on-white enemies around the world and americans celebrated When that violence was perpetrated after me lie the military realized it needed to accept some constraints on the way it fights In the name of being able to claim that it was it was a moral force And so it was utterly important that even as humanitarians in human rights watch and other groups stopped caring about whether there was American war and focusing on how it was fought so to the military which wants to keep its missions going Was willing to accept some constraints on how those missions are conducted I wanted to turn uh professor moin to president obama's nobel prize speech. It was december 10th 2009 When president obama received the nobel peace prize in oslo norway. This is a clip from his acceptance speech We must begin by acknowledging a hard truth We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes There will be times when nations acting individually or in concert Will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified where force is necessary We have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules I believe the united states of america must remain a standard bear in the conduct of war That is what makes us different from those whom we fight That is a source of our strength That is what makes us different from those we fight that is a source of our strength You repeatedly referenced professor moin this Nobel acceptance speech in your book. Can you talk about the significance of this and the intensification of the drone wars? So what what what fascinates me about barack obama is that he was a public moralist and he thought publicly About the moral significance of law in particular And he talked about it in that extraordinary address as well as the one Four years later defending the use of drones now obama famously wanted to see himself as an heir of martin luther king jr And in certain ways he was he claimed or Repeated the the belief that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice But where king had disputed the use of force when it's immoral Going to war in the case of vietnam not just how American force was used obama ignored the first issue or justified eternal war as you heard and focused on the second As if how americans fight Would guarantee the moral propriety of the endless wars They're still fighting today when it came to 2013 He gave an equally remarkable speech at the national defense university. Let me go to that clip because we happen to have it Yes in may of 2013 National defense university the one that the well-known peace activist media benjamin of code pink interrupted. This is president obama When when we we went He he went on to we went on We're addressing that man, you know, I think that the uh, and i'm going off script as you might expect here The voice of that woman Is worth paying attention to Obviously, obviously Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said And obviously she wasn't listening to me in much of what I said But these are tough issues And the suggestion that we can gloss over them Is wrong and that audience member I dare say he knew exactly who she was code pinks media benjamin If you had trouble hearing saying thousands of muslims that got killed will you compensate the innocent families? That will make us safer here at home. She said I love my country drone strikes are making us less safe keeping people in Indefinite detention is making us less safe samuel mine Again, it's it's a such a morally dramatic moment not least because you might wonder after hearing that exchange Which one of them really deserve the nobel peace prize But what I write about in my book because I think that moment was in a way the the climax of obama's presidency At least, you know judged as a moment when he was morally reflecting on his deeds He he he conceded That that that there there needs to be some control on war And if you listen to her mainly what she's asking is for and let's be realistic a major reason that Barack Obama droned so many people and killed so many people And with the bad guys that he was killing so many innocents were killed was to shore up his political standing He did it to get reelected. He did it in large part for his own political interests not necessarily america's interests No different than many other politicians such as john f. Kennedy Who got us into the cuban missile crisis in large part to shore up the standing of democrats heading into the mid-term elections Less inhumanity. What's amazing is that obama himself goes on in the speech to say Maybe the problem is not so much the brutality of the drones But that we're fighting endless war at all because he says These kinds of wars will have effects not just on our victims But on the perpetrators too and he anticipated I think in that address if you read it the coming of donald trump as as a kind of you know A kind of consequence of what happens when nations fight endless war and sadly we're still doing it Okay We just have a second sam but could you elaborate on that? Why is trump ineffective that endless war? Well, so as as spencer ackerman and so many others have written and talked about on your show Wars fought are never without consequences for the states that fight them Even though of course we should be concerned first and foremost about those who die or those who are merely surveilled and haunted By drones and special forces this really matters because it's essential that when biden gave his two speeches the other Week defending the pullout from afghanistan. He made utterly clear that while giving up on failed counter insurgency He's turning to and maybe will intensify himself the the real fruit of 9 11 Which is kind of endless counter terror No matter what the constraints of international law say unless they require the drones to strike or the special forces to visit With care for the victims samuel moine want to thank you for being with us his new book humane. How do you Okay, so samuel moine. He's on the left and uh, you may you may not like his leftism, but So plenty of interesting critiques Okay So most youtubers use 30 to 50 percent of viewers within the first 30 seconds of their video starting This can kill video performance So what's at stake one of the problems number one instant title and thumbnail delivery When people click on a video they want to see what they came for the best intros give instant delivery To jumping into a storyline the earlier the first storyline challenge point can begin the better You look at a typical retention curve the best holds during these moments You don't need two minutes of build to get there three cutting down on unnecessary context Biggest mistake I see is way too much context people feel the need to over explain What's about to happen show don't tell wherever possible putting your best foot forward A lot of people are stuck in the mindset of saving their best moment No, that's why I started today with my electric shaver review and then transitioned to noton chocolate from Excellent trail mix from not harvest just three dollars seventy. I got this on amazon fresh Put the best clip first and number five set the stakes beyond just action Intros need a compelling reason to keep watching Is there a challenge an enemy a problem you need to overcome? Could you add a forfeit reward sex flow into the rest of the video the best intro doesn't feel like an intro Don't use highlight reels Fancy transition sequences the data from thousands of videos show These moments placed right after an intro lead to heavy retention falloff number seven Set a goal intros are heavily influenced by how many views a video gets the niche the content format So this tip needs to be taken with context okay Few tips there on how to succeed on youtube Maybe I should listen all right back to a book I read this week uncle sam wants you world war one in the making of the modern american citizen So it talks about how a hundred years ago americans had much more of a sense of obligation than of rights an american sense of obligation During world war one came from many places from political traditions of republicanism Value of the common good over individual liberty Topian visions of community christian beliefs that made of duty a virtue paternalist notions that legitimated social hierarchies and demanded obedience to them So in the years before world war one voluntary associations such as club schools churches party Parties unions much more powerful in american life than they are now they organize much of american public life These groups provided social services. They regulated the economy. They policed crime in many community norms So schooled in this world of civic volunteerism americans formed their social bonds and their political obligations