The Daily Zeitgeist - Dolly Parton: Taco Bell Queen, America's Economic Violence 2.4.2022

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

In episode 1078, Jack and guest co-host super-producer Anna Hossnieh are joined by Senior Research Fellow at the National Iranian American Council Dr, Assal Rad to discuss What Are Economic Sanctions?, Rudy Giuliani Was Revealed As One of the Singers On The Masked Singer, Two Hosts Walk Out, Did Dolly Parton Just Save the Mexican Pizza? and more! What Are Economic Sanctions? Rudy Giuliani Was Revealed As One of the Singers On The Masked Singer, Two Hosts Walk Out Did Dolly Parton Just Save the Mexican Pizza? The Rumors Are True: Taco Bell Is Bringing Back Its Mexican Pizza LISTEN: Koni Baje by Burna Boy Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Jess Costavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 222, episode 5 of Dear Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It's Friday, February 5th, 2022. My name is Jack O'Brien, aka Jack is the best at the wordle. Jack is the best at the wordle. Jack is the best at the wordle. I is the best at the wordle. Jack is the best at the wordle.

I promise that I don't cheat. Wordle power. That is an AKA, courtesy of at Benny Swill, Falcon Fuckhat on Twitter for some reason. And I am thrilled to be joined today by a very special guest co-host the original day one super producer of the daily zeitgeist many of the first rate podcasts on this network such as this is important las culturistas you've heard her on her podcast with shireen lining unis ethnically ambiguous and of course segments of this show such as on a streaming corner, TM, and it's, you know, iconic phrase, that's prestige casting, TM. It's Anna Hosnia!

It's incredible you revealed how rich I am that I just trademarked everything I do. It's true. I mean, that's prestige casting is you could really make a living off of that. Yeah. I would even argue me not being able to book a guest host last

minute and thus stepping in myself because this morning I was so lazy is prestige casting of me. That's prestige casting right there. Yeah. I hope this has a life for you. Like the, that's a deal breaker ladies thing from 30 Rock. I'm trying.

Yeah, we're working on it. I'm definitely trying. Well, Anna, we're thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a very talented thinker, researcher. She's the senior research fellow at the National Iranian American Council. She has a PhD in Middle Eastern history. She's a must follow on Twitter among the most overqualified humans to be a guest on our stupid show. It's Dr. S.L. Wright. Thank you guys so much for having me. This is a nice change of pace for my day. you guys thank you so much for having me this is a this is a nice change of pace for my day this isn't what your normal uh i i told you ahead of the record that we will be talking

about dolly parton's take on the mexican pizza and you were like that is just what i was talking about in my last meeting it actually it actually probably was to be completely honest with you that's been behind the scenes of what goes on we just trade uh fast food tips nice do i call you dr red is that i mean please i mean okay it is fucking awesome i sound like a villain from a bond movie i mean the coolest villain from a bond movie dr red come on all right i will call you ass out yes dr red dr red or you could take the beginning part actually of my first name and call me dr From a Bond movie, Dr. Rad. Come on. All right. I will call you Ass Al. Yes. Dr. Rad. Dr. Rad. Or you could take the beginning part, actually, of my first name and call me Dr. Radass.

Radass. That's right. There you go. Gets better. Also very cool. Yeah. All right. How are you doing?

Where are you coming to us from? I am in Orange County, California. Lovely. So I'm coming to you from sunny Southern California. So I'm coming to you from sunny Southern California. I hate to show that off always, but I feel it necessary because it's just the only thing everybody always asks first. How is the weather? I'm like, it's still nice for now. It's still nice. It's still nice. It's still nice for now. I don't know. Climate will change things. We'll see where we go. But for now, it's still nice. Yeah, it's fine. All right. Well, we are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment.

First, we're going to tell our listeners a couple of things we're talking about. We're going to talk about economic sanctions. We hear a lot about it in the news. We kind of brushed past it when we were talking about Cuba earlier in the week. But I want to just kind of put some detail into what that means, what that does to a country. And we have someone who's way smarter than me here who has some expertise on that. So we will be talking about that. We're going to be talking about the Israeli foreign minister accusing Amnesty International of hate crimes for pointing out that Israel is an apartheid state.

We will be talking about. And then this is where we really get into your sweet spot, SL. We're going to be talking about Rudy Giuliani being revealed as one of the singers of the Masked Singer and Dolly Parton potentially maybe having just saved the Mexican pizza at Taco Bell. All of that, plenty more. But before we get to any of it, we do like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? I think the last thing I searched was Netanyahu's cartoon bomb. Okay.

Oh. Because there was a, so Senator Bob Menendez, I think it was two nights ago, spoke on the Senate floor about the Iran nuclear deal, because every time we get close to actually having a deal, people have to go into hysterics. And there's always really fun graphics that accompany that hysteria. immediately made me think of this like cartoon bomb that nathan yahu held up in 2012 so we've been talking about this by the way for decades iran has been on the cusp of a nuclear weapon for decades so there's this picture of nathan yahu holding what looks like a cartoon bomb from like looney tunes cartoon it's just like a circle with yeah you know a wick coming out ball with the wick yeah so i searched that because i just wanted to put these two images next to each other as if to say look we're still doing this a decade later same types of images menendez used what looked like a nuclear blimp yeah that was another

fun graphic it was a very friendly cartoon nuclear weapon for some reason that is true you just see netanyahu has a history of kind of um putting on these like shows that like he's like in front of a graph that's like as you can see why we are the best and iran should be eliminated from everything and then it's like it always i always remember like there was always memes that be like it looks like he's on the set of like the eric andre show like it always just looks so camp and strange or you're like what is the budget here where is any of this production it's very low quality production is you know you're like okay in the 2012 presentation he also takes out like his like red sharpie and draws a line you know on the bomb so uh it was it was a very advanced kind of tech that he was using for that presentation

where did he make that presentation i think it was the united nations yeah it really feels like like the level of you know thinking and planning that goes into like a kindergartner teacher like bringing bringing a visual for her class when trying to explain like a you know a very basic concept to them yeah i mean that is how he is treating the audience right as if right no one has the capacity when yeah wow and so there's a new one of these and it's like the big kind of missile that you would see in a cartoon. Yeah, but it's so like fat and exaggerated that it really does look like a blimp or something that's just, it looks a lot friendlier than a nuclear weapon would, I think. And their purpose is to scare people, and yet they're using these friendly, these things might as well get up and start singing a song,

