempt from that. Bigger than a flag or mascot. You have to be ready for serious backlash. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved.

You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living

in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, and we're back. We are joined by Allison Zeidman, and we have Taylor Ortega. What's up, Taylor? Hi, how are you? Hi. Hi, Allison. Hey, Taylor. I didn't realize it was this Taylor. I know Taylor. Hi, Allison.

I'm also here. I'm Miles. Oh, sorry, Miles. No, it's fine. I'm just going to sit in the corner. Taylor and I just need to catch up for a second and spend a minute. Miles, what did I say about talking on the mic? You're right.

You're right. Wait, you guys know each other? Yeah. Yeah, Allison. We used to, I won't say work i'd say uh i guess volunteer on a show at the pit in new york at theater there okay yeah well taylor you noticed something about movies and tv that you wanted to talk to us about yeah um i have noticed a fun trend. I don't know if I'd call it a fun trend of a legitimate romantic storyline in teen dramas being student teacher, like inappropriate student teacher relationships. And I don't so much mean inappropriate student teacher relationships in terms of like on how to get away with murder where she helps them all murder that's not great i don't i don't think that's like setting a great precedent but i'm more talking about like sexual relationships uh between students and teachers in teen dramas

treated as legitimate um romantic storylines um that are kind of creepy and gross yeah there is a lot of that isn't there it's a there's like so much um and it's still I think it's only gotten like worse, even as TV has gotten more progressive and dealt with like more real issues. That one thing continues to just get like pornier for some reason. But I have I wanted to kick it off with like a fun guessing game that everyone can enjoy and be involved in. And I have a couple instances of summaries of just times where this has been a plot line on a teen drama, a show intended for young people, and real life instances of statutory situations. And you can go ahead and tell me what you think, whether you think it's real or a plot line. Do we get extra points if we can name the show or movie that it's from? Yes,

please do. Or the teacher's real names? Yeah, the real life teacher's real names. I'm more of a fan on that. You've got trading cards. Mary Kay Letourneau! That's the only one I really know. I will be shouting out points

during this game. Sidebar, people used to make fun of me. They said I look like the boy that was with Mary Kay Letourneau. Oh, you kind of. No, you pull out. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's my connection to the story.

It's my way. This is very personal for me. Yeah, very personal for me. All right, let's do this. Okay, cool. Okay, so the first one is this high school teacher had an ongoing sexual relationship with her 16 year old music student the pair were discovered after accidentally witnessing part of a local murder oh this is so easy it's uh it's riverdale it is it's riverdale so easy if you

watch the show yeah i was like yeah if you're like a big fan of teen dramas when you're almost 30. I am both of those things. All right. So point for you there. I mean, I knew that, but I didn't want to say anything. Go ahead. You can share my points. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

This one is this former model turned high school English teacher met his student on an online dating site. The pair engaged in a sexual relationship before he discovered she was underage, but continued seeing each other until the teacher cheated on his student. Okay. That sounds pretty sleazy. I think I'm going to go with real life on that one. Yeah, I think that sounds about real to me. Right, me too, yeah. It's too crazy to be fake.

It is a plot line from One Tree Hill. What? Yo, jokingly, I was just going to say One Tree Hill because I realize so many of the CW shows have this as one of their main story points. But, oh, damn. I think it's a huge contract we're creating. They're like, we can't air it until there's a student-teacher relationship. Or like every pilot has it written into it. So that's a scene where he's like, yeah, we like this show.

