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This week on the podcast, we’re guest free, but with plenty to talk about: Ferguson, James Foley, Rick Perry, the Minnesota State Fair, DeBlasio learns a life lesson, and last but not least, help us help you: silence Rob Long’s new member pitch from the podcast for all eternity. Click here to find out how.
Music from this week’s episode:
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron
The opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced by James Lileks.
You’re a riot, EJHill.
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That’s Vol. 5 Number XXXII.
Which side are these guys on?
Thank you Grendel, for keeping the dream alive.
Great podcast, a couple of ideas generated:
Brown’s father has now turned up when there is a multi-million dollar civil case in the offing; no word on how much interaction he had while his son was alive.
You rightly point out the problem of asking people to get a license to have kids, do you have the same philosophical or practical objection to requiring birth control as a precondition to receiving social welfare benefits?
I despair over your enthusiasm for Rick Perry – it’s just too soon after dubya to have a Texan who brags about how poorly he did in college to be our standard bearer.
E.J. – I love that you used Fenster, for Peter. My favorite Fenster line: “Is that the hooker with dysentery?”
Worst outro music ever.
Intact families are a matter of will. At the risk of sounding like a troglodyte from the 50s, it’s a question of staying together “for the sake of the children”. And I’m going to touch the third rail of Ricochet podcasts and indict Dennis Prager for incorrect views. Prager has dismissed that idea of self sacrifice as outmoded and unfulfilling for modern adults and on balance makes the lives of the children in those intact but unhappy unions worse off. I disagree.
There was an episode of the show Modern Family where Jay, the patriarch, talks about how he had considered divorcing his (first) harridan wife, but had decided to stick it out and stay with her until his children were grown. And it was presented as a noble and selfless and, for his children beneficial, sacrifice on his part. It was a remarkably socially conservative message for a modern hollywood TV show.
We don’ need no stinkin’ guests!
Since the advent of email and texting, when I have to call someone at home I feel like I’m kicking the door in and interrupting whatever they’re doing, I always feel I’m interrupting either a fight or ..ahem..the opposite.
I really wish the people on our side would refrain from using the other sides terminology, like ‘white privilege’ and ‘1%’ even ironically .
Go Rick, we need a fighter desperately!
As opposed to an Ivy Leaguer who won’t release his grades? Of all the candidates we have running I think Perry’s “Life Experience” is the best. Besides very few people truly care what your college GPA was. College GPA matters for your first job interview and nothing else.
Who needs guests? You guys provided one of the best conversations yet. @Peter Robinson re: Foley/Cameron/ Obama – you go, sir!
Getting poor grades is not the problem. Carter had a higher GPA than Reagan, Hoover had a higher GPA than FDR, our smartest President, John Quincy Adams, was a failure and followed by our least educated, probably stupidest President who’s picture is on the $20 bill. The problem is the fact that he thinks it’s something to brag about to make him appear to be one of the folks.
Nice work!
Yeah, I went back and forth on this, but the manner in which this song takes itself so seriously reminded me of much of the cable news coverage this week. I’m fine if all of you skip ahead 30 seconds and listen to the Don Pardo tribute at the very end of the show.
I don’t get it.
Best podcast in a while. I think you should consider going sans guests once a month or so. Frankly, the most interesting partof any of the podcasts is the banter at the beginning before bringing on the guests.
Great podcast. Totally fired me up. I am down with Rick Perry. He could definitely fire up the base and with the record to prove it.
Run, Rick, Run.
I’m gratified to hear you guys say that it was a good podcast, despite the lack of guests. We always worry about that.
The truth is, we had a great guest booked, but it fell through at the last minute. We’ll re-book, of course, but it’s nice to know that it isn’t a disaster when that happens.
Hey, youse guys; whadja do dis time?
Who does these? They’re hilarious. I take from the one introducing this week’s podcast that the guys are planning to audition for Flashpoint on ION Television.
That would be the incomparable EJHill. Take a bow, EJ.
I doth protest! Best outro music ever, Yeti!
[Well, maybe not ever…]
But it points out an amazing moment in time. A time long gone. A time when it was thought by the likes of Mr. Scott-Heron that “The People” – far outside the Mainstream – would wage The Revolution.
But The Revolution will be televised – much of it strategized for maximum TV effect. Televised, blogged, Live Tweeted, Facebooked, Vined, YouTubed, Snapchatted* – and all wall-to-wall and 24/7. It’s a new world.
And Chris Hayes still won’t be able to figure out why people want to throw rocks at him.
*Commenter acknowledges that if The Revolution doesn’t take place in the next few seconds, communication channels may be different. Perhaps it will all be downloaded to your Personal Implant from the Borg…er…Cloud.
I concur; an inspired choice for outro music.
The revolution will, indeed, not be televised.
(Oh man, I *so* want to hear Shatner covering “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. That would be the greatest thing ever.)
Wait, at a little after 38:00, how did Lileks segue from an indictment of liberal coastal female media elites to the spot for sponsor’s shaving product?
Masterly.
When you three discuss the plight of the lower socio-economic classes in this country, one thing you overlook is too many members of those classes have a wholesale disregard–even contempt–for education. And this is no argument for more money going to these schools. My sense is that they’re getting more than enough money to get the job done. But all the money in the world can’t help if the students, their “caregivers” (a single mother, a grandmother, or some other family member), and their community see education as something to be disparaged as “acting white.” The fact remains that nobody is going to get very far without a good education unless he wins the lottery, has extraordinary athletic ability, or has an extraordinary ability in one of the performing arts. There are only so many professional athletes and performing artists.
Nailed it, Sam,
Those creatures in Ferguson with their drawers hanging out swarming into the convenience store like bees are not the black people I knew growing up or the people I worked with for decades. I only wish real black people would loudly denounce the rioters as not representing them instead of ‘understanding their rage’. After a couple of weeks of this do you think there may be a little ‘understanding’ for OUR rage now?
As I think about it most of the black people I know are 1) old enough to be educated in American public schools before they were destroyed 2) educated in former British colonies or
3) products of Catholic schools.
The Great Society has destroyed generations of the people it was supposed to ‘help’.
On the contrary: you guys are best when you have a little time to stretch and let a segment “breathe.” I actually think it would be best to limit yourselves to no more than one guest per podcast. Cutting a guest off after a small, fixed time is really jarring in a podcast, and you have done it a lot lately. I understand if a guest has a limited time or if it’s an actual politician. The best moments last week were the whimsical, like James asking VDH about mytho-geographical nomenclature.
We like to hear what you guys really want to say.
Fellas, if Rick Perry wins the White House I’ll plop down and make snow angels in James’ front yard while wearing a yellow muscle shirt. You guys are nuts!
Look, I love the guy. I like his ideas, I like his bravado, I want this guy on my team… As a middle linebacker. Not as the Head Coach.
In fact, he screams “not a head coach”. But what do I know?
How about some recognition for Peter’s “heads off” remark during the discussion of the ISIS barbarity?
“… but at a minimum this heads off an entire line of liberal argument…”
Not quite the artistry we associate with a Harry’s segue, but noteworthy word play.
I noticed the ‘heads off’ also but when no one mentioned it I assumed it was both inadvertent and deeply regretted.
I hope you really mean that, because Blue Yeti finds it just ever so much easier not to book guests, and now that you and several others have said you prefer a show without guests from time to time–well, as I say, I hope you mean it.
And thanks.