like Dino DNA. It's just very bad. I don't know. I don't know who approved their PowerPoint on this, but it seems like they're really fucking it up well yeah because if they wanted to scare people about iran's non-existent nuclear weapon right just use images from the actual nuclear weapons we dropped right that would be scary oh look at this huge explosion that killed uh tens of thousands of people immediately instead

they go with wiley coyote's version of a bomb right right right it really does it's so funny looking yeah it's almost i like there's also like arrows that point to it that say like thistle material check mark and then it's like construct warhead and then it's like a little like uh what are those things where the the sand falls through the timer and it's like with time and your hourglass and you're like what is this what do you mean with time we could have some real danger on our hands yeah very usa today like chart little like chart that they have at the bottom of usa today or that they used to i don't know if they still do that it's just like very ambiguous and vague and ominous. Like that's the approach. Right. What is something that you think is overrated?

Success. Okay. And that's it, isn't it? I mean, like the concept of success in our society is just like work, essentially work, work, work, work, work. And that is defined as success. Like, essentially work work work work and that is defined as success like i don't know i don't know i mean speak for yourself i'm on my grind i wake up at two in the morning and get my workout in and then you know can't can't catch me sleeping uh i also go to bed at four in the afternoon what does mark walberg go to bed it's's something like that. And yes, I watched that Wahlberger docu-series he did and Wall Street, whatever it was called. And yeah, it looks like, I don't know if he has that good of a relationship with his children because it feels like most of his time is spent on his phone doing business in quotes because who knows. And then the rest of the time is like traveling with like a full, like an equipment set that he starts working out with at like three in the morning. Yeah, no, he sounds like a blast.

God, he seems I just can't. If that was my dad, I would be like, I don't know. My dad's not Mark Wahlberg. I don't know what you're talking about. I would not admit to it. I mean, you just described as the opposite of my dad. I don't think he's worked out since like the 60s. opposite of my dad i don't think he's worked out since like the 60s and at that time like working out on one of those things that like jiggles you like the thing that like shakes you one of those

work and i think at the time he went for like a walk like that was the workout right skip rope for two minutes while smoking a cigarette and like that was definitely a part of it i love that that smoking was such a huge i mean every footage or anything you see from like the 60s or 70s you're like oh they really are at the gym smoking a cigarette right oh okay so that's just that's just the way it went back well there's nothing like that post-workout drag from the cigarette right it's like because your lungs have just opened up so right right they're craving the good stuff but yeah i think i think the success point is it's one of the most sort of nefarious like parasitic ideas that like have been incepted into us that like make us feel bad if we're not actively working towards,

you know, that, that central like capitalist ideal of, you know, basically consuming and making, making other people consume or giving other people something to consume. And yeah, I think,

I think people are maybe like having a sea change sort of moment where they're like, wait a second, I'm fucking miserable. Yeah. But I don't know. Wasn't there this concept of like the great resignation? And it's like, that's where it's coming from. People are just like, this is not a good system. We are unhappy extremely. So what can be done about it?

And it's because you're right. I i mean success is defined by consumption and work and like if you're not working that feeling of guilt that you get like you're not doing something was trained in you and it's not it's not real it's just we feel that way because we've been told that we have to constantly be working or doing something like that's considered productive but productivity is always related to like material gain and consumption and all of that yeah like i think sleeping is productive it's extremely productive oh absolutely i mean it's the best thing you can do for your body and mind i agree i mean i feel like whenever i i'll be done with work and it's like 6 45 i'm like I'm definitely forgetting something I've definitely not completed my work and I should try and figure out what I haven't completed

and then I'm like and then I'm just sitting around and I'm like I can't find a way to relax because I constantly keep thinking but I have more to do right I have more to do right it's becoming a bit of a mental illness for me and uh you are not alone that is everyone in the country that's the problem yeah i feel like i i used to get a lot of anxiety heading into the week and i still do and i used to think oh it's just like i have like all this stuff that i need to get done and stuff but i I think it's my body's withdrawal from doing productive stuff. And then I feel bad if I go two days. And then the sort of coming back to the whole grind of it all gives me anxiety.

of it all make like gives me anxiety because yeah, I, I, there's like some sort of like guilt I'm building up anytime I'm not actively like working on something and that's why I'm a healthy person. You know, I think back, I used to be able to binge a show in two days. Right. And that's really like, that was like my sweet spot i can sit i could i used to be able to sit in my room and watch tv for hours now i can't do that anymore like i get tired and restless and i'd be like i have to get up and do something i have to get up and do something i have to get up and do something and you know what i miss that i just don't want to do anything i just want to lay down for hours and watch every episode of Sex and the City. I did that once.

That was peak me. Now look at me. I'm always like, Jack, I clocked into work. I do make you call me and tell me that every morning. In that voice. Every day I'm like, Jack, I'm in work and I'm ready to hustle. Let's go. It was only once our podcast team was bought by iHeart.

And then I was like, okay, now you need to start using a morning zoo voice when you clock in in the morning. But yeah. And then the really insidious thing is when the thing that you do for fun and relaxation becomes something called on a streaming corner. I know. It's a sickness. And you make you do it as part of your job. It's a sickness. I can't release anything.

I have so much illness. It's content. Everything I enjoy must be turned into a podcast moment. Right. That's true. What is something that you think is underrated? Well, I guess I think the flip side of what is what i thought was overrated is that i think boredom is really underrated like boredom is supposed to be something bad it's like oh you

know oh i'm bored i need to do something and just like the way that hana was just describing like some i would love to be bored i don't remember what that was like but just to have nothing to do just like not have a thought you know i'm just like i just want to sit here and be so without thought that i'm actually experiencing boredom. And now I have to figure out something to do. And it's like, that never happens. It's just this continuous, we're so inundated with information 24 hours a day. I mean, with our phones, with social media, it's just like constant, constant stimulation. It's like, you never get a chance to just be bored anymore. And I really think that that's part of like, that should be a part of life, like we should have time to be bored, shut our phones off and sort of stare at a wall and see what happens to our brains. We're not doing anything else.