first to each other And then to the state so in the absence of formal federal institutions These voluntary associations acted as the state. They organized public life. They helped americans feel a Sense of collective identity. They carried out much of the practical work So americans of the early 20th century owed allegiance to an overlapping array of authorities of which uncle sam's federal government was only one Perhaps not even the most important Then as world war one rolled along and we entered the conflict the state made ever stronger claims on the citizens More time events prompted one of the 20th centuries broadest Most vigorous and most searching public discussions about the meaning of american citizenship And you had the rise of barbed violence and vigilantism and lawless violence These things characterized 19th century american political culture But when they were reduced they also helped to wipe away that era's vibrant political culture of association or life So they faced the multiple authorities of pre-war life And thus they diminished the multiple loyalties that operated there So americans articulated their political obligations not to many things but increasingly to just one the state When they imagined government rather than people as the source of rights americans unwittingly Handed over to the state an array of coercive powers have matters previously governed by voluntary associations So the progressives people who brought america direct elections of senators Direct taxation initiative and referendum and a philosophy of participatory democracy should have turned away from the people is ironic But not surprising so as angry wartime crowd silenced pacifists labor radicals and small town ministers The idea of appealing directly to the people locating democratic legitimacy in their associations lost its lost it So the state even the seemingly tyrannical state of the 1920 palmer raids the civil libertarians despised Appeared the better option in a devil's bargain progressives faith in the people became for many a post-war fear of the mob and of the crowd So for much of the early 20th century rights talk was only talk Civil liberties would never be sustained by the rich institutional networks of everyday life that undergo to the culture of obligation And so the lived experience of rights proved far weaker than the culture of obligation that preceded it Reftive institutions at the local or national level to create a nourishment meaningful culture of rights american political culture Limped into the 1920s with a contestant and fractured Sense of the obligations of citizenship, but with no real alternatives in place So on the home front americans proudly called themselves vigilant citizens vigilant good vigilante bad And they believed that they were doing work that was needed and explicitly requested by the national government So leading public figures drawing on long-standing traditions equating citizenship with Obligation did call on americans to stand vigilant during the war So appealing to habits of voluntary association They supported the organization of vigilance movements nationwide Ministers of safety women's vigilance leagues home guards And the government depended on the voluntary work of such groups For the success of the nation's war mobilization effort So one justice department official boasted this country is being policed more thoroughly and successfully than ever before in its history So as long as of americans have claimed the right to rule themselves They've also insisted on the authority to police each other So in the early republic they tied vigilance to concepts of popular sovereignty The vigilance was also a political practice whereby collective policing by private citizens contributed to the community defense These days some americans wish for obligations They want to renew among americans a sense of commitment for our fellow citizens 90 years They tell us to put rights and not obligations at the center of our political life Individualism has corroded our common culture and our civic associations so that we even bowl alone From such a perspective the sense of volunteerism and obligation in a political culture of early 20th century america must astound People sacrificed For and even died because of commitments to a common political life that americans seem no longer to share They created those obligations in their everyday institutions Places where they express their understandings of citizenship and fairness membership and belonging And they came to consensus about their obligations in face-to-face meetings Must have been comforting to see a familiar face at the draft board hearing from the doorstep selling liberty bonds Or being able to negotiate the terms of political obligation in the lodge or the club Okay, let's get a little bit more here from uh, some new wine It was an outline of the better world the war was supposed to bring about So, uh, my country's president franklin roosevelt Some months ago my country nearly intervened militarily in syria And explaining why in a very dramatic address before the american people Barack obama. So this is a speech at harvard in 2015 not to whom you gave the Nobel prize Raised memories very specific memories of world war two gas was used to kill the jews and now bashar alasad Had crossed a line a red line by using a similar weapon The security council might be deadlocked, but protection of human rights demands a response anyway Shouldn't the u.s. congress authorize one in the face of The rule never again Well, I don't know I'm just a historian I don't know what ought to happen in the face of the syrian tragedy now that so many are dead and isis has arisen But I want to investigate The origins of this commonplace our commonplace that the idea of human rights is deeply related to the immediate memory after world war two of the holocaust because I haven't found any evidence for this proposition And so I want to look further into post war history And see when these two things did get belatedly entangled. What were the circumstances? for our immediate ancestor in remembering the holocaust and thinking of human rights as what Our ideals are going to be in response to its memory So i'm gonna give a typology of three stages in let's say the conceptual evolution of human rights since the 40s brutally simplify to do so and label those three stages the welfarist stage The anti-colonialist stage and the humanitarian stage Human rights were sometimes invoked already in the 40s The udhr makes that clear, but originally it was in a welfarist paradigm Which gave a rise later to an anti-colonialist paradigm before the humanitarian paradigm emerged Start with the first phase I think it's clear now that the public meaning of the idea of human rights in the 1940s Immediately after world war two was one synonym for a project of national welfarism Whose acceptable forms world war two had been about clarifying The phrase human rights you can see on your chart had not been unprecedented in the 1940s, but experience increased use Because anglo-american politicians invoked it before the holocaust had crystallized as a german policy Human rights for those politicians were a set of promises for why the war was worth fighting It was an outline of the better world the war was supposed to bring about So my country's president franklin roosevelt whose interest in the fate of the jews was negligible Began invoking human rights as the purpose of a future war Before japanese bombs had allowed him to bring the country into the conflict And as the war progressed it became clear that what was mostly at stake for the people who fought it Was the new form of citizenship it would allow Once hitler had been put down And that was going to be a revision of 19th century citizenship with its minimal state In the name of a new kind of state a welfarist state providing social protection And so it's no surprise whatever that the universal declaration features social and economic entitlements Like the right to work health even paid vacations added to the lists of rights inherited from the 18th century Now the basic idea of a social right was not new in fact within the history of the french revolution in the jacobin Declaration of the rights of man and citizen the rights to public relief and education had already been propounded But now they became a consensus view And more broadly the welfarist consensus was probably at its height compared to any time before and any time since You find examples in great britain's breverage plan FDR stated the union address for 1944 when he offered a second bill of rights to the american people The international labor organization Reinvented itself in 1944 in philadelphia and offered something