Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Uh yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist. Well, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by an award winning journalist, author, public speaker, the host of the new show Big Sugar. Please welcome celest Headlan nice welcome.
You guys do that intro all the time.
Yeah, and anytime you enter a room we are available for you know, a small fee.
Yeah, talking and shout my name, that would be awesome.
Yeah. Yeah.
We moonlight as town criers for any kind of dynamic intro.
Yeah.
Well we can read from a scroll and everything.
Wow.
That's I don't know how much work there is for that.
But you know, I'm not gonna lie. It's it's fast famine out there.
I'm sure we don't have to ask you this, but this is that is the dumbest opening to a show that you've ever been on. I have to imagine I probably don't even need to confirm that, but.
That that's correct.
Thank you. Yes, here's your Crown King. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Your new show, Big Sugar is fascinating, kind of mind expanding. Also just kind of crystallizes, to use a sugar industry crystallizes a lot of the things that we are ay suspect about the world of capitalism and industry in these United States. So thank you first of all for your work on that show. It's really cool.
Thanks thanks so much. I mean I learned a lot doing it. Also, it's one of those things where you kind of pull the thread.
And it just it's still going exactly everything.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but you know it's important. This is stuff you know, I know. Okay, so this is all stuff that we should know. But without diving completely feet first into it, I should say that one of my big takeaways after doing two years of work on this is that I don't think we should have to know this. I think that with all the other stuff we have going on as citizens, as consumers, I don't think we
should be responsible for also policing our industries. I think that we shouldn't have to be the ones constantly having to keep watch over whether industries and employers are following basic ethical rules and regulations, both environmental and human.
So yeah, but I got good news, Celestia. We don't have to because that's what the regulators and the government.
And they're super well funded and up to the task. As we'll get into yeah right, all right, Well, we are going to get to know you a little bit better. We are going to hop into all of that feet first, we're going to talk about you know, there's this is just right chuck full of conspiracies. There's a conspiracy to you know, under real real conspiracies. Yeah. I guess people now think just conspiracy means conspiracy theory. It's like something else.
These are real, vast conspiracies to keep the truth about the health consequences of sugar quiet and from affecting how much sugar can be put into things. We'll talk about just this powerful oligarchical family that is kind of at the center of the story and basically like slavery that exists in the United States, you know, basically to this day. Yeah, some of the worst working conditions. So we'll talk about
all of that. But before we get into the new show, we do like to ask our guests a little bit about themselves, such as, what is something from your search history. It's revealing about who you are.
So I just went through my search history and what I found was me looking up specific answers to the crossword question for today. Okay, so I looked up a very specific Irish word, for example, which was the name of.
An Irish god, in order to answer a crossword. And that's personal because I do the crossword every.
Single day, get very very long strings a crossword and wordle every day.
So there you go, Oh.
Are you doing a word wordles? About where I'm max out.
I'm excellent.
I'm pretty good at word I mean, I guess I'm pretty good at my average.
I get by the third line.
Okay, that's good, right, isn't that that's par right? What is that?
No?
That's a birdie? That's a birdie. Oh so this is averaging a birdie over here. Okay, that's pretty good, right, wordles? So yeah, yeah, so that's pretty impressive. And then on the on the crosswords, I do that too. I google for help on specific answers.
Some of them are like names and like specific.
Yeah I don't know that stuff. Yeah, that actually makes me feel better about myself.
I was like, wait, you know about like Celtic gods. Wow, yeah, what is something that you think is overrated?
Avocados?
Okay?
What do you mean?
Okay, well come on expand on that.
Just I mean, I say this, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get email. I'm not because I'm from California. I just think they're overrated. They put avocados on everything, thinking and avocado is improve going to improve everything, and avocados do not improve everything.
Okay.
So example, Okay, what's something that you're like, you can't that's it's? This isn't this isn't that different? You just put avocado on it? Is there something specifically like knock it off with the avocado on that?
I'm just gonna say in general, like there's there's things like there's sandwiches that shouldn't have avocado on them, Like there's hamburgers that shouldn't have avocado.
Means sometimes maybe, but you bite into a.
Hamburger and avocado is this is a squishy piece of food, right, Like that's gonna be a mess, you know, so maybe cool it with the avocados.
Yeah, are you?
How are you on avocado toast?
On the avocado toast?
Right? You know a favorite avocado dish.
If you got to give it up to avocados in one form or the other, where is it perfect.
I'm from I'm from California. I mean it has to be a guacamole.
But yeah, okay, yeah, I'm just bad at picking. I'm bad at timing the ripening of them, Like unless they're at the store, I fuck up and like they're like, oh yeah, three days and then I wait, like the fourth day it's I got worms having a party on the inside, and I'm like, this up.
Get you can't go by really by color. You have to go by.
Yeah, squishy, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it firm like an apple.
I like to.
I have it crisp. That should have a crunch in my book. Interesting and gen Z, I love all of your avocado creations. And you know, Savir, save your mail for Celeste because I'm team Avocado. Okay, team Avo over here, I'm like Howard. Oh, by the way, celest I'm a coward. Just in case, yeah that that'll become clear. But there will be a lot of disclaimers where I'm like big Sugar, we actually are big fans on this podcast.
Love the Domino Company obviously for everything they've done for us. But yeah, I feel like I see now it's funny how like the avocado wave, like it became a thing I feel like in California like fifteen years ago.
Where it was just like you will not avoid it.
And we're like okay, fine, and people are like, Okay, this is cool, and now it is to a part like for me, avocado tuna sand I like tuna sand which, but I see a lot of avocado on tuna sandwiches now and I'm like, that's a little too much for me. For me personally, not a big fan. But then I see how that like it infects the rest of the world because when I travel like abroad, you'll see them like at an avocado for five euros and you're like, damn, that's fucking expensive.
But like, yeah, exactly.
I think this pasta dish is fine without the avocado.