There's just no downtime. I sometimes say that when because I have a compulsion like everyone else to check your phone, you know, if you have access to it, it's constantly on it. So I went camping with a few friends a few months back. And where we were, there was no reception. And it was one of the greatest feelings of my life. I was like, well, because I don't have a choice. Everyone's like, why don't you just turn your phone off? I'm like, because I have a choice. I'm obviously not going to do that. If I turn it off two minutes later, I'm going to turn it back on. But when you're just sort of stuck in the middle of the woods and you don't have a choice in the matter,

it's such a nice feeling to be disconnected. And there were moments that I was bored and I was like, oh, this is great. This is wonderful. We should do this more often. So did you just like drive to the nearest place that had reception and just like call people and ask them to explain Twitter, like describe Twitter to you every 20 minutes? Anytime we drove anywhere, though, I did have like the phone sort of in the corners. Like, do I have reception? They would just look at me. I'm like, I just want to know what's going on, as if it would make any difference if I knew what was going on, you know, this new news story. And

it's funny because news stories in reality are like the same news story for days and weeks and months. And, you know, in the case of certain things literally years it's the same story and yet we follow it as if there's something incredibly new happening but it's like no this is the exact same story we're just talking there's a new cartoon there's a new cartoon bomb exactly so that's yeah so it's like if you were to check out and then check back in in 10 years like are we still talking about this? It's like, yeah,

it's the same. It's the same story. Yeah, it is true. Sometimes I'll realize I've like left my phone in the other room for an expense, extended period of time. And I'm like,

look at me. Wow. What am I off the grid? And it's, it's been like 10 minutes, but I'm like, it's as if I've, but I'm like... Pioneer over here? It's as if I've never even played with tech.

But I'm always quite impressed if I don't have it in my pocket. I'm like, well, look at me. Just the queen of checking out. But then quickly, as soon as I realize it's not there, then I go get it. Then you go frantically search for it. Yeah, then I'm like, okay, that was great for 10 minutes, but where are you? I'm going to be honest. This is why i actually hate apple watches this is probably an unpopular opinion because people love it so much i'm like it's you know now even if you set the phone down in another room it's still following you on your wrist i'm like it's just it's okay it's okay to

disconnect for while you're in the bathroom possibly just for a minute just for something but no it's now that now it's attached to your wrist in case jack we're talking to you hmm no you're always texting from the toilet everyone i know has an apple watch and i'm like i can't i can't do it i'm on my phone already too much every time jack texts me i'm like are you in the toilet text me from your apple watch again are you doing that right now i I swear to God, Jack. Apple Watch texts are like, they give you three options, and that's it. You have to just go with whatever they have. Listen, we're going to have an entire

generation with hemorrhoids because everyone's on their phone in the bathroom. This is not... You can't sit there forever. You've got to get up and go. Is that how hemorrhoids happen? Yeah, the combination of phone and toilet it's a it's a it's dangerous yeah but no but if you sit there for a long time sitting for too long i think this is a real thing this is a real thing whoa i did now you're rethinking it

you're like maybe i shouldn't be oh no so my kids are not allowed to, you know, have phones, will not be allowed to have phones for as long as possible. They're very young, but they love to just sit there and talk to themselves. So I do think there's like something about just sitting there that is nice. It's like a break from life. But then, yeah, if you bring your phone in with you, it's like a break from life but then yeah if you bring your phone in with you it's wait can i tell you one time your son uh asked me the younger one asked me what does it mean to be confused and i was like i like i was just like oh oh what i wanted to be like google it bro you should probably google that because that's a tough one for me.

But then I was like, wow, children's minds. They're just like looking at something. They're like, what does it mean to be confused? Yeah. And you're like, I wish to live such a life, such a simple life where you're just like, I'm curious. I'm confused about what it means to be confused. And I was like like what an incredible question and then you just pointed to me you're like your dad is what it means to be confused

he actually figured it out pretty quickly which i also was like damn he's like a google incredible kids are incredible they just don't even know they don't even know about smartphones and like what a world that you don't even have to think anymore yeah you just go siri siri what is this siri's like i will tell you aren't there like toys smartphones now like there are like toy phones and toy tablets and yeah like they're getting them on screens very very quickly quickly. Yeah. Yeah. It's cute. Look, they're just like, they're just like us. All right. Let's take a quick break

and we'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.

Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an

exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream 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. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd just take all the other stuff out of it. On 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. 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. and we're back and so like i said up top we talked about cuba making successful vaccines despite economic sanctions and you know we've mentioned economic sanctions at various times we mostly focus on you know u.s news but when we do talk about international news, it's kind of impossible to ignore. But I don't think people I don't think I like even fully understood the like violence of economic sanctions. But Asal, you've been discussing them like either on Twitter or, you know, in the context of Afghanistan and Iran. And I was just wondering if you could kind of speak to

like what it means, like what happens when the U.S. puts economic sanctions on a country? Yeah, I mean, I think what you sort of like suggested right now is this, and it's an idea within the country. I think people don't realize it, right? When we hear economic sanctions, we think like, well, it's not war. So that's better. That's like a nice alternative. It's like the benign way of pressuring governments rather than going to war with them. And the reality is, is that it's it's not benign. It's extreme. I mean, it is akin to war, in the sense that like, why we say, we don't say like, we shouldn't go to war, because we're wasting our I mean, we do say because partially because we're wasting our own resources,

but part of the moral argument behind why we should avoid war and conflict in terms of the notion of an international community and why we founded those things was really in the wake of these massive wars, World War I, World War II, just the amount of destruction, devastation, and death that was caused by it. It was sort of a wake-up call for the world saying,

hey, there should be better ways for us to figure out our differences or our problems. And so this idea of economic coercion and economic pressure is presented like it's the nice way of doing things, whereas it also causes devastation and destruction and people die because of sanctions people lose their livelihoods their jobs they live in poverty i mean that is why we say we shouldn't go to war and yet the other part of sort of this presentation of sanctions the way it's talked about by u.s administrations and it's not unique to any political party, it's not, I mean, this is just, this is US foreign policy, is that they target these governments that we don't like, right? Governments that partake in behaviors

that is not in the interest of the United States that we don't like for X, Y, and Z reasons that we give. But in fact, they target civilians. Right. And we know this. I mean, the literature on sanctions is so clear of who is actually being hurt by it. And, you know, sort of these exemptions, these humanitarian exemptions get written into sanctions law. But the reality of it is it doesn't work because, you know,