I guess I should have known that reality is less fond of the case of mistaken identity dating thing than – I think that's what they use to make it kind of okay, but – Right, right. Okay, this high school media services director had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student and convinced him to murder her husband, then ended up going to prison for life. Oh, real. I'm going to go real again. I'm going to say real, too, just because it's a media services director. And I feel like any tv show would be like teacher everyone in a school is a teacher right yeah that's not in the wheelhouse of many writers

you're like media services director so yeah that's real right yes it's a real one um but so it's pamela smart but uh nicole kidman did play her in a movie eventually oh wow to die for yes to die for yeah someone knows their stuff someone knows they're gross uh yeah before before he started talking to jack was like going through other films that he thought fits this too and i'm like yeah wow you know a lot you gotta that's the thing i really i limited a lot of I limited these to to only teen dramas, but it occurs in a lot of other kinds of media. OK, I'll do like to I'll do two more. This 49 year old elementary school teacher engaged in oral sex with a 14 year old student to prevent him from having sex with his girlfriend, who is also coincidentally his goddaughter. She was charged with three class two felony counts of sexual

conduct with a minor. That's real. That, I just got so confused there. So the teacher engaged in oral sex with the male student to keep male student from having sex with his girlfriend who was also his goddaughter? Yes. So he didn't want this student having sex with his goddaughter, so he performed oral sex on him? No, the teacher's a woman, right?

Yes, the teacher's a woman. Was she jealous of the girlfriend? And the student's girlfriend is... Her goddaughter? Is his goddaughter? Is the student's goddaughter? Maybe it's her goddaughter. I'm so confused.

That would make more sense. More sense, yeah. Either way i i know this one it's godfather three right yeah yeah no i wish it's just a thing that happened in florida aha i know um and this last one is maybe my favorite of all my favorite statutory rape my fave satch. The new podcast. As the kids call it. My satch vlog. This high school English teacher had a short-term sexual relationship with a local minor and a long-term romantic relationship and sexual relationship with another minor. This time, a student in one of his classes. Upon learning his student and her friends were being blackmailed by a homicidal stalker, he poses as their tormentor in

an effort to gather material for his true crime novel. Eventually, the student and teacher wed. Oh, this is Pretty Little Liars. Yes, it is. It's the most insane thing I've ever seen. Fuck with me. Yes, I knew that one. Did you watch Pretty

Little Liars, or was that in like one of your list no no that's that's actually passively from my girlfriend who loves it and i remember seeing this i'm like yo this is fucked up i'm like how are you watching this like this is like the least woke entertainment ever it's like it's fun wait so the teacher was like a serial pedophile was he treated as such no their relationship was treated as like a real romance like a they were like the long-term committed lovers of the entire series right and i remember yeah people were like rooting for them to like be together well it's just weird that the whole thing was like yeah sorry i was just doing research for my crime novel right and then it's like what

like i remember that was like that's how he's ending this weird relationship. Oh, he was dating his student to get information on the student that died? No, he was dating her. He was dating her because he loved her. But then somewhere along the way. Okay, well, then it's okay. It's love. Well, here's my thing. Even if someone is not your, like, say you have a normal boyfriend, girlfriend relationship,

and you're the same age, and it's not statutory rape. The point where he finds out that I am being stalked by a murderer and does anything but alert the authorities, much less then poses as the murderer to see, like, what kind of good, like, true crime gems he can scoop out of this is, like, the end. That would be the end for me. I feel like that's just my boundary, though. That's your red line. Well, I guess you don't support the arts, Taylor. Yeah, right. Trying to write

a novel. But yeah, we were looking earlier, and this happens in basically every CW drama, right? Like, it happened twice in Gossip Girl? Yeah, it happened twice in Gossip Girl, although I think only once in High... Oh, no, you're right! Twice while they were in High School, and Gossip Girl? Yeah, it happened twice in Gossip Girl, although I think only once in – oh, no, you're right.

Twice while they were in high school in Gossip Girl. It happens to Blair. I mean, it happens to Serena, and it happens to Dan. Nice. Yeah, well done. Old Gossip Girl expert Jack O'Brien over here. He was schooling us on that. Big fan.