called the philadelphia declaration which said its goal in the post-war years was going to be human rights for workers Because the u d h r's main addressy at this point was not the victims of atrocity, but the industrial proletariat of the transatlantic space Okay, that's um your mind there professor of international law So another book i have been reading Is an anthology by jerry z muller one of my favorite authors. He wrote a terrific biography of hans fryer He's written books on jews and capitalism He's got a book coming out on the scholar of religion jacob talb's And in 2020 published conservatism an anthology of social and political thought from david hume to the present It was published by princeton university And here's a little bit from chapter seven which Contains a lengthy excerpt from carl schmitt. So jerry z muller introduces Conservatives have always been hostile to democracy in its original meaning of direct rule by the people toward representative democracy. They have been suspicious Intensity and implications of that suspicion have varied across time and national context My conservatives have accepted democratic institutions is usually being with skepticism toward the claims of democratic theory Now people on the left have their own problems with populism and direct democracy too Conservatives have maintained that normally democratic institutions are most likely to work when they are restrained and counterbalanced by non democratic elements which allow for the formation and influence of decision making elites Though the degree of their statism has varied from one national context to another Conservatives have on the whole emphasized the importance of the state as a guarantor of property and order And is necessary to provide national defense against external military threats Now the following selection by the 20th century german legal and political theorist carl schmitt argues that under some circumstances parliamentary liberal democracy Is incapable of creating a government strong enough to carry out the necessary functions of the state His analysis of the political institutions The later stages of the weimar republic has implications beyond this immediate context schmitt's analysis drew upon criticisms of parliamentary democracy Already voiced at the turn of the century by the french radical right The dilemmas which carl schmitt analyzed to resurface more recently in the language of public choice theory In the attempt to explain why the pursuit of self-interest by plurality of social groups may result in unfavorable collective outcomes And yet the u d h r was ignored in its time And already i think we can see why By 1948 we are already late in the day of moving states towards welfareism in the global north There was a debate about how much welfareism what form of welfareism ought to be provided under what model of political economy Should there be reform liberalism as in my country social democracy as in britain or this region christian democracy As in much of western europe communism what there was not debate about a few malcontents aside Was that the state had to be updated to provide welfare Now this welfareist moment was nationalist It was part of a project of creating welfare state by state or even nation by nation And in fact the universal declaration tells us that it's a template for nation states It says it's a common standard of achievement for all peoples and nations Few and far between were those who inferred from the document The premise that there would be inter or super national rights protection the document doesn't tell us Really and few wanted it to occur Few saw it as far as i've been able to locate them To be about the problem of state atrocity that our goal is now to stigmatize or even criminalize You can put this another way very abstractly and it's to say that the 1940s kicks off the apex of the idea of sovereignty And the globalization of nationalism in world history Now what was the status of holocaust consciousness in the 1940s? As i've mentioned already it's conventional to assume that the world just responded to the holocaust with human rights But we can't find anyone who says so in the 40s themselves I think it's much more plausible to see the u d h r as a response to depression and war not atrocity and genocide Actually there's a whole field of history called the history of holocaust memory Which has unveiled how spotty and selective the knowledge of german barbarism Was in the immediately proceeding period So it's hard to imagine that human rights could have been a response to the jewish tragedy per se And by the way the nirnberg trials really weren't either Because the allies and especially the americans and the soviet union wanted the nirnberg trials to be most about interstate aggression Which they wanted to ban in the post war world And even to the extent they confronted war crimes they didn't thematize the a german conduct we now consider to Okay, how about a little uh news you can use Many eyes only ever moved within the confines of a screen these days The muscles evolved eventually lose their tone like under trained legs get weak Your focus drops and your head starts to ache So one thing that I do is I periodically try to expand My field of awareness and when I do I feel my muscles relaxing and unnecessary tension dropping away and another Avenue that I get to expanding my field of awareness is to periodically let go of everything that I think I know So let go of all my preconceptions Let go of everything that I think I know and when I do that I feel my my back relax and unlock and my breath comes easier so when you're Focused on on a screen your body tightens and compresses around the object of your focus So right now instead of being focused on the screen. I'm looking at both sides of the room simultaneously So when I sit up and down and I've got that expanded wheel field of awareness My body moves much more smoothly and gracefully So here's a little twitter thread How to exercise your eye muscles for the 21st century basic movements You have 12 eye muscles to expand your visual experience. These basic motions will ensure They're active if you look at a screen for a living Do these at the end of the day Don't let zoom meetings and Netflix ruin your vision and stress your brain Tracking exercises train your eyes to follow a moving target without losing focus And then go outside you'll read about this one a lot on twitter because it's important Your body needs the sunlight and outdoor landscapes much more stimulating than a confined room alternate your focus between near and far targets And then I eight ball training Muscles work like crazy and you feel a lot of blood flow the eye the The eyes of the windows to the soul To have been the core of the destruction of european jewelry in eastern europe So I conclude disconcertingly and I am surprised by this myself still That human rights were not really could not have been in the 1940s a concept linked very strongly with atrocity in particular Or the holocaust even more specifically It doesn't seem to have correlated well with the supranational protection of individuals, which only a few advocated There were a few but as I say The main international function of the udhr in real time seems to have been as a template For states updating their promises from a 19th century to a 20th century model It wasn't a contribution to international law At the time it was internationalist and source but as a template for national welfare citizenship Conversely if we do look at innovations and international law in the same era I think we have to put the universal declaration to one side You will know that the nuremberg trials took place, which I've already mentioned The genocide convention was passed which have a much closer relationship to world war two and the expectation that war would A prompt atrocity and the geneva convention Conventions were also updated in 1949 and yet if we play the children's game Of comparing these four pillars of postwar innovation the udhr the nuremberg trials the genocide convention of the geneva convention It seems quite difficult to associate the udhr with the other three and not just because none of the other three So much as mention the notion of human rights in real time I think that's because our ancestors in the 1940s worked in a sophisticated way with a kind of Background set of assumptions about a causal chain Of course, they cared about the worst that could go wrong and they passed a genocide convention Which had to do with the destruction of european jewelry in 1941 through four chiefly They were concerned about the conduct of war the treatment of pow's The killing of civilians generally, which is why they updated the geneva conventions