Absolutely, spaghetti bowling ace with avocado with avocado, you gotta have some avocado slices thrown in there. I would say, just generally like sliced avocado on a sandwich, Like I actually really love avocado toast, but like that's a great like to to guacamulli that avocado up so that it's almost like a spread that just like, oh yeah, he stays on there, real nice? Is well? I feel like we should see more burgers that have like avocado spread.
I think that probably the issue there is that so many avocado spreads are just like green, like mayonnaise that's been dyed green, and so people are distrustful of it. But I don't know. Yeah, when when the when the little chunk of avocados like squeezing out every which way?
That's hard, yeah, because it's already like a It's like it's just like the slipperyest food anyway it is. And sandwiches are known if when they're made incorrectly, you are like ejecting elements of a sandwich out the size if you bite too hard.
It's like avocado and cooked mushrooms, like those two slippery things.
Yeah, like banana. If a banana wouldn't like work on the thing, it's avocado probably isn't gonna work either. Yeah, but we didn't have generations of you know, avocados being slippery the way we did with bananas and cartoons. So right, yeah, all right, what is something that you think is underrated?
So I'm gonna stay with food and say Iceberg lettuce, so I X you know, I'm a child eighties and Iceberg lettuce got such a bad name, right, Like everybody was all about the romaine and the kale and.
Like it had yeah color.
But I gotta say, I'm coming back around to Iceberg, like I think it's gotten a bad wrap.
So I'm all about the wedge salad lately.
I love edge, right, Yeah, I.
Think it's pretty underrated.
Fantastic quick question. We like to ask if you're a big wedgehead you forking knife in it? Are you just taking like a big melon slice?
I am definitely not melon slicing.
That is a question we asked all our guests.
So I feel like the last time the wedge came up, I was like, you ever eat it just like a big.
Wedge of melon. It's literally already.
Made my opinion clear on messy eating knife.
And how are you on blue cheese on your melon slices?
Though?
Are you?
Are you?
I have recently devised alue cheese vinagret dressing woo, so I don't like creamy dressings very much, but the blue cheese vinaigrette I'm all about.
Yeah, playing god with the blue cheese vinegarte.
Yeah right, Yeah.
What was the thing though, Like people were just off Iceberg because they're like it has no flavor and it's like devoid of saying.
There's zero nutritional value to it, which turns out to be not true.
Ah, there's a little bit stuff like what does that mean?
Like what do we get from Iceberg?
But there is this like ridiculous idea that Romayne lettuce had way more nutritional value than Iceberg.
No.
I mean, if you're gonna say Iceberg has no nutrition vale, it's not like Romain has way.
More, right that it's like a superfood or something.
Yeah, it's just a leafy right exactly.
So yeah, it's you're just choosing one leafy green over another.
I mean, as a child of the eighties, I mean the I remember the first time someone put like a mixed green salad in front of me, and I almost had a panic attack because like, what is these was yard trimmings? Like where's Mike crunchy ice also a child.
Of the eighties, you know, and and and my you know, my cafeteria lunches. It was all that light, pale green. Yeah, you know, but that that was all limp and watery, and it had been sitting in there walking cooler for yeah, I don't know, seven eight weeks. I don't know how long it sated there becoming goop. Yeah, and that's kind of how it got a bad rep.
The iceberg needs to be fresh because it's got all that.
Crisp water in there. Yes, it is the crispy. It's water in crisp form and refreshing, Yes, very refreshing. I just like to after a jog on a hot day, just bite into a big handful of just a big head of iceberg lettuce.
Yeah, yeah, you love it. I mean that's why you're I think you still can't go to the Whole Foods by your house, right, Yeah, they get mad by that. Yeah, well look they don't understand.
Yeah, they shouldn't have that myster there being so enticing, you know, but.
You know it's wild though, too, like because of factory farming and stuff like rome. I remember just how romaine let us used to have a flavor and now it doesn't, like when you buy it at the store or like a arugula too, Like I know when I've had like you're like, whoa shit, some peppery ruge. Yeah, but now I feel like the rocket, you know, as it's described in other places, just it's not coming the same way as it used to. Yeah, so you know, I'll go back to Iceberg.
I mean, I will just say, just in defense of Iceberg, it does have tassium in vitamin A and vitamin K and calcium.
And vitamin C. I mean, it is not devoid of nutritional con right.
So I wonder who started saying that. That feels like such a weird take, because it's like it's still lettuce y'all, like the.
Probably big sugar big probably like you guys should have jello instead, Like, wasn't that a big movement in the fifties everything who was a green jello replace all salads? Yeah, you have your vegetables and fruits in jello form. You don't need these. Uh, let us.
Forget about the cuisine in the seventies.
Yes, yeah, man, what a time to be alive, I've heard and the fashion Yeah yeah, yeah, i'd always heard. The other food that I feel like I'm slowly waking up to the fact that it has a nutritional value is potatoes. Like I had always heard potatoes were just like wonderbread essentially like the wonderbread. Yeah, they have like a ton of different nutritional value. Am I the only one? Did I just maybe like associate too hard between potatoes and French fries potentially?
Yeah, maybe you might have, I think.
But then I'm like, you know, like the Inkings gave us potatoes, you know what I mean? So like I'm like, here, I'll fuck with them. So there's got to be value there.
Potatoes have a lot of nutrients in them.
Yeah, like I said, and I always knew that, adjusting you cut out that part where I said I didn't know that. Okay, what is something you think is overrated?
Okay?
Whenever people talk about pregnancy, they're always like, it's like an alien growing inside of you.
Right, Yeah, I don't know that's your baby.