Taylor, I'm curious. Did you come across any examples where it's not treated as like a romantic storyline? Like any examples where like in Riverdale, I was kind of struck by like there is a moment where the parents find out and they're like, you know, they're appalled. But I felt like not appalled enough. They're just like, well, teacher, this teacher has to leave Riverdale and never come back. Well, that's it. As opposed to, yeah it as opposed to yeah as opposed to pressing charges or like getting the authorities involved right i looked into an

episode of a show called the fosters where um they find out that a the teenage son i guess is involved with i don't know if it's a teacher i think it's like an older like girlfriend of the father or something and at first it's like uh it's like a lesson in gender because at first the father is mad at his son or stepson or whatever. And then they're like, if this was a girl, you'd treat it differently. And he's like, you know what? You're right. You're out of my life, Sharon or whatever the woman's name is who had sex with a minor but so that's like the only instance i found in researching like particularly riverdale which is so so riverdale to me it's weird because it came out last year and it's the i feel like pretty little liars is really bad but riverdale is so like because riverdale so much of riverdale is just the beginning of porn that's like what that show is it's just like the first two minutes of different um overproduced porn videos strung together into a teen yeah a lot of piece of deliveries on that

show a lot of see me after class but a lot that this is kind of like a weirdly tone deaf um relationship for its time and she's on the show now. But it was a weird storyline. Also because in the comics, Miss Grundy is, like, really old. Yeah, Miss Grundy's not hot at all. Oh, really? I mean, is Archie really supposed to be that hot either? He is. I think he's supposed to be, like, woo-woo-woo. Oh, yeah.

In the comic book scene. It's become very CW-ified, everybody's. But, I mean, this is, is like a porn trope, right? It's like the pizza delivery guy. And then also there's like teacher-student relationships. Like those are sort of mainstream, well-known porn tropes. And yeah, it seems, I feel like this is crazy because it's a bigger problem in reality than I think even we realize, because I feel like all the times that I knew it was happening, like when I was a high school student, like the teacher didn't end up getting caught and like life or, you know, as they thought, ruin their daughter's life. So they just kept it quiet, but like told the guy to go find a different job.

And now he's, I checked on this guy and like now he's like a teacher at a different school. It's like great. Oh, that's so bad. It's like the same as the clergy, basically. Right. It can't be at this church anymore. Well, I mean, that's the thing. Right. It can't be at this church anymore. Well, I mean, that's the thing. I read a really crazy article about the Jerry Sandusky thing, but the Penn State child abuser and they like talked about how these people who are predators, they just have their whole life is basically built around them getting access to whatever their prey of choice is.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that's why it's so common is that a lot of people choose their profession maybe specifically to gain access to kids. So, yeah, the fact that it's normalized, that's something that teen dramas really need to yeah check that look at yourself in the mirror cw right it's also just kind of interesting like whose fantasy is being fulfilled in these teen dramas because like are these like is it are the writers imagining that like this is something that like the high school kids watching the show want and are interested in or is it like more like really right point is in the writers yeah yeah is it their thing like you know well yeah it's weird because in i think like there's different ways to go about it but with especially with the riverdale storyline it was weird because they kind of they're you're right like the parents were like what the hell you can't fuck my kid and then wait a second they're archie's i thought you're giving him music

lessons but you're giving music lessons and fucking well one of those has to stop she's like i can't give you music lessons anymore because of our history and it's like bitch you're a music teacher you're not even doing your job at this point now you're fucking the kids and you're not even teaching them music that's crazy like you have to at least teach them music if you're going to do that. And she doesn't. And then it kind of spirals into this thing where the kids investigate her on their own, as children in television often do, because they're such good detectives.

Or because the legal system failed them. Right. Well, yeah. Consistently does in these small towns that are made up. And they kind of gun in her car. And I would have gotten away with raping archie if it weren't for those pesky kids and their dog they stole my gun and they did and then she like manipulates him emotionally they like they have this weird storyline where she's

like well i was abused so now all the teenagers watching it are like oh oh, see, she's a victim, so it's okay if she fucks these kids? I don't know. It seems like then they went out and they legitimized her very weird behavior of driving around with a gun in her car and picking up local teens for sex. Yeah, just on paper, that's just the worst look ever. Yeah. They read it and they were like, I don't know, this is sexy good. And I fixed it.