you're looking at like, what is a, what is a sanction? If like a bank is sanctioned, a central bank of a country is sanctioned and they're trying to purchase medicines, right? They're trying to purchase vaccines, we'll say. In order to purchase something, you need a transaction. There's always a third party, there's a bank, some kind of financial entity in the middle that allows that transaction to take place. And they're so scared of violating US sanctions, that they just don't do it. They won't do it. It's not a question of whether or not they can legally, they just won't, because it's not worth it from a business perspective. If you're a bank, right, it's not worth it for you to allow this transaction to take place in case, you know,

you violate US sanctions. And part of it is because there's so many. It's, I mean, we ever tried to read some of the bills and things that come out of Congress? Just like legal language is complicated for most people to understand. And so now you have all of these sanctions. You have like Iran is the most sanctioned country in the world. You're talking about like well over a thousand sanctions, right? You have entities like financial entities in Iran that are double or triple sanctions. So they're not just sanctioned once, if that even makes sense, but they're sanctioned under different designations.

So there's just this really complex web of sanctions. And then you expect financial institutions to partake in transactions. They don't. And so what happens is you have countries that have essential goods that they can't get. You have scarcity, hyperinflation, have like essential goods that they can't get you have scarcity hyperinflation unemployment people losing literally losing their livelihoods right i mean in iran you have we had studies from last year that said something like 10 to 15 percent of the middle class had been forced into poverty that's millions of people and that's not that's not the government these governments stay in place i mean the most sort of obvious example is cuba it's a 60-year embargo what do you do for 60 years that doesn't work that you think year 61 is going to do the trick right yeah they'll come around yeah we're we're we're

close to getting them well and and there's the fact there's the additional problem which is you know if you're if looking at it from the United States, our politicians and repeated US administrations talk about this idea of like an international rules based order, international law, how like, you know, there's an international community, we love using these phrases. But then like something like 172 countries vote for the 30th year in a row to end the embargo on Cuba. And two countries say no, the U.S. and Israel. Right. And so that's a done deal. No, embargo is not going to be lifted. So it's like, what is that the international community then?

Is it just these two countries and the other 170? Forget what they have to say. So it's a combination of the policy and how the policy is implemented when you look at it on a sort of like international scale and the fact that we just don't do any of these things consistently like we're like oh we don't like this country so they're going to get sanctioned but this other country that does the exact same thing you guys are cool you you're never going to get sanctioned no matter what you do. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's such a like, you would think like, it's all politics, but it's like, no, it's all like money and playing favorites and doing and making the U.S. money and making Israel money. And if you can't do that, then honey, you don't got a shot. And your people have to now starve to death in the streets and they can't have PPE and they can't have, you know know basic human rights because the u.s is like not feeling it it's a real it's so dark

that it's just generally there's no like there's nothing that they can say like even we watch it we watched on the news we watch biden be like this has to happen because of this this and this and you're like not really right like but we can see you can go online and read what's happening you can go online and see like actual news you can go to like al jazeera you can go to like read what's going on and be like i don't know i just don't think that's necessary to the extremes that we take it to, especially with Iran, when you can actually go and look at what's being reported about their nuclear program. And these choices, and these are just, it's just like, well, I don't know. Israel's like not feeling it. And you're like, oh, well, good. Oh, well, you're right.

It's nonsense. I've tried to pose this question where it's like, okay, so let's say right now, there's a lot of talk about Russia and Ukraine, right? It's just Russia, Ukraine, Russia, Ukraine constantly. And what is it that we're saying Russia is doing that's wrong, that they shouldn't be doing? Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Russia can't invade a sovereign nation. I mean, is no one seeing the irony of the United States saying you can't invade sovereign countries? So that's a basis for we're going to massively punish the Russian government. The Russian government, I put in quotes because, again, it's broad scale sanctions would punish Russian people.

But we're going to punish the Russian government because they invaded a sovereign country. Same thing we did. We put sanctions for human rights violations. The U.S. is, you know, obviously a country that through its own wars and committing war crimes is abusing human rights. And domestically, of course, you can talk about systemic racism. You can talk about the fact that we have the most prisoners in the world. In fact, one of every four prisoners on the planet is in the United States. So these are all things that we could, that we sanction other countries for that we do ourselves. We sanction members of other countries, politicians in other countries on corruption charges. This while, while in the US, US politicians buy stocks and make money off of industries that they regulate, which in any other context we would call corruption, but in the US it's called capitalism. So there's that. So the question becomes, okay, would it be justified if right now Americans

lost their savings, were starving, couldn't access medicines in a pandemic because of the actions of the US government, which according to the government itself are all sanctionable crimes, right? Because that's what we say to other countries. So it's just this constant loop of hypocrisy. That is, if you pay attention to it long enough, you miss being bored. Like I said, boredom, it is underrated. It's just the more you pay attention, the more frustrating it is. It's like, we're just full of shit. That's the only way of saying it, that's very honest. It's like, we just just we do things and then punish other countries for doing the same things we do. Right. You retweeted a headline about over a million flee as Afghanistan's economy collapses and added that Afghans are selling their children and organs to survive while the U.S. is intentionally choking Afghanistan's economy because we lost a 20-year war.

Like, that's, yeah, that's just, I feel like that is not getting the level of attention that it probably deserves in the mainstream media. Like, that is what is happening. That is the consequence. And it's being done in these bills and that if you read them all, it would break your brain. Like you come out the other end with just like a 30,000 mile stare because so like they they know how to do it in a way that is so boring that people won't pay attention to it. But the whole idea of economic sanctions and like how Americans kind of justify it to themselves reminds me of the attitude of like corporations who want credit for giving jobs to people, like who think people should be like grateful for like Trump at one point was asked like what humanitarian thing like to name a single humanitarian thing he'd ever done. And he talked about like, well, I feed and clothe thousands of people

who worked for my company. I give so many jobs. I'm a job creator. And like that idea that like, rather than like, these are people I should be grateful to because they serve me and I get to be a billionaire celebrity.

