Good morning, I don't have a question but wanted to thank you for highlighting the Times piece on the gaps created during the pandemic in early education. My wife is a kindergarten teacher in a low income area on the Big Island of Hawaii. Virtual learning for Kindergarten was a struggle, not only for the kids but the parents as well. A child that young isn't able to have self directed work or navigate the technology on their own, putting additional pressure on parents and caregivers; especially if they are a single parent or both parents work. My wife's team at the school moved mountains creating a private YouTube channel with no training and essentially created a year of educational video content for the kids on the fly while training all of the parents on the technology and meeting with the kids for additional content and socialization with their classmates. I'm sure her team is not the only one that did this kind of adjustment, but not very many people or industries can adjust on the fly like these teachers did.
What happened to you two during your coverage of the Paul-Fauci exchange? Whatever Fauci's faults or dissembling, why would you have endorsed anything out of Paul's mouth on covid? He's made it clear long ago that he has no interest in the truth, but only wants to score points to run for president (have you already forgotten his herd immunity re NYC, or his refusal to get vaccinated?). In this case, he wants to insinuate some evil cabal of democrats and egghead researchers cooking up covid in a Chinese lab. He has no interest in stopping the pandemic if it interferes with his ambitions. Like Cuomo and Romney, he's yet another overly ambitious dishonest son of a somewhat admirable politician. His father had true libertarian principles. Rand grandstands occasionally, but then proposes big increases in the defense budget. You too should no better than to grant him an credibility.
I come from a small community in West Virginia that used to have a thriving middle class but is now completely unrecognizable. As you know how the story went during the Clinton administration, manufacturing packed up and left, the big box stores took over and decimated our small businesses. etc etc. People were still living paycheck to paycheck and ultimately decided to pay less for shit at the cost of their communities but also also, I wonder if the allure of cheaper goods for a poorer community was a loosing battle of if communities could have ACTUALLY preserved small businesses by paying more for things. I wish there was more conversation about these small towns all across the country that look and feel like pathetic ghostowns - that only two decades ago were thriving, livable communities. I contrast that to Germany, where I recently visited my German family, that still feels like an actual functional society in both its cities and “blue collar” towns. I asked my relatives there about this, and they said in a sincere way…anyone here can get a job - thats not even a problem, really. Even a small wage earning job wont worry about health care and child care etc. Basically, when I drive across and around the US, it all feels the same: like its been hit by a bomb except for the small groups at breweries and yoga studies like gold teeth in a rotten mouth. Don’t you think this is the root of so much of our countries anger right now? Why don’t people recognize what they, themselves supported to allow this to happen? And, Do you think this can actually be reversed in our lifetime? I’d love to hear both of your takes on this issue. PS I thought Kyle did great!
Naughty monkey, see below your distribution of explitives from the 8/09 episode (adjusted for quotes attributed to Rogan and Hafer, and with one point added for smack-talking Slovenia ;) “Fuck” : 16 “Shit/ Bullshit” : 6 “Bitch” : 2 “Ass” / “Asshole” : 2 “Suck” / “Sucked off” : 2 “Tits” : 1 “Dick” : 1 “Balls” : 1 “Jackoff”/ “Jacked off” : 1 “Piss” : 1 Maybe a little less sugar with your breakfast cereal. Also – on a more constructive note – your monologue on “right versus left” cancellations: great point about how everyone should be against cancellations, which are anti-thetical to the principles of U.S. democracy, but then you framed the solution in terms of what the “left” and “right” should do. The dichotomy applies (unfortunately) to the current party system, but I suspect a meaningful segment of this audience is dissatisfied with both parties as they exist today and might appreciate solutions that emphasize a departure from the all-too-common “left-right” rhetoric.