Well, yeah. And, I mean, I was just thinking about this today and realized that a movie I really love, Election, like, it has a student-teacher relationship and the student is kind of considered, like, the in it like the reese witherspoon character like because then she goes on to like have a relationship with a politician so it's almost like she's the aggressor or something like that yeah right it's like no that's a case of pedophilia like that's weird come on alexander payne these scenarios, too, I mean, in these shows, the kids are always as smart as their teachers. And then the teachers are also always as beautiful as the students, which, like, that give and take never happens either. It's so rare.

Like, even the hottest teacher at your high school is, like, hot for a high school teacher. Yeah, right. Like, it's, I don't know. for a high school teacher. Yeah, right. Like, it's, I don't know. They never, this poor woman, too, the rest of Riverdale, they dress these kids to be like,

you know, like amazing Instagram versions of teenagers. And this poor woman who plays this kid fucker teacher, they put her in the, they put her in like hot teacher clothes they found outside of whatever warehouse

they filmed their last Pornhub teacher video. They don't try at all. They give her these big, crazy glasses. It's so lazy and weird and uncomfortable. Is there ever, like, one of those obligatory moments where her hair is up and then she has to take it down and shake it out? Take the pencil out of her hair.

There is one scene where she just takes off her glasses in so many steps. There's so many steps to it but it makes me angry i made a gif of it i or and i like i it makes me so mad i watched it i repeated it i was watching with other people and i rewound it a bunch of times and i was like this is terrible why is this so and like so much of her plot line is is really devoted to her just being like i wear glasses i guess but i guess I'm hot under them, I guess. Wait, how do you take your glasses off in more than just the first step of removing them from your face? Let me try.

Let me see how long I can, like, stretch this out. Okay, so. That's still one step. One arm. Oh, right. Two arms. The folding. And then, like, I don't know. Get your case out.

Yeah, get the case out. I thought she had, like. Oh, they're a little dirty. I better clean them off. Right. I thought she had like a little dirty. I better clean them. Right. I thought she had one of those straps behind that like PE teachers have on their sunglasses. Like, let me undo the strap first and then I can take these off. I was thinking about and speaking of like movies that I realized like, oh, yeah, I really love this movie.

And then thinking about it, it's an example of this exact thing that we're talking about. Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore. Right. I used to love that movie, and then I was just, like, refreshing my memory of the plot before we got it started here, and I was like, oh, yeah. Right. He falls in love with a student.

He falls in love with a student, and then at the end, like, her big article is like, I'm so sorry for deceiving everyone, but, you know, I am in love with you, teacher guy. And meet me on this baseball field and like kiss me and like we'll start our lives together or whatever. So it's like basically like outing him as a teacher that was interested in a student. And then he shows up. So it's like, yep, it was me.

I totally wanted to fuck this person who I thought was a 17 year old. And then I got mad when I found out she wasn't 17. She deceived me. Right. How dare you? It's like, wait, so you wanted her to be 17? Like, that's very problematic. No, I'm in love with her.

That's the insane part, that he gets angry when he's like, you're an adult? That's disgusting. Right, right, yeah. It's just, yeah. Well, it's kind of funny because, I mean, there's no shortage in the news, right? If you search like in Google, you put news and you put teacher-student relationship, there's no shortage of this thing happening over and over and over again. And it seems like now like you're seeing actually more women like having to answer to justice for this. But if you just search a regular google search like a teacher student relationship you

just get listicles of like the hottest student teacher relationships from film and tv so it's like it's odd that even like in the context of this being so prevalent like in the media that there's like there are not many people talking about like yo what are we teaching kids right now right yeah and i mean when you look at the real examples, like Taylor said, like the teachers are, you know, 45 year old ugly people who you can tell, like somehow like forced this kid into a relationship that they like definitely weren't interested in. So not that it's cool if the teacher's hot, but it's still like, I don't know, like they just glamorize it in a way that's like unrealistic. Like, I don't know, like they just glamorize it in a way that's like unrealistic. Yeah, they glamorize it. And then I think they also like often these storylines, you know, I'm sure in real life, too.