Instead of that, it's like, you know, they owe me because I created this job, even though that job would have been there just with a different asshole at the top, probably, if Donald Trump didn't exist. But like with the US and sanctions, obviously, it's different. But like like I feel like it's similar logic, like the U.S. creates the situations where they need people to do things that aren't in their best interest and then starve them when they don't do those things. Again, they act like they should get credit for any economic activity that happens anywhere in the world. And it's their right to withhold economic activity. The U.S. economy is coming over there and feeding them normally and like let their families like get the food that like the global economy would bring to them but instead they are doing a great deal of work to kill people to like starve people in ways that are just like don't don't make headlines yeah that the fact that it doesn't make headlines is the important part,

right? There were a lot of headlines during the Afghanistan withdrawal. So withdrawing from Afghanistan, everyone across the media spectrum was constantly talking about it and, and on sort of a right-wing media that wanted to criticize Biden for withdrawing. It was a question of abandoning the Afghan people, right? It was, we're abandoning the, so that was the big thing. It's like, oh, look what we're doing to Afghan people because they of course care so deeply about the population of Afghanistan. Now those same people are just silent on the fact that you have, I mean, when you read the stories about people literally lining up to like sell organs because they're trying to

survive, when people talk about selling their children, there's another situation, there's about people literally lining up to sell organs because they're trying to survive. When people talk about selling their children, there's another situation, there's another humanitarian crisis, what has been deemed the worst humanitarian crisis in the world in Yemen, which the US is also complicit in. So I always think about that fact. Here we are talking about human rights.

We're centering human rights in foreign policy and we love human rights. They were centering human rights in foreign policy and we love human rights. They're so important to us. And yet the U S is complicit in the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis and is now complicit and actually actively involved in the world's worst oncoming humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. So number one and number two, the U S is behind that in both cases.

It was like, how can you still reasonably say that we are concerned about the fate of Afghan people when you know more than half the population is facing starvation in a freezing winter, and we just do nothing about it? So the United States will spend trillions of dollars, put American soldiers in harm's way, wage a war and bomb a country for two decades in the name of liberating them, but then won't lift a finger to not let them starve. Yeah. the u.s to do anything just allow them access to the what belongs to the afghan people like the funds of the central bank of afghanistan belongs to the afghan people right and that is being frozen they have no access to it this which is what central reason why the economy is in free fall it's collapsing right yeah it's requiring intervention by the U.S. to put these sanctions in place. And that is preventing that.

Like, I think people just have such a U.S.-centric view of the world that they're just like, yeah, well, they don't get the nice things that we give to other countries, as opposed to, no, the U.S. is going in and freezing their economy, essentially, and starving people as a consequence. I mean, think about the fact that the projections are that more Afghans will die of starvation now as a consequence of U.S. economic policy than died in 20 years' war. Jesus. Wow. And then, you know, naturally know naturally the u.s will then go sell weapons into the region and make money off that causing further destabilization and violence it's great yeah we just make money it's for us to make money right every time it's actually one of the most interesting

points it's like oh look at these quote terrorists who have weapons they get weapons i'm like well you know if you wanted less weapons in the middle east you could just stop selling them there yeah you could stop giving them weapons yeah it's like oh saudi arabia is committing war crimes in yemen guess who the u.s america's number one arms buyer is saudi arabia and we just sell them over and over again with no you know with no, you know, with no thought. It's like where we have the world's leading,

like I think something like 40%, close to 40% of the entire world's military budget is spent by the U S. We're also the world's number one arms dealer. And it's just like, well, we are, are so much of our economy is run on weapons and it's like oh we're we're a peaceful nation i'm like that doesn't add up that doesn't really add up very well yeah that's the degree to

which the u.s economy since like the beginning of the 20th century has been propped up by the military industrial complex. And like, we like it came up when people were comparing some of the budgetary, you know, infrastructure bills or like humanitarian aid domestically with the defense budget. And they were like, oh, this thing that's being described in the media as a $10 billion bill that's over the course of like a decade. And the military budget is 10 times that for just this year. Like it's just invisible to people and therefore just like so powerful and just like gets away with like doing really whatever they want but i i think it like is the secret behind the u.s economy that like americans don't want to look at is that the entire economy is propped up by the fact that they spend as much as they want on the military, on weapons. And yeah, it's horrible. Yeah, I think that comparison point was so important, right? When we looked at like Build Back Better

or anything where it was social services, right? Like services, actually safety nets for American people cannot get that passed in Congress. Even a Congress that is, you know, a House and Senate with Democrat majorities and Democrat White House. I think one of the biggest frustrations for me is when you listen to like the Biden ad a congress that is you know a house and senate with democrat majorities and democrat white house i think one of the biggest frustrations for me is when you listen to like the biden ad and say oh it's the republicans i'm like well is it yeah like it is to a certain extent but also

you have the majority in everything so somehow amazingly the republicans when they are a majority can do whatever they want and then when they're a minority they can block everything right and democrats are always helpless majority or minority always helpless almost as if that's their job secretly that's what they're there for is to be bad they're not all money in their pockets as well yeah to like claim the progressive ideals but then actually not not get any of them to move forward well in order to sort of like sell this idea first of all the fact that it's called defense budget is itself complete right like we're not we are no one is attacking us here right like when this has not happened in a while in america yeah whereas everywhere else in the

world they're like if you look at the middle east especially where we've had the biggest footprint in the last couple of decades i mean there's constant constant war all over the region and so we talk about defense when our military is across the world like no one is at our borders right we have the u.s military military bases all over the world we have you know in in the middle of the persian gulf you have the u.s coast guard i love that that's one of my favorite things. The U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Coast Guard. The guard of the U.S. Coast is in the Persian Gulf. And so you have to have this sort of media hysteria that we're always in danger because the only way to justify the amount of money we spend is to protect Americans. I mean, I think Biden actually said that today about the attack in Syria that took out, I don't know how many leaders ISIS has, but yet another ISIS leader that took out an ISIS leader, killed several civilians.

And then he said something to the effect of or tweeted something to the effect of protecting American lives at home or something. But Syria is not attacking the US. There are no Syrian troops in the US. There are no Syrian troops or military bases anywhere close, not even the U.S. Right. There are no Syrian troops in the U.S. There are no Syrian troops or military bases anywhere close, not even on the same hemisphere. And somehow that's the way that it's framed. So it's, you know, these countries are all a threat to the U.S. Russia, China, Iran.