They cared about the commission of aggressive war starting in 1939 And that is why they held the nuremberg trials But what they cared most about was looking back very far in the causal chain to the great depression Which in their minds had caused the rise of dictatorship in 1933 and later the war and atrocity So if you think of it this way, you begin to think that the udhr is the boldest But also the most distant attempt to respond to the war because it tries to intervene earliest in the causal chain By providing the kind of welfare citizenship that would keep the 1929 to 1933 dynamic from recurring Now you may know that the preamble to the udhr mentions that It is propounded in part In the face of quote disregard and contempt for human rights that have resulted in barbarous acts which have out raided the conscience of mankind So I have to be very clear that i'm not trying to totally untether human rights from its companions or indeed from the outcome of war But did that phrase mean the holocaust specifically? Well, I think there's reason to doubt it every nation had had its horrors the nazis were Responsible for many terrible things in the lives of most peoples The most famous outrages on humanity in the 1940s were leningrad and lidice not belzec or treblinka, which were basically unknown at the time And not surprisingly if this is your way of thinking about the situation No diplomats of any nationality mention the jewish fate in particular in the un debate in any of its committees or in the general assembly In the year up to december 10th When the universal declaration was propounded So I spent a lot of time on this earliest moment just because I think People are most scared about my views about it And I think it's important to be nuanced about the ways in which the udhr was and wasn't related to the war And the reasons why it's doubtful to think it had any connection to the to the jewish tragedy per se Hey, let's get a little something here from Ian bremer Hi everybody, Ian bremer here And as we head to the weekend, we are sadly into the second week of this russia war in ukraine And no end in sight You of course if you're in russia, you're not supposed to call it a war. It's actually illegal to call it a war It's a special military operation if you call it a war or otherwise Describe fake news on the war as is Considered by the russian government You face up to 15 years in prison The level of brutality that the russians are exerting upon innocent ukranians Who have done nothing wrong other than Elect an independent and democratic government and want to just determine their own future As well as the brutality that the russians are increasing the exerting against their own russian citizens Is horrifying and has met with revulsion With most of the world, uh, there was a General assembly u.n. General assembly resolution condemning the russian invasion And four countries in the world Voted with the russians eritrea Syria Belarus and north korea It is an astonishing level of opposition Strong opposition and strong opposition that is willing to pay a serious price In order to be in strong opposition that we're seeing from countries around the world. Here's the problem Um, the russians. Yes, they will win militarily. They will be able to capture kiev They will be able to remove zolensky from power in kiev But i see no circumstance Under which putin emerges from this crisis In anything but a dramatically worse position Both politically inside his own country economically in terms of how russia is doing As well as geopolitically and russia's position particularly as it relates to european security There is no circumstance under which i can see That putin wouldn't have been radically better off If he just hadn't invaded ukraine And on the one hand you can say that's good because it means he's losing And you want someone to lose when they Okay, that guy's a mistake That putin is a problem But the russians have 10 times the army that the ukranians do and is so long as no one else launches an invasion Of russia proper or sends regular troops into ukraine. They will win this What about putin's remark? I think on sunday Using nukes if anybody interferes Well, it doesn't feel great, but the russians have done this off and on for 70 years Uh, and so all the people in the west who nuclear policy is a responsibility They all perked up They all looked at it very very closely and they're like, okay, nothing's really changed. It's just rhetoric All of the I think that the term they use is muscle memory within the nuclear force is nothing has moved This is just putin being a bit of a prick It's not something you should ignore, but it's also not something you should overly worry about What do you think putin wants on a personal basis?  Is he looking to make a name for himself? In a really bad way or or is he desperate because he knows his time is up Right, I think those are the kind of the top three categories here.  He is a dictator and now everybody but tucker carlson admits it Even tulsi gold gabard and the bernie sanders have switched sides finally Second, he is desperate for his country because he realized that demographically they're in collapse They have very little time left and yeah, he wants to be remembered as the next peter the greater katharine the great Somebody who remade the russian condition and allowed the country to coast on those successes for decades to come It's our job to make sure he fails it all three Are we going to be able to do that and how the United States will not be intervening directly because Ukraine is not a nato ally. Have you seen the reports of that massive 40 plus mile long convoy? Yes, of course. I was thinking that one of our drones could easily take care of that, but I would take more than one That's kind of a good example of how the russians suck at logistics So if it came to a direct head-to-head fight between the united states and the russians one our military is brilliant logistics It's like it's disneyland the military everybody else And the only thing they're better at is taking out a large number of vehicles that are in a line So if it did come to a regular war between russia and the united states We would wipe the floor with them in terms of the armored warfare and the artillery battle And then they would feel that they would have no choice but to consider nukes There's no reason to expect the united states to directly intervene We will play favorites. We are playing favorites Congress is going to be asked tonight to send at least six billion dollars in direct military equipment To the ukrainians. I have I figured that'll pass in a matter of seconds We have sent a whole lot of javelins We don't know how many probably at least a thousand launchers by this point and every country in nato is sending everything they have One of the fun things about nato Is that during the cold war there were different tiers of military equipment because some countries were more advanced when The cold war ended Everyone spent 15 years upgrading their equipment and they handed the older stuff To the new allies in central europe and turkey Now all of those countries have upgraded their equipment and they're sending all their hand to be downs to ukraine Okay, let's say hello to elliot blatt Hello, kajun blessings my meeting's over. It was a doozy Blessings. Yeah, thanks for the blessings. Love is all around us. You never meet alone, bro Okay, so I got some physiologic problems there after the meeting. Okay. Talk to me Well, I just have this like creeping tension that goes sort of up my back and shoulders and into my head And um It's like I don't even know how to get rid of it now. It just sort of happens. It's it's a very familiar feeling to me and so You know, what would you recommend out zander technically for us? I remember a few weeks ago I was suddenly under a lot of pressure and my neck just seized up Ah so Acutely like enough to make you yell like that. No, no, I didn't I didn't yell I didn't say but it It wasn't acute. It was uh, But it was more the moderate but less than acute I grabbed it like I grabbed it and tried to so so I I don't have you know 100% Direction over my body, but I think one thing that always helps is to lie down And with the head a little bit supported and then another thing that I find helps is to Let go of everything that I think I know To try to get into a space where I'm simply an awareness rather than judgment So are you in a lot of judgment right now? Yeah, yeah, I'm feeling acutely judgmental Um And you know, I guess the problem is with me But it's not like I have control over here like Is there a way to sort of short circuit that's reaction? So it just doesn't happen Yeah, let go of everything you think you know Just be in the present. Just like just be purely whatever happens. Surprise me.  