Sometimes it's like, you know, it blurs the line of like consent and, you know, there are different ages of consent in different states and that kind of thing. And it's kind of, you know, there's I'm sure there are some students who maybe think that they're consenting, but it's like, no, you're a teenager. You don't know what's going on. Right. But, yeah, consistently in the pop culture examples, it's very much like this is our torrid love affair. And, you know, we're on equal footing here. It does not highlight the power dynamic that's in place there at all. Right. And, you know, that's like so it's just so much more subtle sometimes.

Yeah. That's we're basically out of time. But Taylor, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you? They can find me on Twitter at Taylor underscore Ortega, love underscores. And also on Instagram at Carbra underscore Streisand. Nice.

I mostly just post pictures of myself. Oh, it's great taylor has a great interest what i look like that's the place all right all right carver strizand thanks so much for coming on thank you thank you for having me all right bye later daphne caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption

that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey. But this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in

North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right. In our own world, we're two space cadets. And totally normal humans.

Sure, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right, and if we hit turbulence, just blame it on Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey, join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations stellar laughs and super corny dad

jokes listen to in our own world as a part of the my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts and don't worry we promise to avoid any black holes most of the time and we're back. And we wanted to take a little while. Allison, you were pointing out in our pitch talk that as a country, America is just bad at being prepared for bad stuff to happen just in general. Yeah, pretty much anything. Yeah. bad stuff to happen just in general yeah pretty much anything yeah i mean i was just like so i was reading about um mexico like in the context of like the two earthquakes that they just had how they have uh like a like a warning system throughout the country that alerts people and

you know sometimes you can only find out like 15 seconds before it's gonna happen or whatever but that is like enough time to save more lives than you would if you didn't have something like that at all. And California is in the process of getting that off the ground, but not really. And like, maybe there will be federal funding, but probably not because it's Trump. And, you know, the expert that was talking about it was kind of saying that it's like, yeah, because we haven't had a major disaster like that. Like if one something bad happens, then we'll be like, oh, shit, we should spend the money to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. But it's like we don't think ahead until it happens.

And it just made me start thinking about the conversations that we're having in the country right now about health care and insurance and kind of like, yeah, everybody needs insurance. Like the society will be better in the long run if we all have insurance. Climate, you know, it applies to climate change. It applies to like how retirement and Social Security are handled in this country where it's just sort of like, no, everybody's going to be fine. You're all just going to like save your money. And then it's but then it's like all these factors of like just, you know, saying like, oh, we're not going to worry about it or like, oh, it's on the individual to like take care of themselves. Eventually it blows up into this like big systemic problem that's too big for society for like the government and our society to even correct for. Yeah. You can't privatize disaster relief because there's not a demand for disaster relief until there's a fucking disaster so you like will never be prepared for disasters like that's what was

so crazy about trump going from houston uh you know the after uh that hurricane harvey yeah that's the one i know sadly there have been so many That was H. We're already at M right now. I know. Like, wow. But after Harvey, he was, like, touring the relief efforts, the extreme outskirts, not seeing any victims. And then he went. That would be gross. Right. Then he went and, like, gave a speech about, like, tax reform. And that was essentially going to, like, cut all taxes.