Well that's the thing is it used to be that way in a real safe kind of mental picture, right. And I had this whole process of sort of like coming to terms with this like birthing. Because so for other neurodivergent folks out there, ADHD folks, we are relational learners, relational learners and very visual and I have to be able to picture shit and to be able to like
fully access it. And I was like freezing up and not able to actually plan for my postpartum and third trimesters and delivery because I was just like freezing up. I was so scared all the time. I was like, I can't do this. So the first thing I did, if you want to do this too, It really helped me to get past the like alien baby mentality into something more natural. I started watching a lot of anal
sex porn. Yeah, just a lot to like really understand the movement of the perenium and how it expands and it can stretch, and what the human body is capable of, just in terms of pressure down there.
You know, it's a phenomenal thing.
And a lot I watched a couple of like you could look up backstage anal sex preparation. Okay, listen, there is some professionalism back there that I am impressed with.
I think this is correct. But the baby doesn't come out of that one though, right.
I don't wait really wait, I'm actually I could use confirmation on this too.
Yeah.
No, here's what, but whole babies are a thing if you tear yeah.
Oh sure, sure, sure, yeah yeah, yeah, it's sort of it's all one.
But this is what I was so scared of, was like the tearing and the you know, and I wanted to under stay, like, how how is there a way where it's not gonna just be horrifically painful and tear and all this stuff.
I wanted to get myself out of the fear of it.
And then my husband was like, I understand you going to these anal sex sites, but you could also watch birthing videos, so yeah, and that blew my mind because the obe literally reaches in and is like she's right there and touches her head, yeah, and pulls out a whole human. And I had this moment where I was like, yo, it's not an alien, It's not a picture in an ultrasound. This is I just was like really humbled because I was like, all of us come from underqualified women's vaginas.
None of us know what the hell we're doing. I think birth is like this noble thing, but we're all just like we're so organic. This is this is so mammalian. And that connects to my underrated.
Yeah, the alien thing. I wonder if there was a strong uptick in that after the film ail like that, because oh sure, the most visceral image maybe in film history it's chess bursture. See so, and I do think that things like that really burrow their way into into people's unconscious.
Well, and here's the other thing I learned about midwife activism is that so in.
Check this out.
In the forties and the fifties, the popular thing to do was to just put women under general anesthesia.
Right, just knock them out, Just knock them out.
And they would put them on under like purple and Twilight, which if if you're not familiar, those are the drugs they give you so that you're like still cooperative but unconscious.
Yeah.
And the hypno birth story is she goes in, I totally forget her name, mangan is the last name. She goes in and says, I want to deliver naturally. The doctor says sure. She wakes up with a baby in her arms.
Wow.
Right, Like that's how little they listened to anything women had to say about their own bodies during birth, right, And it was a part of the feminist movement to have birth naturally, and that became bigger in the seventies. Lamas came around, right, right, and so did alien around that time.
So I bet there's a link up.
Oh yeah that does. Yeah, that makes sense. Really, what's something you think is underrated?
Y'all? We got to talk about Costco? Yeah?
Uh wait? What is what is that?
You know? A little a little you know, a little utle.
Membership store, membership store.
Yeah, yeah, little mom and pop membership store. I it was so funny because I floated around getting a Costco membership because I was like, I'm not gonna do it because you know, growing up, all our parents had it, and you know, we're we try and be trendy. We're like we want to go to you know, or your parents like, hey, you can you get for me?
Yeah?
Yeah, And I've been holding off. I've been holding off. But you know, now you know, I got my girl living with me, I got a seven year old who's just you know, cleaning up, and you know, those bulk items really come through. Also, it's a great act. Like if you if I take my daughter to Target as a whole thing, like you could tell she's bored. She never bore that Costco. She was like, what's that? What's this?
What's that? I'm like, yeah, so I'm and you know, the one fifty hot dogs I need to support a man who says he will kill you if you try and raise the price of his a dollar fifty hot dogs, and and that's a that's that's who I want to support in this awkhame Like if if he joins a fight, that's who my money's on. He's like, oh, oh, sucking, sucking elon trying to throw hands. Let me step in there. Uh.
I've never taken my kids to Costco. I've never thought Costco as a as a.
Like they're going to Target.
They think Target is cool. They I guess they haven't seen the levels that Costco can, yeah, because.
Because Target's cool, but like it's also a trap because once I get down that toy aisle, yeah, and then it's a wrap for you. But you know, Costco they really don't have like a dedicated toy space. The only thing they really kind of go hard on is the books, which is like, yeah, you want to get one of
these books, Yeah, you get this book situation and read something. Yeah, but you know, beyond that, there's just so much like big ship like because you know they have they sell whole ass like playground stuff, so they're just like wowed by it. She hasn't even tasted a sample.
Yet, Oh right, man, remember Fedco? Remember there was Fedco. Man, That's why I go with my grandpa. We would eat for we was doing the FEDC we called the Fedco lunch. You go to Fedco and you just hit the samples round and around and around, and he'd be like watch this. He's like another one, like okay, cool, let's have these little smokies.
Yeah, sausages or some shit over and over.
But oh for people don't know what if you might be referencing to. There is a story that the Costco president was told like when he the co founder of Costco, Jim Senegal, was like, I'll fucking kill you if you raise the price on the dollar fifty hot dog.
They're like, margin don't make sense for us. We're we're hemorrhaging money here. And he was like, oh word, I how about this.
He said quote if you raise the price of the fucking hot dog, I will kill you, the direct quote that the current CEO said. That was the conversation the founder.
Yeah. Apparently like it was the person who was told this who shared this story and it was like more of a like a joking tone. But I do love the energy of like.
But you still you can joke, but you know what you're trying to say. Oh you're like, yeah, I kill you man. If you read h.
Yeah you are, You're out of here. And and they ended up finding ways to like cut costs, and it was through developing their own hot dogs. Through that, so to do that, they then started developing their hot dogs and then selling it.
In stores mostly made of sawdust at this point. Yeah yeah, oh yeah, still that good though.
Yeah, it's juice. I mean it's juicy. You know, it's the juiciest piece of.