They're just Speaking a different language Yeah, I mean, what is your love language? Elliot? Maybe they weren't speaking your love language No, it certainly wasn't a love language. They were speaking um So, I don't I don't know why call them. This is my first redux call Like two calls within one show But you're in pain bro, and I'm here to help I feel your pain But uh, it feels like this basic phenomenon this Frustration with life, you know this There was a period in my life when things seemed to go really really smoothly, right And now every day brings with it an obstacle that I must surmount You know, there's never been like a clear sailing day. I can't remember the last time I have completely clear sailing day Now at least just a property. This is just because of childhood you get these in childhood And once you become adult you just never have an easy day again Yeah, well, I think a lot of it does have to do with childhood So it's both certain circumstances again to trigger Uh responses that you had in childhood Does that make sense? I mean not not every circumstance, but certain circumstances will bring bring up a response that you used a lot in childhood Yeah, I guess I was using childhood as a time when you know It was completely carefree, you know really just carefree every day was like a new day and new discoveries and fun things to do and you know It's just a joyous period The next day brought something very similar and now every day has this little Mountain that I must climb this mountain of frustration and anger and drudgery That I thought would just be temporary, you know And it's basically been the case for the last 30 years Wow Do I need a vacation? May I just need a vacation? When did you last take a vacation? I can't even remember A long time ago. I went skiing like four years ago Then covid hit I was about to have him in covid hit and then things got jumbled up I don't know. I didn't call into a wine about my plate. Look. I was no it's it's interesting. So Yeah, I think if you're in a state of awareness rather than judgment that you'll be less likely to have physical pain Your body will be less likely to lock up if you're simply Oh Aware of what's happening and aware of what other people are saying or thinking or feeling As opposed to judging them for what people are thinking thinking saying doing It's a lot easier to be free and easy in your body Now when you had your little lock up in your neck, were you thinking you're feeling or was it purely physical? No, it was it was It was a combination of circumstance Taking me back to childhood feelings of you know, I'll never be able to figure this out So I sometimes I spiral and make a mistake I get anxious. I make a mistake Then I get more anxious and then I make more mistakes and then I get increasingly anxious and fearful and it's just a downward spiral And then do you do things that compound the mistakes? Yeah, well when when I beat myself down for making the mistake I get more anxious and uh Yeah, I I'm quite familiar with downward spirals Well, all right um So what is your take on? How is this Ukraine thing going to play out in your mind? Do you have a theory? Yeah, I don't think that Putin is going to occupy the Ukraine indefinitely and I don't think he's going to try to take over Europe Uh, he's going to wreck Ukraine and then think he's going to probably pull out of most of the most of Ukraine Pull out, okay. Yeah, I think what it's going to do is um Sort of take over half of it or install You know, if you look at the map of Ukraine like there's the the eastern half and then the western half Eastern half is mostly russian speaking. It's probably ethnically more russian and then on the western half it's less russian so there'll be some sort of partition and they'll kick out I ever got his name already The prime minister of Ukraine Zelensky.  Yeah, I think something like that I think it is more likely that Putin gets his way than Ukraine or the west or the United States gets their way in this Okay, that's good. So no no nuclear holocaust. Yeah, I hope not. Well, what's what's your analysis of What's going on for you physiologically after the meeting? um I guess I um I figure out I I repress my frustration with the ineffective communication And I store it as tension somewhere in my body. Yeah so it's like I know there's you know, there's a definite connection between your mind your body your emotions and But it's because I really you know I'm used to conversations like ours being pretty crisp and relatively efficient where we have a point to make we make it really rather relatively economically we sort of Rock where each other's going And the conversation as a whole is more or less a pleasant experience, right? And so there's not these roadblocks these obstacles like if you're dealing with somebody's really low IQ About you know on the street, let's say they bring a raccoon and they put it in the mcdonalds or something And you're like, hey bro, don't put a raccoon in mcdonalds Um, and they're like why not? You know having to explain that as intrinsically a frustrating experience, right? Yeah and So I feel like I'm in that situation where I'm trying to explain to people why um Bringing a raccoon in mcdonalds is a bad idea Yeah You know I don't know Luke. Okay. Look, I have a question for you another topic. You mind if I ask? Okay, do you think they're the whole industry of screenwriting? Are you tapped into that world at all? A little bit So, do you know like they you know the general contours of that, uh world? Yeah Is that a viable uh career path or is that just completely impossible? Like being a screenwriter for either movies or television Yeah, it's uh, I mean there are hundreds of people who make their living doing it Right, but I'm sure there's thousands of people that would like to right It's uh competitive.  I think it's as merit-based as anything else I mean not as merit-based as a hundred meter dash, but uh fairly close Okay, so, um Could could you make like a substantial living or would you just be scraping by? It would depend. Uh Some people do really well, uh It's it's not easy Yeah Yeah, it's just curious because um with all these like you know with netflix and Amazon and apple Everyone getting into this entertainment game. Yeah, it seems like there'd be a lot bigger market for uh Writers yeah, there is I mean there's more scripted tv now than ever before yeah, and um Okay, that was just yeah, I was curious I had an idea, you know, I had an idea, but I didn't even want to like See even think about it seriously if I knew that it would be complete dead ends. I don't have any time for dead ends, but um I'll think more about it Okay, great. Yeah So but so do you know screenwriters like yes in your daily life? Yes, and um Are they good company? Yeah, I mean they tend to be very smart very funny.  I mean they're really good at structure Yes, yes, I feel like I've developed that through software Being able to structure a story right I used to like really freak out not not be able to prioritize like Scene a and scene, you know, which comes first scene a how to do a Establishing scene, you know all that type of logic used to be very difficult Uh, but now I can almost like see things Uh As if they're on a tv screen, you know, I could see the entire structure in my head Which is sort of like a hard one battle for me So anyway, I'll uh, I'll uh I'll do some research. So is it all now Is all the entertainment centered in LA or is it is there some in the Silicon Valley now? It's uh Dominantly in LA, but it's spread out across the country and across the world because often states and cities give Tax deductions and they compete to get a movie shot there. So for example breaking bad wasn't set in the place that uh That the the story was because of tax incentives and I was just watching the dropout the the hulu series about the Theranos girl and The stanford scenes were obviously shot at UCLA So I know the stanford campus. I know the UCLA campus and I'm watching that was like, wow Why are you shooting at UCLA? It's obviously UCLA not stanford, but there'd be reasons of convenience Yeah, I remember that show Reno 911. Mm-hmm. That was shot in LA. I remember being very devastated to learn that But wait like breaking bad so didn't it so you're saying it wasn't shot in New Mexico. It was shot in LA I it wasn't shot either shot somewhere else, but uh The power of the dog that netflix Movie that was shot in New Zealand, but the story is set in Montana Wow So, um, we can't even make our own movies, huh? depressing We got to drill our own oil look we got to do we got to start becoming like a real country Do our own things Keep