It's like, where do you think the relief efforts come from? The Mexican people didn't demand a early warning system like their government was like, well, shit, we should probably do this because, you know, because it'll help our people. Yeah, I think for them, it might have been a response to like a big earthquake in the 80s, too. But it's just yeah. So it's like I'm kind of trying to think about like, is this a problem that's particular to the U.Ss or is this just human nature that we you know which just you deal with things that are right in front of you and anything that's like hypothetical and we're in the future your brain's just like ah it'll be fine right i mean it's the way the like the philosophy of the u.s in handling stuff like that is very similar to

like when i had like a really shitty car mechanics were like you probably want to replace this stuff soon and my whole thing was like i'll do it when it's a problem right right no it's a problem now yeah my shit still goes so i think we're good and i think it's like that same mentality of like no i don't it doesn't feel like a problem yet and it's yeah it's so reactive that yeah it's too late and we were talking even with hurricane relief if the for every dollar that would have been spent in preparedness amounts to 15 on like the back end for like relief response. Right. So like a billion dollars in investment like would is the equivalent of 15 billion in relief efforts. Like just off the math.

I don't understand why we're not getting more from a purely rational perspective. Yeah, it makes sense. But the human mind was not designed to like computers are designed to be purely rational. But the human mind was designed back at a time when we were, you know, still running from animals and, you know, trying to remember which tree gave us the fruit that didn't poison us. So like it was just all about what we saw in front of us at that moment. And I think it's partially that there's also this sort of absurd sounding theory that has some pretty compelling evidence that the English language is specifically bad at're able to think of the future as a completely separate thing that we don't have access to. And like that's never going to bother us. Right. Essentially. Whereas there are a lot of languages where the future tense is actually the same as the present tense.

People who speak those languages as a first language have been shown to be better at saving, less likely to smoke, better at doing things that prepare for the future because they see the present and the future as like a single continuum. Yeah, what's interesting about that study is that they also even looked at people that speak different languages, but that live in the same country, like to rule out that it wouldn't just be sort of like a cultural phenomenon or like a cultural attitude. And they were even seeing the discrepancies there. And, you know, people like were rightfully like, well, this sounds like bullshit and like double check the guy's work. And I was like, whoa, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy stuff. I was just thinking, cause I was, I was curious of what languages don't have future tense and present tense. So, like, those are like Chinese, German, Japanese, Norwegian. Right. And then ones that do have a future or separate future tense, English, Arabic, Greek, and the Romance languages.

So that makes sense. Yeah. I think the people in that second category are dealing with far less, like, well, at least some economic crises, japan slightly but definitely good at saving for the future that's for sure yeah isn't it norway we can generalize yeah about entire nations of people but like norway or finland they just hit like a trillion dollars in savings or something oh did that yeah like it's something crazy so that makes so much sense even in terms of this like that they have uh like their like social security fund is like that much yeah so i think those like those types of things are kind of stacked against us as a country like in terms

of like just how the human brain works uh the language thing does sound pretty compelling so many force multipliers that are just yeah right but then i think also they're because um you know i think other countries have a better sense or just prioritize more the sense of community and the greater good of taking care of one another. And this country is so much about the individual and freedom. And it's like too much freedom isn't good sometimes. When things aren't systematized or not regulated, then it's like in the short term, maybe you feel like you've got it under control, but then there's no safety net. Yeah. When you go back and look at like the histories of great companies in America, like a lot of them are the stories of like 10, 15 people coming together and, you know, like all being this like great team that offsets one another. like all being this like great team that offsets one another. But eventually one person will become the focus of the media.

And like they'll write a tell all book that's like I like stepped to the forefront. And it's like that we just want to believe in the story of the individual so much that we actually lie to ourselves about how things work. I think that's also why like the NBA is sort of the ascendant sport is because it's the one sport where an individual can actually like carry the team on their back. Turn the game on its head. Right. Whereas like football is still, you know, player one player won't be good like one year to the next, just depending on the scheme that they're working within. Why do you guys think that? So I'm just, you know, this is just us like editorializing and speculating now. But like, why do you think that sense of the importance of individual freedoms persisted in America? Because I feel like the experiments that this country has, like, I'll call them experiments with like, more, you know, social services type programs, like Social Security, for example, and like Medicaid, it's like, once they're in place, everybody's like, oh, these are good. And then like, once, you know, then when Republicans are trying they're in place, everybody's like, oh, these are good. And then like once, you know, then when Republicans are trying to take them away, everybody's like, you can't do this. Why are we still fighting against these type of things, do you think?