At one point it was Iraq, which is why we had to invade. Afghanistan, which is why we had to invade. So we're bombarded, which is like psychological torture to do that to your own people. Like we are bombarded with messages that tell us we are always under threat. Oh, yeah. So that justifies just trillions of dollars constantly being spent on wars abroad. Yeah, it's a real fucking mess. Here's my pitch. So we continue to call it the defense budget right but we pivot

it to social services but we continue to call the defense budget because we need defense from the us government right the people because even one-third of that budget could do miracles for this country's social services yeah Just even the bare minimum to give us health care. Right. I think it used to be called like the war budget or something. Howard Zinn writes about that

in A People's History of the United States that the department changed its name when they stopped waging defensive wars and like moved into starting to be like offensive. They changed their name to Department of Defense to throw everybody

off the scent and yeah it was department of war that's what it was it was department of war and department of war became department of defense yeah and can you imagine how much they paid the pr agency that helped them pivot like and we just kind of want to have a more positive spin maybe make it look like we're in trouble they probably gave them cartoon bombs yeah that's probably where it all comes from to like now make all imagery a little cartoonish and everyone will be like oh my god how cute we do need that nuclear bomb okay great all right let's take a quick break and we're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about rudy giuliani and Dolly Parton because we have to.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts,

the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed 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? I 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. They lion. An individual that came to the school saying that God sent him to talk to me about the mascot switch. As a leader, you choose hills that you want to die on. Why would we want to be the losing team? I'd 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. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this.

Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask,

a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream 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.

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And we're back. And we kind of got a sneak preview. There was a leak of an upcoming piece of mass media that will presumably feel like a psychedelic experience that went bad. Just like that Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton clip that we talked about last week where they're talking about they're like bored ape NFTs and everyone's just like, yay. So we got a new one and it feels like a real doozy where we got, you know, it's like a Tim and Eric bit, but real because apparently last week it will air next month. But last week it was revealed that one of the masked singers was Rudy

Giuliani. And I think Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke both walked out. Robin Thicke, a hero. Activist of our generation. Hero. Robin Thicke. Oh, huge Robin Thicke, activist of our generation. Hero, Robin Thicke. Oh, huge.

You know, if you were to be like, pick which judge would walk out, my first pick would have been, well, obviously Robin Thicke would not stand for this. Right. Classically. Well, I've always felt a little bit better knowing that he's still out there sort of protecting our values and you know

just making sure that people don't get away with some bullshit like this um no i mean i at least in this case you did the right thing i just can't like i'm i've never seen an episode of masked singer like beginning to end when i have a clip, it really feels like a bad dream. The papier-mâché masks are scary. The editing is aggressive and strange. And then to have the person under the mask be Rudy Giuliani. I mean, we should obviously should not be surprised that he said yes to this. Like he first of all, like his I remember he used to like love to dress up as a woman and sing and dance on SNL and at any banquet that he would be allowed to do that at. He just needs attention the way other living organisms need oxygen. So I'm not surprised that he said yes to this, assuming that he's been asking to do this for all seven seasons since they started the show. But I don't know. It is on Fox, which, you know, it's made in America for Americans who were previously OK with Sarah Palin being on The Masked Singer in 2020.

The Sean Spicer thing is getting brought up a lot in this context. was not the worst thing because watching him try to dance and like wear those outfits was a little like the shame scene where like Circe is paraded through the city because he's just like not a good dancer and not he was not pulling off those looks but yeah it remains to be seen how the Giuliani thing goes I think he's probably set a new high point for the show in the category of costume that would smell the worst when the mask is pulled off gross why would you even pull up that imagery oh it'll certainly be sweaty on the inside oh so much sweat probably hair dye like pouring down into his face oh this is miserable and the editing have you ever watched like a clip of the show when they like do the

mask reveal and it's like it's like an episode of black mirror yeah none of it feels real you're like okay there's a budget for this right someone is betting a lot of money into this it's wild that this show is so popular and has maintained multiple seasons i think the weirdest part and this is just like one example of it obviously but is this like politicians are not entertainers like when did they become entertainers they're not comedians oh and by the way since we're saying that comedians are also not politicians so it's like this sort of conflating of the seriousness of the work that they're supposed to be doing right like you are charged if you are the u.s government you're not only charged with the responsibility of you know carrying out the

will of 330 plus million people in this country but you're the most powerful country in the world and you're literally just on a daily basis killing people across the world and now we're watching them as the mass singer and like dancing with the stars and you're saying what this is not if there's a sort of especially for problematic political figures which is someone like runda giuliani there's this thing of rehabilitation in in media it's like if you make them funny if you make them clowns then people will stop thinking about their criminality and the things that they did and it's like just imagine this and and to know how ridiculous our behavior is imagine it in another country it's like imagine we bring up this is what they do in russia and suddenly it's like oh that's

disgusting like here's this person right who was part of an administration who did X, Y, and Z, who tried to coup the country. And now we're inviting him on our fun programming to laugh at them and laugh with them. And it's just a very bizarre way that we've developed relationships with these politicians. And you see the same thing with, it's different and categorically than someone like Giuliani, but with George Bush. It's just like, oh, he's everyone's favorite little guy. I'm like, he's a war criminal. Yeah, he paints. He has no idea the damage he's done in the Middle East.

And guess what? He's a painter now. Well, then, you know, screw it. It's fine. America's national treasure george w bush like great great great great great great yeah i will say it does say that apparently jenny mccarthy and nicole sharon sharinger sharinger scherzinger scherzinger there sure sorry i don't know how to say that last name it's nishal shershinger they both stayed on stage, to which I'm not surprised Jenny McCarthy did. But a part

of me thinks like Nicole Scherzinger probably has no idea who Rudy Giuliani is. Who is Nicole Scherzinger? She's from like Pussycat Dolls. Like she's a singer, songwriter, that type. But I don't think she probably has. And she's British. So I don't I don't she probably is just like, look at this cute little old man under the mask. I don't know. I'm sorry. It's terrible so I don't, I don't, she probably is just like, look at this cute little old man under the mask. I don't know. I'm sorry. It's terrible. I don't know what impression I'm doing.

But that's the feeling I get that she just has no idea what's going on. And then Jenny McCarthy, well, we could, sure, she just doesn't even care. Yeah. I feel like she's Rudy gang. Yeah. Yeah. She feels like she's not worried about what Rudy's up to. Yeah.