it local Well, there are many things at stake if you can shoot something really cheaply somewhere else then Yeah, but is it is it that it's sounding it blows my mind like Isn't it me? Oh, so breaking bad foolish me breaking bad was filmed primarily in albuquerque Oh, they were gonna set it in a different state I think they were gonna set it in california, so they moved it to new mexico for the tax reasons Yeah, I see So what did you think of that series? Oh, I thought it was great. I watched it twice Second time through I I got commentary on it So that I could deeper understand each episode Yeah, you know, I liked it. I like as well. I got one scene with the um, and if you remember it went the plane crash Yeah, I remember that that there's a junkyard and he's hidden inside of a Uh, like a trailer in a junkyard I forgot the context, but then they started playing this mariachi music. Yeah Uh, it was a hilarious show I was probably the best scene I've ever seen. I laughed at well Uh, anyway, so I don't know strange time One set of remember lumber. Okay. Remember like three weeks ago. We're all freaking out about neil young and spotify That's not seem innocent days Like just completely petty. Yeah. Yeah, it's like before 9 11 before 9 11 Los angeles times and la magazine. They're all working on major profiles off me Yeah, and then 9 11 hit and those profiles went up and smoke Is that true?  Yeah Times change priorities change I remember when those towers came down man, that was a sight Where were you that day? Tell me it walked me through. Where were oh, yeah. Okay. So I'm uh So I was living in Boston then Uh, is that work? So I remember walking to work that day.  It was like a nice crisp Sunny autumn day. Yeah, like with a gentle breeze. You know, so I walk to work. It's like a mile and a half and I was thinking about Pedro Martinez The baseball pitcher. Yes. So he was you know, he was the sensation back then in Boston And I was thinking about the curve ball and the motion on the curve ball and all these, you know Details about sports and pitching and I just kind of mulling this as I'm walking, you know, then And then I you know, I get to work and then Uh You know happened to run around I think it's like 9 20 right pretty early in the morning right more or less at the start of the day boss comes over and says Uh Can't send some joke like Yeah, looks like somebody missed the runway at La Guardia I mean shows me a picture of the whole the gaping hole in one of the buildings and um There were a bunch of guys so the company I was working for was in the process of being taken over by IBM So there were all these IBM people walking around Now these are the old school IBM people and old school IBM people had this thing where they always dressed in blue Everything it would IBM used to be called big blue And so there was a corporate culture of only wearing blue Right just different shades of blue but it was blue blue blue. He's got blue pants and shirt blue blue You know, so all these people from IBM like grown adults are walking around And they're all noticeable in the office because they're the people wearing just strictly blue. It was bizarre so I was mowing that over and And they were just dumb people, you know, they're just kind of career corporate types That didn't really do much. They just showed up at work and marked time And so this guy starts opining opining about oh, there's no way One of these IBM people is like there's no way. This is a terrorist attack. No way. It's no possible way This is an accident. You know, he's just opining into the into the air And I'm like, are you kidding me?  I walked back home You know and all my thoughts about Pedro Martinez And all that other stuff had just gone completely out the window and then I'm nearly home And I see this guy now with whom I've had lots of crazy business deals. He's a colorful character.  He says, oh, I'm moving to New York Completely oblivious about what has happened He had just decided to move to New York on that day and was like loading up his truck And going to drive to New York to live there And he wouldn't believe me when I told him what had happened, you know, he was totally incredible And then to make matters worse he goes anyway Sorry and how did it work out for him, you know, I would imagine poorly everything Nothing ever worked out for this guy because he was so lazy. He's one of these guys that Had big dreams But he just expects everyone else to do the work Right all the hard bits that he doesn't want to think about he just expects other people will do Right, it'll just happen. He just sort of indulges in these fantasies where he'll just You know, introduce Someone else who will know someone else who can do it, right? And all his job is to do is dream up an idea and then put the right people together This is this fantasy that he lives in and this is why he's always basically scraping along the bottom You know, he'd never really get it in a year, but he had lots of connections, right? So that's um That was his his survival strategy was He thought he could just leverage his connections all the time And and how did 9 11 change you?  Yes I I thought maybe, you know, this was it Um I had that it was time to prep Um So I went I would drove to home depot and I bought a lot of storage containers and things and then And then I plan to buy lots of supplies like we were talking about earlier about comparing for an earthquake I was sort of thinking about all these things. I was going to stock up on and basically by the next day I'd sort of settled down and figured out overreacting But yeah, it was I was uh, I was terrified for a second. I thought what you're going down And where you are we've got to invade these countries and bombing the smithereens I was more confused than that. I didn't understand I didn't know if there was I didn't know what the solution was, you know, um And when the whole idea of invading Afghanistan that came first I thought it was just simply a military mission Right, I didn't think it would turn into 20 year occupation. So I'm like, yeah, whatever. Sure. I, you know, I believe in there I wasn't really that politically attuned back then and I just sort of believed what I heard on the news and I figured well, yeah, we got to fight him there. So we don't fight him here that kind of stuff and so, um I certainly wasn't opposed to it uh, but Boy, I had no idea what the future hadn't stored, you know I didn't know what all the consequences of that And uh, how long till you flew on a plane? Um For me it was like a year or two later that I flew on a plane a year. Yeah, and I forgot to report my Laptop, I didn't take my laptop out as I was getting through security and as I said, you're now a person of suspicion and Oh, really? Yeah, you were the person of suspicion because of I, um I've never a big flyer. I don't really I'm not much of a traveler So I don't travel that often like other people do. I see traveling isn't an immense ordeal Like I don't enjoy it at all So I didn't really I would only travel on a sort of as needed basis So it didn't affect me that much. So I I'd sold uh lookboard.com about Uh three weeks prior and then just on a spur. I thought I need to get away and so Two weeks prior to 9 11.  No. No. No. I didn't rent a car I just drove my van at a one ton van. So I just started driving north There was a girl I'd met on the internet in Vancouver and so I I also had an advisory committee like a group of people that I'd trade emails with Uh pretty much every day and so I remember the advisory committee in the san francisco Bay area So I went went all the way up to Vancouver and then uh Was it was coming back and I was meeting a member of my advisory committee in san jose On monday evening and so we we met at a sizzler had dinner And then went back to his place and I decided to sleep in my van rather than at his place And so I was sleeping in my van and I heard people Saying did you hear the pentagons being hit? And someone said yeah, we're at war and so I I I was just waking up at about 7 30 a.m and I turned on kgo radio and Heard what was happening And so I went inside banged on the door woke up my friend turned on the the telly And you know we watched the pictures of the towers coming down And how or the airports were closed and then I thought because the airports were closed and all the flights were getting grounded I then thought the driving back to la would be an absolute nightmare I thought okay. I'm just going to risk it. I'm just going to go do it now and there was very little traffic and So I was able to fly back to you know fly along the road right back to la in about six hours And I was surprised how little traffic there was and I did have a strong feeling of I wanted