I bet Costco, like those stores first blew my mind because I had never seen the sheer amounts of these kinds of foods. Like I would go to the store with my mom or whatever, my dad, and you're just seeing like one box of fruit roll ups, you know.
And then you go to Costco. You're like, what the fuck is this? Like barrel of them, a nation of fruit?
Yeah yeah yeah, you're like, oh this, And with like my little greedy kid mine, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want that.
Give me the barrel of that shit. You don't go bad? Yeah no no, And they look.
We've we've seen how much they go for in Israel because of TikTok.
Yeah, the you'll have Taqito's for months, for a year.
Yeah, they'll be waiting for But that's how I ate.
When I was twelve, I ate Tyson's kariaki frozen chicken breasts every fucking day of like from twelve to fifteen.
I'm pretty sure your intake was off the charts.
Oh yeah, and who knows what else the chemicals was off the charts too. Tyson reformed rib meat patties.
Yeah, White, The man's built like a brick shit house exactly. And yeah, all right, well, speaking of built like a brick ship house, we will take a quick break and come back and talk about Mark Zuckerberg, the Brazilian jiu jitsu master who also people might not remember this, but you first found out about him from the social network and his work on Facebook, but now famous martial artist and he's got an upcoming fight that might be interesting people.
And we're back, and uh, the GOP back on their fuckery. What's the latest, Miles.
It's not much here, but I just want to I just want to mention this because again, the fuck face wing of the Republican Party, the Freedom Caucus, they were like, they're like.
This is bullshit. The dead ceiling. Ah, we fucking hate this.
We need to we need to cut all spending, especially to social safety nets.
But remember they did make a deal. They're a public they did a deal. They figured out.
Remember they said it was gonna be real bad for the economy, but if we don't make this deal. The last minute, they made the deal and Republicans agreed to fund the government and pay you know, any outstanding balances so forth. But guess what now they're deciding they can fuck shit up by going after appropriations bills.
To cut spending.
So these are the bills that are essentially that spell out exactly how these budgets are, how the money is spent. So their little fucking, you know, clever logic here is saying like, well, you know, I know, we agreed to all these figures and the debt ceiling bill, you know, and like that. But to us, that was just a cap. You know, that just means we could go up to that amount. There's nothing to say we can't go below
that by one hundred and twenty billion dollars. And that is now the logic that they are parading around in some of these committees, which is basically saying like, we just agreed to that being like a number, the top number, and meanwhile, like every other sane human being is saying, like, how is that a fucking deal if you say this is the number we're agreeing to for this debt ceiling and then you reneg on that after the fact and be like, actually, no, that just that means that that's
that's just the that's just the highest. So this is going to be an issue obviously with the Democrats and the White House and also the Senate, because they're always the ones who have to like end up seeing these bills and be like, fuck, man, like, what are we what is this?
Like?
Don't they know how to just fucking do the bare minimum spoiler alert they don't and send it. Republicans aren't even really happy with this because even like some of their like they've somehow awoke from their maga coma in the Senate and you have people like this senator I don't even I don't even bother to figure out who it was.
Let me tell you exactly who it was.
Oh yeah, John Kennedy, who is famously not the most consistent senator that we have to said quote, if you propose a compromise, you need to tell the truth and tell people exactly what the compromise is. I can tell you that senators are tired of getting the compromise, voting for it, or even not voting for it and finding out later that wasn't the truth.
So this is him complaining about this like last minute switch.
Room exactly from the Freedom Caucus freaks who are like, this is how we can get this is how we can extract our pound of flesh or whatever. And even Kevin McCarthy is like, yeah, I mean, I guess, like I get that logic, but I had to kind of make a deal with them to keep my gavel.
That's really cool. So there's Yeah, so bringing a bigger, bigger gabble to work every day.
Yeah, try and take this so fucking heavy, but yeah, I get anyway more more brinkmanship on the way.
And systemically this to For some reason, this reminded me of like the conversation we were having in our episode where we interviewed you know, where we were talking about big sugar in the sugar industry and.
How there phenomenal episode.
Thank you The Yeah Great Great podcast by the way everybody should go listen. But you know, early in the episode, Celeste is talking about how they or early in the season, like they win a victory, like they sue on behalf of all these sugarcane workers and like get this big settlement for sugar cane workers, like fifty million dollars and
it's a huge win. But then the side that is like capital and private money and private capital just pushes back and just keeps pushing and they have more time and more energy and more weight in our world because as they're able to just do it, so like even it's just like even a small win like getting them to let the economy keep moving and like having spending for these programs like they there's still a way for
them to clod back. There's still a way for them to just make any any victory on behalf of like social spending and social welfare into a loss because the system is just set up to favor any anything that is going to get in the way of you know, social welfare and allow people to like it's just better for them to have a thing where they're just like, no, we just privatize everything, and it's like why.
Why are they such cartoon villains.
I don't know.
I mean, because we're at that phase too, where we really have people who have no business civics. Yeah, you know, at the even most basic level, who have basically racist memed their way into Congress.
Exactly, like that's how they got there.
Yeah, and then like, okay, what do you want to do with these budgets about huh I don't like Joe Brandon. They're like, oh no, okay, well this is bad how because there's a lot of people saying, oh, yeah, if we have another government shutdown, that won't be that bad.
Yeah it would be. It would be.
But again, this is this is the back and forth that we get to witness firsthand as we welcome new.
Life, a whole party of I want to die alone.
Yeah truly. Yeah, it's like.
The same mentality, I don't care, I want to die alone.
Let me die alone.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of racists, one of them has taken Molly and realized that they were racists and that being racist sucks white supremacy.
What what are you trying to tell me that the villainized drug of the seventies that was the smoke screen to cover up the Korean War it actually turns out to be good.
It might just might, but don't hold your breath now.
But even around in the seventies, I mean, I knew it was like first thing out as a party drug in Dallas. But isn't Molly Molly's.
