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John showing off his gourmet dinner.
Getting together at the bar was a bit tricky this week since we’re all scattered to the wind and John Yoo thought it essential that he swing through a McDonald’s takeout window for the double-cheeseburger special with large fries, so he was late joining us. We were halfway through learning about the newest acronym in higher education—AANAPISI—when he finally turned up, but we managed to get though a lot of material, including:
• Fetterman and Feinstein, fit as fiddles, if you believe that faddle!
• What’s up with a weird new verbal tic Biden appointees display in their confirmation hearings (especially when Sen. John Kennedy is politely eviscerating them)?
• Answering a listener question from last week’s episode: what are the three clauses of the original Constitution that offered protection for southern slave interests (even if the word “slave” was purposely excluded from the text). Our discussion of this may have extended a bit beyond what our listener wanted, but this is one of the risks you take when you ask questions!
• What’s up with the Supreme Court dropping the Title 42 case, and what’s up with the forthcoming suit against Google that may rein in Section 230 immunity?
• And of course our Kamalaism of the week.
Finally, just for grins and giggles this week I decided to add a “name that tune” contest for the closing bumper music, for listeners who persevere to the very end. It’s a tune from 50 years ago, from an artist little known at the time and pretty much forgotten today, though the vocalist on this track became much better known, but was quite obscure in 1973. Bonus points for listeners who can pick out the vocalist and puzzle out the instrumentalist who wrote the song. No fair using music recognition aps! Put you guesses or answers in the comment threads. (I have a hunch a couple of our listeners who are prog rock aficionados may know the answer. . .)
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Peter Gabriel?
Close, but no. (I’ll wait for more guesses to roll in before giving the answer.)
Absolutely agree on “thank you for that question.” It is almost always followed by an incredibly smarmy non-answer.
To me, the vocal has a hint of Paul Simon, but he was well known by 1973. . . . (I’m bound to be far off because I don’t know “prog rock”.)
It would serve Democrats right if Fetterman can’t cast a vote on a bill they’d really like to pass because he’s still in the hospital. This will be especially bitter to them if the 2024 elections actually do upend the balance of power in the Congress. (If the 2024 elections don’t do that, well, . . . )
Since Lucretia is a Catholic convert and everyone knows that converts are among most zealous I need to know, given the leaked FBI memo, if I, a mere cradle Catholic need to be aware of her proclivity for terrorism?
(Full disclosure: As a former altar boy I still remember a lot of my Latin responses from the old Latin Mass days so I assume I’m also possibly on a watch list —from at least a regional FBI office.)
Yes. The answer is yes. At least John and I are terrified every week!
Phil Collins on the vocal?
Thank you for this question, Steve. Like Amy above, I am going with Phil Collins.
Yup. Anthony Phillips is the artist. This version wasn’t released originally in 1973 though. Has a strange history:
https://musictoeat.com/2018/04/09/phil-collins-anthony-phillips-and-the-song-that-wouldnt-die/
This was a fun episode.
The hopelessly generic “Asian” designation has long rankled me, from what should be the perspective of the Asians themselves. Culturally, virtually everyone in the Asia Pacific hates Japan – understandably, given Japan’s barbaric actions throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries, especially so during WWII. Thus all non-Japanese Asians should object to being lumped in with the Japanese. And as far as I could ever tell, yes Steve, South Asians – Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Indians, Bangladeshi – were all lumped in as “Asian.” Heck, if one strictly contrues the term, Lebanese should be called “Asians.”
Wonder Bread has 17 chemicals in order to “help[] build strong bodies 12 ways.” Who knew? In re ingredients, much of what I learned in life I learned by reading the Peanuts comic strip, and a lifelong favorite has been the one where Linus reads what’s printed on the side of a box of hot chocolate mix. (If you follow the link – and you should, click the <– there to see the hilarious setup.)
Lucretia: “. . . an Hispanic-serving institution.” Nice – but surely not pretentiously intellectual, ha. Is it ironic that Americans correctly using the article “an” with Hispanic (or with say, historic) is a lingering vestige of aristocratic British English grammar?
John Yoo: “. . . it seems clear to me that Dred Scott was wrong, . . .” Whoa, for reals? Ha. At the mention of Dred Scott, I must reflexively repeat my complaint that the damage inflicted by the Dred Scott decision far outlasted slavery, since Dred Scott introduced and embedded the heinous doctrine of “substantive due process” in constitutional law.
In re the power of the federal government in the 1850s and 1860s to outlaw slavery: by which enumerated power could the federal government ban ownership of slaves? Regulating/banning the importation and interstate trade of any commodity does not – and should not – extend to banning (mere) ownership. I suspect that Irwin Chemerinsky would disagree, though not for natural law reasons, but that’s another discussion for another seminar.