to be home I wanted to be at home with all this Instability in the world I wanted to be at home and that was the first time that I started watching fox news So I prided that I never really watched fox news But I got home and I just wanted to turn on the tv and find out what was going on and Yeah, I turned on fox news And uh, there I was uh And so What did you think about this? What did you think about the afghanistan campaign when it was proposed? Uh, I thought it was a good idea, but I didn't think about it too too deeply There was an explosion of war blogs And so I'd been blogging for four years at this time now suddenly blog was the word of the year in 2001 And a lot of my journalist friends were starting war blogs and so they were much more gung-ho I think I was emotionally gung-ho like emotionally. I wanted to see the terrorists smashed But I didn't think too deeply. I thought it'd go like the the gulf war in 1991 against saddam I thought we'd just go in there and smash everyone and uh, we'd show the might of the u.s. military and Yeah, I thought that was I didn't have any Big problems with it on the other hand. I wasn't arguing for it either because I was busy enough I was blogging on the point industry and then I was blogging on Los angeles journalism and the jewish journalism things like that And so I didn't I wasn't really thinking about international issues But I did not foresee the absolute disaster that those two occupations became No, right. Yeah I remember those days. Um, you know, it was laura ingram Yeah, she was on the radio a lot and she was the one screaming about the necessity to go into iraq and I think even an colter too. She was very much on this train and um It was it's weird, uh, how, um I don't know.  Yeah, yeah, the french remember how the french was suck Something something surrendered monkeys, right? Yeah, and I didn't want to be called a surrender. Yeah. Yeah And so how they basically shamed me into supporting that war. Yeah, and um Uh It's sort of never really to get a laura ingram for that Yeah, I I think the whole experience made me realize 2004 2005 How how little I knew and then I started reading Steve sailor regularly in 2006 and I realized that america was in insoluble situation in iraq and afghanistan and uh I was able to shift from being a conservative to Someone who's more biologically based right winger, but I saw by by 2004 2005 the the problems with conservatism and uh By by 2006 it was really Steve sailor that helped me get clarity There was a humbling experience because I was I didn't think deeply about how to conduct the war and whether it was a Good idea, but I suddenly emotionally behind Now smashing the the terrorists and going to war with the terrorists and and then by 2004 I just saw how What a disaster and what quicksand we were in Yeah, that's for sure. It was good to learn that I didn't know much that that my basic instincts were not necessarily helpful and understanding the world around me Yeah Yeah, but the thing is is now both of them are uh ingram ingram and uh Also, yeah, they've learned their lesson. Yeah, and then now basically Not not interventionists. Yeah. Yeah, they're trumpians now. Yeah, and I think that's been a journey a lot of us have taken I guess yeah Yeah, it was it was a humbling of America and for me it was a humbling of my own Ability to understand the world realize that I didn't understand it nearly as well as I thought I did Yeah But oh also I was lucky I was I was still very much a dentist prager acolyte and he did not support the invasion of iraq in 2003 So oh interesting. So I was not as gung-ho as your average republican Maybe even your average politically involved person because lots of democrats were very much on board with invading iraq So so listening to prager over the years. He would often recount a conversation He had on a bus in the middle east And he's someone I think an iraqi told him. Oh iraqi is the cruelest people in the world and so prager saw that trying to occupy And build this nation up was not likely to succeed and so I mean, I remember hearing prager say that from like the late 1980s from the first time I heard it So I think I was more skeptical of foreign intervention than than your average gung-ho american Interesting now I hadn't really heard of prager Wasn't was he that big back then when yeah, he was nationally syndicated starting in something like 2009 or 2000. He probably wasn't as big as he is now, but he's still hearing about until after like 2010 ish um So he wasn't early on I don't know. I would I wasn't a big am Was he mostly am listener. There was one like talk station that was FM. He wasn't on that station. So I didn't I guess I didn't hear about it. But I do you have any favorite talk show hosts?  I just the amount of repetition That goes on a commercial radio. Yeah is unbearable. It's just simply unbearable You know, I was trying to appreciate it in a sort of ironic way And I simply couldn't it was just so unbearable It was so much of just the same thing over and over and then like half of these hard rock songs Are completely unlistenable, you know, that's like this hair metal kind of stuff. It's just terrible. There's no air supply I was I'm all out of love for the yard rock Someone hit me up on facebook and said I was just listening to air supply last night And I thought of you and it was a bloke. He said not romantically but he had tickets to an air supply concert in something like uh 2004 and uh I'd often helped him out. So he gave me the tickets and so I took a date so In in 2004 I was 38 and my date was uh, 24 She'd never heard of air supply and she said it was the first uh rock concert She'd been to where people didn't get up and dance the whole time uh I uh, I've only been to uh, two rock arts. It's my whole life And I don't I'm very comfortable in uh uncomfortable and good crowds But you know who my very first rock concert was No AC DC Wow You're ready to rock The for those about to rock we salute you Which is idiotic, uh, but I couldn't believe how disgusting it was like, uh It was in the old boston garden, which you probably don't remember He's in the early part of boston, but sort of the old sport stadium, you know, and It was just a super loud and peak people everyone was smoking pot and like certain percentage were just puking It's terrible Well russia has blocked twitter and facebook Yeah, the information war, huh? Is that gonna keep you up at night? Yeah, I'm really worried about it So you never spent time in boston boston has a very uh interesting culture Never been never even been to boston Yeah I almost went I was I was invited to speak at an american jewish journalism conference But uh, they weren't paying my way Uh, so or putting me up. So I thought about going briefly, but then it was like nah I was back in 2004 when I read a book on american jewish journalism interesting Now I wouldn't recommend living there, but it does have a certain It's it's a distinctive place, you know, it's got um You know certain places have a very distinct feel and boston does have a distinct feel because it's dominated by universities There's so many universities such a small area that everyone feels like a student everyone's good high percentage of the people are students and all the buildings are either, you know universities or hospitals just a lot of public Institutions there crammed into a relatively small uh geography and It's kind of interesting But is it is a little bit like uh, san francisco versus la Oh, it is. It is. They're very comfortable the same same thing, right? Yeah, same idea dense. It's dense uh strong attention to our uh architectural detail. Yeah And as you know, uh Yeah, it's a walkable place. It's very walkable and accessible by public transport Which is true of new york, but I don't think that's true of la And how much do you miss it? What do you miss? Uh, I don't miss it much at all now. I do miss a certain There was a period of time before the internet where It was a very much in person place Right, so there would be there was a large group of us and we would always meet the same place and you know around the chess scene and We would socialize and it was just understood you everyone showed up at rep in the early evening and It was just such a really enjoyable style like style of life um Being able to meet and joke with people in person, you know, uh Which I don't doesn't really happen anymore At least for me maybe for you it's synagogue, but uh that type of in-person thing has been replaced by the internet And how good were you at chess were you as good as do the top 2000? I'm not as good I'm pretty good when I'm not as good as do but I never You know, I had these really you know adolescent aspirations, but then when