Like Molly is m D M A. I thought it was okay, m D m A.
Let's be let's be a little scientific here, I say Molly, because you know I'm out here in the streets.
Yeah, but it's it's m D m A. It is being treated as a psychedelic that is like being researched heavily, not as a thing that you just like give out to people, but as a therapeutic instrument that where like during a therapy session you are giving it, and then there's like a guided therapy session in which the kind of you know, effects of the M D M A help you come to turn with different parts of your emotional like scaffolding and like how you've been built and
how you've built yourself kind of accidentally and haphazardly in the dark of your unconscious, like you now have access to that stuff. And whereas like during normal therapy you're just talking to a person and it can be difficult or take time. I guess it's like the thing that you hear a lot is that it's just a shortcut to like get into a lot of these issues that people need to be able to address them. That takes a lot of time and a lot of like breaking down barriers to get to.
The best analogy I heard for it was that because MDMA, it fills your receptors with love drugs, right, It's like a love drug. It's people explain that it's sort of like when you're wanting to dive into trauma just raw like that with a therapist one on one, it's kind of like pouring an empty picture, right and trying to drink from that cup, versus with MDMA, then you're actually sort of filling the picture with water. You're filling your receptors with good feeling and then tackling the trauma.
Right.
And I have a few friends that it was absolutely life changing for.
Yeah, it's I mean we see the research constantly how it's helped, especially with people like with PTSD and soldiers with stress and like traumas it relates to like racial abuse and shit like that. It's like all we see are like positives here.
Yeah, there's a Psychedelic Science conference happening in Denver this week actually, and like there's just so much learning and so it's a very exciting time for people who are in medicine and like kind of interested in using these tools. Like the research that's coming through is that it's like a very powerful tool.
Yeah, and a great documentary by Michael Pollin. Yeah on Netflix, during which I was narrowly missing my husband both.
Oh so not the most engaging. You got a little board.
There some parts I was like, I get it, I get it, I.
Get it, I get it.
All right, ball smash times, I mean narrowly missed, narrowly miss narrowly smashing them. But this story is from a comes out of a recent study in the unit from the University of Chicago where researchers were looking at how MDMA was like enhancing the pleasantness of certain types of
physical touch. And one participant stuck out to the researchers there his name Brendan, because at the end of the trial, this guy, Brendan, filled out the final questionnaire and at the bottom of the form when they're talking about like how do you feel going like after this whole experience, wrote quote, this experience has helped me sort out a debilitating personal issue. Google them google my name. I now
know what I need to do. When they looked at that, they said, holy wait, what the fuck does this person mean by I now know what I need to do, like go talk to them right now.
That yeah, because they also googled.
They googled his name and found out that, like, like about a year or two prior to this study, he was docksed by like Antifa like researchers who are basically trying to put out all these names of prominent Nazis and white supremacists in the US, and he was one of them. He led a very prominent group in the Midwest, So they were like, what the fuck When they asked him, They're like, yo, so what's this plan, white supremacist guy?
Now that you've had some like MDMA, he.
Said, quote, just realized love is the most important thing.
Quote.
I felt in that moment that all of my priorities in my life were just so messed up the way I was interacting with people, particularly people who are close to me. But there was also an almost euphoric feeling, a feeling of love and I concluded that was the sort of feeling that I should strive to permeate across
the world. So they're like, oh, okay, his background was, you know, in high school he leaned liberal, but then he got to college, joined a frat of like affluent white guys that were conservative, and then that being around those people slowly sent him down like that radicalization rabbit hole of like hey you should read this book. Hey you should check this podcast out. Hey you should check
out what they're saying on Fox. And next thing, you know, he's leading a you know, he's in fucking Charlottesville, like with a tiki torture.
Wow, like leading people. Yeah.
So now this isn't to say like MDMA is a cure all because this guy was in a period of like serious self reflection after being like outed, losing his job, and like there's like relationships, like close relationships began to fall apart. But he said that really had him in a state where he was trying to figure out what was going wrong, since up to that point he thought he was on like a good trajectory with all this nonsense, and many experts like agree, they're like, yeah, intention is
the key here when using psychedelics. It's not like you could just air drop a bunch of MDMA on the state of Florida and then like we're gonna move on, right, Like, Yeah, you have to have the intention to at least be open to looking at your own life and being a period of self reflection. Because again, this isn't some magic racism or racer and all.
So it's also not a pill that you take and have this insight. Again, it is part of a like total program of therapy where you're working with a therapist who knows you and has a sense of like where where you're at. And it's that I feel like there's just going to be a tendency for Americans to be like, all right, so I take this thing and like things, things are good again, it's like a I take it like tail and all, and we're good. No, it's actually
part of working on yourself, which is uncomfortable. This just makes it gives you an ability to do uncomfortable work a little bit more freely.
Yeah, exactly. And there's like, you know, one of the researchers that were spoken to for this article from UCLA was just saying, like, you know, all psychedelics have the potential to help people get in touch with new perspectives for other radicalized individuals, She says, a drug like ayahuasca could be useful because it's like taking sort of a
good hard look at yourself in the mirror. She goes, Honestly, that's why ayahuasca kind of has a reputation of doing the people, kind of showing them maybe where they screwed up and how they got there in a compassionate way.
Like which is also there's.
All kinds of studies of doing this on cops with PTSD that have been highly successful. It's like more prevalently used in the UK. There's lots of research studies on it there right here. It was like it became demonized, like Nixon demonized it all, and it became part of the like smoke screen, look at LSD, look at all these you know, who's products.
Not creeping inequality or that kind of shit.
It kind of blew my mind that the guy who invented the PCR study found it during an during an LSD trip.
What's the PCR study?
Like, you know PCRs like the molecular what is it that you do for COVID? You take like a PCR test.
Yeah's chain reaction.