Or not we as in this room, but, you know, as culture. I mean, I think the fact that America is sort of this self-fulfilling thing where we make the only culture that we pay attention to and that culture will lie to you and tell you that that's how the world works, that it's like all individuals and like these sort of. And it's just a very attractive way to look at things. Yes. It's just a fun sort of wish fulfillment way of thinking about things. And like, it's also the narratively best way to like tell a story is like with one individual hero. And that is sort of what America is all about. Right.

And it's interesting that it's gone past being like aspirational and more kind of like, no is the way it is if you just work hard enough it's just you right right and i think that's how you could they i think that's how some people can rationalize like things like health care it's like well it's all on you there's no if there was a true sense of community then there would be more of i think a feeling of responsibility on the on the part of politicians say like oh let's take care of our people yeah this is a community rather than like oh well i'm fine yeah and the more that the more wealth disparity that there is i'm sure like it's just getting worse because it's like you're further distancing yourself from other people and there's less and less empathy yeah everything's just a mess i think we're so fucked you guys uh in summation we're fucked yeah uh cool well yeah happy Monday. Yeah. Sorry to come on and be a bummer. No, no. But I think that's those are all really interesting reasons that we're fucked.

That's Northern Californians and Oregonians and Washingtonians should all read about the Cascadia earthquake. That is the really big one that's going to happen in the next hundred years in terms of earthquakes that we just kind of found out about in the last 15 years that is going to take out Portland. If Portland doesn't actually change how it's prepared, it's going to be insane. But, yeah, nobody's preparing for it because it hasn't happened yet. But you're saying it's like the – It's inevitable. And it's set up to be one of the country wasn't settled. And there are legends about it and like there are entire dead forests on this part of the world. And then over in Japan, they had this thing called the ghost wave because a tsunami came out of nowhere and

like destroyed a bunch of places in Japan. And they only recently figured out that it was the earthquake off the coast of America that sent a tsunami all the way across the Pacific. That's how powerful it was. But yeah, it's basically set up to be really, really bad for the Pacific Northwest if they don't like there are schools in Oregon that are like within the tsunami zone that they just haven't like moved since figuring this out because it's not a problem yet. Not a problem. School's here now. I don't see any waves. Yeah.

You see a wave? You see a wave? Look right now. By the way. Hey, believe me, if there were waves, I'd be catching them. So I monitor the Drudge Report, which is to say that like I go to the Drudge Report every day because it's just like this guy screaming at the top of his lungs about the news stories. But he has this consistent theme in his headlines where he will always point out any cold snap that is happening. out any like cold snap that is happening like it just it just snowed in uh california and he was like snow in winter and like showed a picture of uh you know it was up in the mountains of the

sierra madres and uh but like he just it's like his way of being like see global warming yeah right but then what does he do his stories and it's like the hottest fucking summer ever right like he does not well yeah it's so it hottest fucking summer ever? Right. Like he does not. Well, yeah. It's so it's so funny how like because global warming like became the buzzword. Like that's what we said before we everybody started saying climate change and that that's like still such an argument for people that they're like, well, but like, how do you explain when it gets cold? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. We weren't using like the best term to encompass all the different types of climate change. Warming sounds so gentle. Yeah, yeah. Allison L. Zideman. That's one L in the Allison and the other one's in my middle name. One Zides in the Zideman. One Zides in the Zideman, yeah. Z-E-I-D right? Yeah. Cool. I before E except after Zideman.

Except in Zideman. Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you guys for having me. It was awesome come back Miles where can people find you North Hollywood go to his house Miles' address is

North Hollywood 91602 at my mom I'm not going to give out my address just dox to my mom alright you can follow me at Jack underscore O'Brien on Twitter. And, yeah, hope you have a good Monday. We'll be back tomorrow.

Have a blessed Monday. Defne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen

to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you.

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