I really became clear how much How hard it is to really get good at a high level and how much time you have to put into it And then how little you get paid and you know You have to be ultra good to get anything approximating a living I abandoned it. I just played very casually in recreation So playing chess isn't a reliable way to make a living It's uh, it's less than that, you know, it's a colossal waste of time It's fun and enjoyable and uh, but yeah, it's it's it's tantamount. It's it's equivalent to playing video games You know, um So I wouldn't recommend it for people but There's people that play chess Have a lot of interest. There's just it attracts a certain eccentric type person that's got A lot going upstairs and so they usually have other aspects and other talents that just make them sort of interesting curious people and very fun to talk to uh, so If for no other reason, I think Chess players are just fun people to know Um, but they're also incredibly diverse to work In fact Their whole game, I think because they can play chess they can sort of outsmart the system, you know, so um You know, they get into any sort of scheme They're they're schemers, you know Like uh card counting blackjack you've heard about that Yeah, so there's a lot of that going around a lot of people were involved in these card counting teams and And that's sort of a caper in and of itself and it's the source of like Some of the most the funniest stories you can imagine the most incredibly entertaining situations that you could Think about, you know, trying to outsmart a casino and all of the All of all of the uh theater that goes along with it It's just some of the funniest stories ever ever told So I had a relationship and it's uh excitement and eroticism had pretty much peed it out by The six month we we stopped having sex and then she urged me to take out playing chess And so I started reading all these books on on chess because I wanted to beat her And playing chess extended our relationship another six months. So instead of having sex we played chess He's sublimated those feelings.  But yeah having having a common commitment and enjoying that of playing chess That doubled the length of the relationship It's funny a lot of people do take an interest in chess and they they have a um I've got a lot of respect for playing chess that I really didn't deserve right if people see it and they imagine this Great, you know high powered intellect must be involved and so they have this respect for it and um I've been able to trade on that I don't I've I've really made off well because of that like uh, uh, it's benefiting me greatly How how's it benefit of you?   That's really and you can tell that they're genuinely impressed um, so I think I've Gotten jobs um People were just basically overestimated my abilities Just on that basis. I think like do that like, um He plays chess, right? And uh, he's quite good. I think he's almost master level. Yeah, um I mean, I can't take that away from him. He's a very very skilled chess player We played I don't know if you were a part of that stream We were on some live streaming. We were playing one another like an hour. It's kind of fun It was in the Babs cast days and who won Uh, duvet won the majority, but I won I won a good percentage.  Yeah now duvet duvet, uh, uh Yeah, he beat me pretty handled I have to say But he wasn't uh undefeated, but he was also firing on a conversation. He would bundle fly at the time. So, uh Yeah I have to put my rent my win my victory's in parentheses Get it Yeah Okay, all right. So, uh, yeah, I don't know. I just figured I'd try a double call Thanks, man. All right. All right. All right. Good job. All right All right, peace. Okay, some uh important news here ukrainian ukrain museums. They're desperately trying to preserve the priceless hunter biden paintings latest news here from the Babylon v The shells have begun exploding in the heart of key Museums of rush to protect their most prized valuable pieces the original artwork of a once in a generation talent hunter biden The louver may have van go and the Mona Lisa, but here we have coke on coke by hunter biden I will never forget when he sold us this piece. He said to me Ivan I don't know how I got here or where my pants are, but can you get me to the airport? Ah, but an artist he is Most of the paintings were initially purchased for the barisma boardroom The tacit understanding that then vice president Joe Biden would look out for ukraine Museum owners wage huge bidding wards to acquire the pieces Knowing that beyond the remarkable art each painting came with the assurance the United States would have their back We were lucky to get our hands on hooked by hawkers quite a popular piece But more importantly, we know it means that president biden will take care of ukraine in our time of need I hear the planes overhead the air raid sirens. I do not panic. No united states Will come to help CNN have you ever heard of it? Apparently it's still on the air even though nobody really watches it However, those that do watch it are under the dangerous impression that they're actually a real news channel Which might put them in a precarious situation You've allowed accusations against me and millions of law-abiding americans as child murderers Please follow what i'm saying. You allow the accusations to stand. I don't believe you. I don't believe you I don't believe you child murderers Here are some signs you might be watching too much cnn sign number one You think the pandemic is still going on If you find yourself saying when the pandemic is over or the new normal You're probably watching too much cnn You still think one of these investigations is going to get trump the walls are closing in any day now The walls are closing in the walls closing in on president donald trump. You still haven't left your house in over two years It's time to turn off the cnn go outside and get some fresh air You haven't heard of any of biden's foreign or domestic failures And you think the president's doing a pretty good job. What does the press get wrong? When covering biden's agenda, just don't google biden vatican. What happens next? Here's one you still call iver mechton porsty warmer iver mechton Apparently given to deworm animals. You walk by a fiery riot and think to yourself Ah, what a mostly peaceful protest if this is your immediate instinct You may have an over saturation of cnn. You're at the airport a lot This is less of a symptom and more of a root cause But if you're at the airport, you're probably watching a lot of cnn You drop to the floor and convulse anytime you see a maga hat Now there's a direct correlation with how much cnn you watch and how long you spend in the fetal position Okay, how effective are the vaccines? Um, well, you know, I think I can tell you where I was when the cnn became that it was 95 effective on the vaccine So many of us wanted to be hopeful. So many of us wanted to say, okay, this is our ticket out Right now we're done. Um, so I think we had perhaps too little caution and too much optimism For some good things that came our way. I really do. I think all of us wanted this to be done Nobody said waning when when, you know, this vaccine's gonna work. Oh, well, maybe it'll work. It'll wear off Nobody said well, what if the next variant doesn't it doesn't it's not as public against the next variant It could we've improved Um, and then maybe the other thing I'll say is this area of gray, um, I have frequently said You know, we're gonna lead with the science science is going to be the foundation of everything we do That is entirely true. I think public heard that is science is full proof science is black and white Science is immediate and we get the answer and then we, you know, make the decision based on the answer and the truth is science is gray And science is not always immediate and it sometimes it takes months and years to actually find out the answer But you have to make, you know decisions in a pandemic before you have that answer It's interesting how it's very end Okay, I think uh I think that's about it time to get ready for Shabbos I mean the cities that never close down from new york to rio and old london town But no matter how far or how wide I roam I still call australia home I'm always traveling. I love being free so I keep leaving the sun and the sea But my heart lies waiting over the phone. I still call australia home All the sons and daughters spinning around the world away from their families and friends As the world gets older and colder. It's good to know where your journey ends Someday we'll all be together once more and all the ships come back to the shore Then I realize something I've always known. I still call australia home. Bye. Bye