Yeah, he visualized it in an LSD trip.
Oh, because that's how you visualize DNA samples, right.
That's like the whole Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Francis Crick actually the guy who discovered they couldn't figure out the structure of the DNA double helix, and he had the insight of the double helix shape while tripping on LSD and also after reading a bunch of research by a woman who had already figured it out. Then he just I guess he got a lot of credit trifecta.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I think again, like, it's it's interesting to hear this guy Brendan talk about it too, because he's all saying, like, this isn't going to solve our society. It's not like this is a cure all, but it is clear it helps people. He goes, I say, quote, a lot of these guys who end up in these movements have a history.
Of doing MDMA.
Yeah.
He's like, but you have to have the right framing and mindset, because that's the only way you can somehow be somewhat open to reconsidering your own ideologies. He said, quote, it helped me see things in a different way that no amount of therapy or anti racist literature ever would have done. He still says he struggles with like these beliefs that he has, but he's completely like has been able to sort of step outside of this like white supremacist ideology, like oh, this doesn't serve me at all
or what I want like my life to be. So it's it's it's a very like interesting story. I know a lot of people, like the shorthand would be like, all right, MDMA for like everybody that that's the thing, but we what we it's a it's a combination of things that really help you.
But the version that he did is a clinical like you know, under super under medical supervision, and that stuff is much harder to do in the United States than in other places because tier points are it's been demonized, and so like that is the thing that it can be useful in a society where they're willing to just accept what a powerful tool it can be for therapy.
But I don't know, I say, I'm kind of on the side of everybody, let's try it, because right now a lot of people are doing that with adderall right, and treating it like the drug that's gonna fix all my behavioral shit. And I see and I see it all the time, and I and there's so much else that Adderall does too, that is like so detrimental. And by the way, the like myth of the Swiss cheese brain is actually like an adderall side effect, not not an LSD md M, a psychedelics side effect.
Right, Yeah, that was like.
A whole propaganda train, yeah, back in the eighties and nineties. So for the way that like we Americans do stuff, I'm just like, I don't know, maybe more of us should just be like smoking pot and doing MDMA.
Yeah, like it should be. It should be less sumatized unless illegal, for sure. I'm just saying if you're gonna.
Pick, if you're gonna polarize, yeah, rather than going the route of like cocaine an ad or all in coffee.
Right, But those help you, those help you do work. Those help you do work.
And look at all these look at all these phenomenal scientists that got shied done on LSD.
Right right, but piped down about that because then you might not have pharmaceutical.
But yeah, totally. You can see the values of our society based on what versus illegal, And yeah, I'm just saying that the the legalization and the stigma makes it much harder for therapist, Like therapists are afraid of losing their license. It's very few people that get access to this type of therapy and this type of like official sanctioned, like well designed therapy work that this person had had
access to. So yeah, it just it needs to be destigmatized across the board and made more less illegal.
And just like thinking right about like the packing your trauma, right, because so many of us we go through shit and we just lock it up, We leave it in the back of our minds and then wonder why like it ends up festering and affects other dimensions of our relationships and personalized I have nothing to do with even that specific event that happened, right, And the power of being able to examine that is a huge part of having any kind of growth, because most growth is not happening
because we don't have the ability or the openness to reflect on these things we've been through because it's so
deeply uncomfortable. And it kind of reminded me there's like this recent clip I hate to bring up Tucker Carlson, but he was on Megan Kelly's show, and the way he talks about his mother's death, You're like, this is exactly what the fuck like goes on with people, right, Like, I'm just gonna play this because he's so casual about this and I don't, like, I understand, like there's a lot to do, like his own abandoned issues with his mother, et cetera, et cetera. But hearing someone talk like this,
You're like, man, motherfucker could use some molly. But anyway, this is just like hear him talk just about his mother.
But you know, our mom was not a fan of us and was pretty direct about it, and you know that's obviously.
Hurts when you're little.
But then I realized you can't control it, you know, you just can't.
Control it, and your mother doesn't like you, Okay, boohoo. You know it sounds really terrible.
And the day it actually happened, when I got this call, like she's dying and in this weird little town and set on a farm that she lived on in southwestern France and she was basically French at this point, spent her life there. You should go visit her, And so I called my brother and he's like, what, No, you know, my son's got a soccer game. And I said, I
feel the same way. I don't know this person. And actually this sounds cold or whatever, but I had already kind of made my peace with this over many decades, over thirty five years, and I didn't fall apart at all. I went out to dinner. I mean, I felt sad for her. I guess I don't know much about her. She was an artist, she had shows. Okay, I guess and all.
That, but she wasn't part of my life. I wasn't part of hers.
And yeah, this explained so much.
I didn't fall apart. I just built myself brick by brick into a horrifying months cross exactly toxic masculinity. So didn't fall apart though I didn't comment.
I put I created a whole set made of wood, and I screamed from it.
Like, Also, did.
Tucker Carlson just say he's an immigrant? Is he French?
No, you're talking about how his mom immigrated to France
No?
and he's like my mom saying she's basically French because she.
Left his mom expatted his mom's.
A hippie who left them at a very young age to like hippie it up and everything.
Yeah, at six, his mom was like, you kind of suck and.
That's he has that. Well.
The other thing too, is he's I think he's also referencing the fact that later in life his mother hated his politics and famously like it was after she passed away. Right, she was also an heiress. She had a lot of money. Wow, and when she passed no, no, no Swanson is who was his father remarried. Yeah, but when his mother passed her estate was it was sort of contentious where the money was going, and him and his brother fought her husband over the money. Despite him being like I don't care
about her, I've moved on. Him and his brother they had a long protracted legal battle over her estate. And what happened was later on they found her will in a book that she had handwritten, and she had only left her Tucker and his brother one dollar.
Each, so they got something.
But still like for it's like you can tell all of this like pain swirling around, like you know, yeah, clearly she they had a contentious relationship, but he was also like, I need that fucking money too.