I feel like the, usually America loves a celebrity who doesn't take themselves too seriously. Like Jennifer Lawrence, she like fell down and talked about pooping her pants. And, you know, she's, you know, even an athlete we love when they like poke fun at themselves. But like we like we should want politicians to take themselves seriously. They should they should be taking their job pretty seriously because yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's the thing.

It's like, I also, I don't think that we should go to sort of like either extreme politicians or human beings. They can, they're valuable. They're allowed to make mistakes. They sometimes say things or they have said things a long time ago that,

that people would take issue with. And there should be that space to have that discourse and that discussion. But to trivialize them is the part that is frustrating to watch. It's like, well, you're trivializing their actions to them. Like, oh, that was really funny. No, it's not. Right.

Putting the country in danger is not a funny thing. So it's just very weird choices by the... And they do it, obviously, for the same reason, you know, media, a channel or a broadcast company will do anything. They'll get ratings. All that sort of like matters in the end.

Yeah. I mean, we're going to cut this part out, but this whole episode is a viral piece of content for The Masked Singer. It was all just having you on everything. This is branded content. gonna cut this part out but this whole episode is a viral piece of content for the mass singer it was all just having you on everything this is branded content this is branded content to get people to tune in when the big reveal comes around that rudy also like do they disguise their voices when they're singing the songs like are they auto-tuned yeah i think it's purposeful so you

don't you can't automatically guess who oh okay. Oh, okay. Because I was going to be like, I'm pretty sure if I heard somebody breathing heavily and drunkly slurring over the backing track in a thick New York accent, I'd be like, huh, I mean, we know who that is. It probably isn't him, right? I've never seen the show but it was the objective to get i mean how would you guess it if it's not their voice if it's not them singing how could you possibly guess who the person is i guess i don't understand the premise i think so apparently every season has a theme and this one was the good the bad and the cuddly so i guess it's just like

it's like people who potentially fall yeah yeah he's a cuddly who could you want to cuddle with more than rudy giuliani a sweaty alcoholic pervert who tried to bring down our country i also have to correct myself apparently i was thinking nicole sure is someone else she's not british she's american so i don't know what her excuse is with liking or being okay with rudy giuliani being i guess she is actually American. Sorry, I don't know why, but Pussycat Dolls, I confused them with another. I don't know. Sorry.

Nicole Scherzinger is American. If there are Nicole Scherzinger stans out there who listen to the Daily Zeitgeist, you don't need to listen to the Daily Zeitgeist. You're good. You're good. Just watch The Masked Singer or whatever. I actually don't know to listen to the Daily Zeitgeist. You're good. You're good. Just watch The Masked Singer or whatever. I actually don't know anything about her. Maybe she's an amazing humanitarian who just ripped him a new asshole when he took his mask off. I don't think so.

Based on this article I'm reading, it said her and Jenny McCarthy. Stayed on and bantered. Yeah, they just like bantered with him, which what does that even mean? How do you banter with Giuliani? Oh, the guy loves, that guy loves improv. He was actually a lot of early UCB people talk about how, you know, he would always be level four. He was a staple at the ASCAT. And then really quickly, just to end on a high note, Dolly Parton may have just saved the Mexican pizza.

So a few days back, The Takeout, which is the fast food blog that we treat like the New York Times on this show, pointed out that Dolly Parton had voiced her support for the return of the Mexican pizza in an interview with Insider. And like not she didn't like take a hard stance she was like oh like what are my favorite things to eat and like named a bunch of taco bell items and then was like oh and there's this other one uh mexican pizza they like one of the restaurants used to make the mexican pizza and then somebody told her that they had taken that away and were like should they bring it back she was like yeah so it wasn't like she waged a campaign, but I don't know. She seems like magnetically pulled to whatever the right opinion is on everything. And they apparently are bringing back the Mexican pizza this spring, according to Mashed.com, which is sort of like the Washington Post of this podcast.

Maybe she can bring back nacho fries as well, because those are also delicious. And I don't know why they keep taking them away. I know. It's so like, it's seasonal. Give me a break. When did potatoes become seasonal? I have no idea. Potatoes and cheese.

That's all it is. Yeah. It's incredible. It's called Parton power, I believe. Whenever Parton puts her power into something, it comes back. She invests. The vaccine. Mexican pizza.

All of it. Right. Her powers are strong. History will judge which of those is more important, but I have my... It really does feel like Mexican pizza at this point. Based on how I feel in this country, people care more about the vaccine. That's the turning point. Yeah, Mexican pizza than the vaccine.

It's just like something about it just like really made people happy. Now, here's what we do. You put the vaccine in the Mexican pizza. Thank you. Could you imagine? This is why you should be running this country. You make a vaccine requirement for eating fast food. Yeah, that would be incredible.

Could you imagine the country would burn down? Yeah. People would be so mad. They would be so pissed. Yeah. they had talked about having i think they actually did put in a vaccine mandate for weed and to like in order to buy legal weed you had to get be vaccinated and like they saw a huge increase so wait really wasn't it supposed to be weed and alcohol like if you make a vaccine mandate for weed and alcohol like you're done here everybody will get vaccinated yeah i i was suggesting alcohol and miles was like you know like that that would be the end

like that would be the end of society people lose their shit but i'm pretty sure there was like a legal weed like a trial of a legal weed like vaccine mandate and it had an effect that's pretty cool yeah i mean fast food yeah all right sorry i was trying to find it to fact check myself to make sure that wasn't just a dream because i dream in podcasts you're dreaming like stories on a dock yes yes so it's been such a pleasure dr rad i will call you dr rad it's been so wonderful having you on the show can't wait to Yes. Yes. various headlines and people just need to follow you if they don't already where can people find you and follow you uh thank you jack and anna for for having me on today that was this was a really great conversation and i really actually do hope that dolly hears this part about the nacho fries i'm being very serious about that i love them and they are not readily available to me

i was just gonna say i fucked up like as a as a podcast host i should have asked like what you being very serious about that. I love them. Yeah. And they are not readily available to me. I was just going to say, I fucked up. Like, as a podcast host, I should have asked, like, what you guys' favorite, like, lost menu items are. Like, menu items. Well, you already know mine.