It's just the thing that actually you know someone else talks about their mom like that.
Bob Durst.
Oh yeah, yep, Bro, Robert Durst, Yep, you said, Bob, that was I was like, hold on, you're kicking it with Bob, right.
I mean I did watch that whole documentary.
Just burping up. Yeah, after having memories of my mother. But yeah, I mean, like again, these are you just sort of see examples all the time. And I'm not trying to lay everything at like you know them mom.
A lot of sociopaths and psychopaths will cite their relationship with their mom as the reason for their behavior.
Good and I me it surely has to do with his like very you know, misogynistic worldview.
Yeah, because they don't understand empathy, but they are included into pity, right, and so they look that's one of the formative ways that they look to access sympathy.
Mm.
Well, look, he wasn't really bummed out by it at all. He went to dinner. Okay, Next question, Megan, next question.
Also think it's funny that he like it's it's almost an insult to his six year old self. How he responds to it. You know, what I mean is like you now you're going to like tell your six years old self that like you didn't dissociate, you just weren't bummed out by it at all.
But you know it did. It did.
There's no way it didn't. But again, hey, we get it. That's where you were forged in like the fires of like a Vart Marvel villain.
It was truly like it would be two on the nose for a Marvel villain, like yeah, yeah, it would just be like, all right, that's a little pet. His hippie mom let him and then like he hated any money and he like went on TV and was like, my mom didn't like me, And I'm fine with that. While like you know, just like fucking steam rolling over like just a lifetime of pain. I'm fine with that. I didn't fall apart. I'm together, o fucked solid all right. Anyways,
all right, look at my wood set. Let's take a quick break to Marvel over Tucker's wood set and uh well we'll be right back, and we're back. And credits for Marvel's new show which I don't know has has anybody seen it? The iund like credits the Alien Invasion one AI, Secret Invasion, Secret Invasion. Yes, so just premiered, and it's got a credit sequence created by quote an AI vendor, which is not that shocking because it kind of looks like shit.
Oh yeah, it looks like all that terrible AI art that like animated AI art. It has this like look that's just like not just it's shitty, it's just really fucking bad.
Yeah.
Did you have any of you seen the full the full credit sequence?
No, I have not.
I just watched it. It's so it's.
Like really unbelievable that a company that has like a background in animation and then a brand that's like rooted in comic books goes for some of the most uninspiring animatics I've ever seen, like truly like they're not even it's not even like, yo, this is actually wild. It's just like this looks like amateur hour kind of stuff.
And I guess only unless you're like wowed by the idea that it's AI that maybe you look at it differently, but objectively you look at and you're like, is this like the.
Bootleg version of this show? Right? Yeah? Yeah. So the executive producer Ali Salim said that he thought the AI credits felt explorative and inevitable and exciting and different. Oh, although he doesn't really understand how it all works. But I don't know, I don't know how. I don't know, man. Yeah, but the fact like saying it's explorative and inevitable kind of give you away the game. It's just like, yeah,
this is it's progress. Just fused your eyes on this, all right, So we're watching Miles is showing us the clip.
Yeah this this looks like every AI TikTok. Yeah exactly. You know, it's not like it's funny that they're like explorative. It's like in what way when in the way that everyone who has access to a cell phone has been doing this like you like, you know, like it is just it's weird to see how many people are just trying so hard to push this agenda that that AI is the future and this that and the third and and and we need to go we need to just get on board, because it's just proving the longer it
goes on that it just isn't there. And everyone, you know, everyone keeps trying to like keep it relevant by being like yet until it learns, until it learns, and it's like, yeah, no, that's gonna be stopped. I mean you already have Drake, you know, suing over the AI music, Like I don't see AI in legal terms making it much farther because it is it is just derivative of you know, established copywritten stuff and is just kind of mishmashing enough stuff
together to say it's a new thing. And at a certain point people are just gonna be like, okay, cool. Then you need to show the data in what your you know, computer learning used to get that, and you need to pay me if my name was there, and then AI's gone overnight, right.
I mean, the company behind the scene, behind the sequence released a statement being like the AI was merely a tool used by these artists whose name we didn't list, and then I get I guess in the actual credits, you can see the people's names, but like one of them seems to be made up, Like the AI technical director is credited in the show as Sagan's Carl, which people are like, are you just reworking Carl Sagan's name because that name has no Internet presence other than this one credit.
Yeah, I'm I'm really curious, Like and is that then you're like, oh, so you actually did credit the AI, right, Like are you just doing that sort of like tongue in cheeks, they'd be like. And then Sagan's Carl, the homie that came up with this real lukewarm, fucking uninspiring opening.
It's gonna it's gonna be a I don't know.
I mean, like I I can see you see a lot of people who hear AI and they just get excited, but like to like, it sounds like this producer is like one of these people just uncritically being like, yeah, man, it's like I hear like it's like all over the place. So we figured this would be like a cool way
to step in. I don't know how it works. I don't know if that's like worth replacing, like actual human beings who are artists who could provide something that is like miles ahead of this, But I don't know if that would be cool. Plus also, look, let's be real, the budgets got scrapped and we had to use an AI the cheapest way to get it done, which is probably I don't know. To me, that's what it sounds. The reason you would do something like this is to save money.
Yeah, I mean that's the whole Like when you look at the we we are not you know, like if you listen to this show, like you you're probably not getting the impression like everyone's super excited about AI. But like the stock market, like the the markets are so excited about AI, Like that's driving like all the growth on the stock market in the past like year or
so is like how excited people are about AI. So you just really get a sense from like, you know, this executive producer who he's listening to is people who are on the money side and are just like, we can make all this work disappear, and that is so exciting.
Hey, Mark, Mark, show him that, Show him that one opening you asked the AI to make for the for a Hulk show.
We just made up. Look at that a computer just did that. I just typed a word in.