Right. So it's nacho fries. Okay. Yeah. Mine was the soft potato taco, and they actually did bring it back. Okay. I was going to say,

I'm like, I'm pretty sure they have that still. They brought it back? I guess they took it away, and now they brought it back. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure they have that still. I guess they took it away and now they brought it back. I put in a special request with Dolly Parton on her website where it's like suggestions for me to get involved in and she did bring it back for me. There's actually something else and this is all revealing just how much fast food

and specifically Taco Bell I eat. I don't know if that's good, but it's delicious. It is. With our listenership, unfortunately, that's very good. They had on like the dollar menu too,, too, a beefy Frito burrito. They actually have Fritos chips in the burrito. Yeah. What the fuck?

I may have shed a tear when they took that off the menu. I was like, you put Fritos in the burrito. That was brilliant. I don't understand why we're taking away really good items. But yeah. So you can find me. i do not talk about this stuff on twitter i should i should probably yeah i mean maybe you should honestly but i don't know this is my next sort of venture on twitter will be yeah fast food items that i can do i can do a lot about that, actually. My handle on Twitter is Asalrad. So it's just at A-S-S-A-L-R-A-D.

And that is really the only social media platform that I pay attention to. And in fact, the funny thing about it is the only reason I'm on Twitter is because I was forced to be by work. When I started working at NIAC in the beginning of 2019, they're like, well, you know, you have to be on Twitter. I'm like, do I? Are you sure about that? They're like, well, you know, you have to be on Twitter. Like, do I,

are you sure about that? They're like, yeah, no, you know, I have a PhD, right? I will say,

I will say it is a great source of, um, just like fast information of like what's going on. And because I wasn't on it, I wasn't quite aware of the fact that you actually have like heads of state diplomats. These people are using this platform to, I mean, if you're Trump,

he was using it to try to declare war. So I mean, it's important to know what's going on. Apparently on Twitter, there's real stuff happening there. But yes, that's the only social media platform that I am active on. Cool. And is there a tweet

or some work of social media you've been enjoying? Nima Shirazi had a tweet or some work of social media you've been enjoying uh nima shirazi had a tweet actually about the the bob menendez nuclear weapon graphic something where he called because the funny thing about the graphic too is it's supposed to so he's just this like blimp cartoon looking bomb and it's supposed to be the iranian flag it's like green, white, and red. Except the stripes are vertical instead of horizontal. And so it's actually the Italian flag and not the Iranian flag. And so Nima pointed that out and I thought it was hilarious because we were just like, I have to read the tweet actually.

Oh, you guys can pull up the tweet because it's pretty funny. But he basically says something about Iran is developing its safeguard nuclear energy program using an Italian blimp. So I thought that was pretty good. funny but he basically says something about iran is developing its safeguard nuclear energy program using an italian blimp so i thought that was pretty good damn that is true though that's a classic iranian move anna where can people find you and follow you what's the tweet you've been enjoying i'm at anahostia on twitter a few tweets i've been enjoying one is from zach anner at zach anner and it's the mass singer is not the bastion of integrity i once believed it to be right and then one from meredith at deets underscore meredith my dad just texted me

can you give me a call so either he wants to say hi, or my whole family is dead. Could be both. Oh my God, I saw that too. And I thought it was hilarious because I could relate to it so much. Yeah. My dad's always like, give me a call. And I'm like, oh my God, what happened? And he's like, what's up? Yeah. And you're like, what? Don't do that. Don't send those texts. And there's actually, it's every time, every time my dad's like, leaves me a voice message like, Anna to call me or anything like that i am always so i'm like but don't worry nothing's wrong like everything's good like i feel like that's how you tell apart people who have like anxiety people it's like yeah it gets me i always get scared for a second yeah i'm like oh my god oh my god oh my god and then it's always just my dad was just like

i saw some i saw this it's always at costco my dad like, I saw this. It's always at Costco. My dad's always at Costco. He goes every day now that he's retired and he has nothing to do. And it's always like something he saw at Costco that he thought maybe I should go to my Costco in LA and see if they have. Because maybe I'd be interested in it. But maybe not. I don't know. Something to think about.

Anyway, I was in the garden. And you're like, oh, my God. Just text me like I was at Costco. Would love to tell you about something versus call me. Like, okay. Everyone died. That's what I got.

Uh, you can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore O'Brien, uh, tweet. I enjoyed professor Hinkley at prof underscore Hinkley tweeted, Babe, listen, I need you to bring me $15,000 cash in my passport. I out-pizzed the hut in there

after me. And then Mike Scullin, I don't want to read this. I feel embarrassed, but I'm going to anyways. Mike Scullin tweeted me jerking off a dog with the jackass boys. So you guys said you have a show what's it about that's just stupid that one really got me like he doesn't know that this is part of the show

i'll explain the joke to you uh anyways uh you can find us on twitter at daily zeitgeist we're at the daily zeitgeist on instagram we have a facebook fan page and our website dailyzeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode as well as a song that we think you might enjoy and we're gonna ask super producer justin to come on on in and tell the people about a song that he thinks they might enjoy that we will be linking off to in the footnotes. Thank you so much for the intro, Jack.

I've noticed for the every day so far in February, you've been highlighting Black musicians. So I just want to keep that trend going. Hopefully we make it through the whole month. But one of my favorite songs I'm enjoying right now is by a very well-known artist, Burna Boy. But this song really hits me because if you want to feel like you're driving in an open top Jeep on a beach in subtropical Africa for just a few minutes, turn on this thing.

Okay. This is Konibage. I think I'm mispronouncing that because I have stupid American ears and this is how they hear them and this is how my stupid American mouth reinterprets that sound. But the key to this track's funkiness

is its syncopation, the percussion, the guitars, the way they play off of each other, and then the rhythms and the counter melodies. Oh, boy, they will just send you to another place. You can have so much fun analyzing the little pieces of this song that he keeps throwing in. There's all types of saxophones and strings and little pieces of African percussion

that your mind can just plant a flag in and just sit there and enjoy your time. So check this out. This is Kony Baj, K-O-N-I-B-A-J-E by Burnaboy. And you can check that out in the footnotes. All right. Damn. If I ever make a piece of music, I'm going to ask Justin to describe it to people.

He'll probably shit on it because it will be bad. But he's good at that. He's really good at describing songs anyways the daily zeitgeist is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts from iheart radio visit the iheart radio app apple podcast wherever you listen to your favorite shows that is gonna do it for us this morning we are back this afternoon to tell you what's trending though and we will talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult.

And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Elf Beauty,

founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.