Yeah, So I'm telling you this is the future, man, It's the future. And the thing that's like I also hear a lot of people too, like I get from friends who work in the nonprofit space, like how as Chad Gpt has helped them with grant writing, and I could see how like for something like that, it may feel like this really mundane process that you can just
kind of now free some mental bandwidth up. But as I hear more about like people using it for writing and things too, Like I'm just not sure we are going to be able to adjust what like a curriculum needs to look like in a world filled with AI that is like is actually at the same pace that the AI develops, because I feel like the worst case scenario is like we embrace all this and people have just lost the ability to think because it's like just easy to be like I don't know, I type my
desires into this blank box and then something appears.
Yeah, all right, well, well we'll see if this Segon's Carl turns out to just have an amazing career in that he's just some guy, Like did they hire did they use the AI to like concoct the live for them?
Like?
Is that the at the end? I know we had artists merely Yeah, I mean that would be that would also be wilder.
It's like, but I am Sagan's Carl, Yeah, and were my name being Yeah, we'll see.
I can't open the door.
Help with me, you guys, Arizona Tea fans, I only drink one. I'm like loyal, and which one you want?
Mucho?
Mango mango?
I fuck with that watermelon. And I remember when that energy r X dropped and I thought I was on some new new I was like, Oh, this is gonna be what I need to do these long nights.
Yeah.
I think at the very beginning, I was like, I remember the peach one blew my mind. And then I was on the Ginsen Green tea one for a while because I think just the colors were like very vapor wavy for me, like in the late hangs.
Oh yeah.
But now whenever I ifever I dagn to grab a can of Arizona, it's Muco mango. I don't know, I think it's the most chemically.
Yeah, it's it's it feels like thick, right, Muco mango.
Like it's not I mean like you mean like it's not no, no, it's like a juice basically it's pure whatever, pure unhealth.
So these these are this is ranking the tea flavors. One of them is like part mucho mango. But oh yeah that one yeah, half and half iced tea and mango is their lowest ranked on this list of taste.
They're actually given that an Arnold Palmer half and half the like, which is I have to say, just based on seeing the iconic can many different places like that, those have to be a couple of their most popular, right, those are those are getting the lowest marks, and then you know up top you got your Like number five is iced tea with lemon flavor, which is that's the
high that's number five. That's not okay, the green tea with jins and honey is number three, But that and that's like one of the more iconic cans with like the cherry blossom.
Yeah, dude, that shit has like there were so many. I feel like Rebok did a shoe based on that can. Like that can is like it's basically the new aesthetic. It's like the solo fucking jazz cups. Yeah you know, it's like the Arizona icedy can vibe.
But the whole thing, like we this article came out right in the aftermath of the sugar episode we did earlier, and I was just like, okay, so what are we
looking at for total sugar? Like one of the Arnold Palmer there, like it just tastes like water down and like kind of sucks compared to the one with just lemon flavor, and like that one has, uh, the big one, the one that they like that's in the top five has fifty nine grams of sugar, which like the daily allotments twenty four, whereas the Arnold Palmer only has forty four.
So this is the thing, man, Like, the more I get in touch with what my actual health needs to be and what is healthy, Yeah, I'm always fucking horrified looking at labels because then also the amount of salt.
And shit, yeah, I'm I can't fucking believe.
Sometimes I'm like, what the fuck I'm getting forty percent of my salt from this like one thing?
Oh fuck that?
Uh, But I like it's and I think what it is. It's so super freaky to me because I think on some level, right, I have this like childish idea that well, if they sell it in the store, it's because it's like it can't be that bad for you, otherwise they couldn't sell it. But that's not how any of this
shit works. Like it's about making money. And then you put yourself in the like in these situations and you're like, wow, this is really It's almost like you have to work harder and you have to pay even more money if you want to avoid eating, like you know, having to consume like massive amounts of any of these ingredients that we're just inundated with.
Yeah.
Absolutely. The number one they give to black and white iced tea, which is one of the least sugar on it. It's fourteen grams, so you still have sugar left for the day.
Okay, if you got a half holl of fuck your sugar.
Okay.
Yeah.
Again, I have such like weed dealer brain. I'm like, how many grams?
Yeah?
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm like, oh that that doesn't look that bad. And then you think about it in a ziplock bag and you're like, oh shit, that's the one.
Yeah. If you'm guessing this is not None of these are drinks that you use as pre workout.
No, no, I don't. But you know some you know, when I was going to a barbell, you know, we got like some powerlifters, and you know, to get energy midwork you want like this like a rush of sugar and carbs. So they would just eat gummy worms. Now I'm about to be like, hey, maybe y'all need to bust out.
Wait, yeah, people are eating gummy Wait hold on, you got to put me on because I don't. I don't the only gim I've been here is I don't even know Jim Marie children's clothes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, because you know, when you're gassed out and you're kind of like you need a little more kind of like sugar and and like cards to kind of like get some more energy, they'll they'll crank ammy gummy worm. Gummy worm.
Must that I'd be too worried that people would compare them to my legs and arms.
Hey fella, look at that. What are you eating your legs there? These are gummy worms?
Yes, yeah. Bodybuilders prefer gummy bears because they are sweetened with ingredients like dextros and corns. There are both of which are fast absorbing carbohydrates. Because these ingredients don't have to be broken down through the digestive process, they're quickly absorbed into the blood and utilized by the muscles.
Oh if he wasn't just reading, by the way, his eyes just rolled back in his head.
Yeah, yeah, my neck got extra veiny.
He just warped into the mind of a health fitness expert. That's the kind of ship I would hear when I'm seventeen and be like, oh, yeah, gummy bear is a fucking workout food. Yeah, that's why I eat him every day and don't work out, like just because I read this one thing that it's a bodybuilder's secret.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
Well now you're gonna see, hopefully see Arizona iced tea cans.
Yeah, I'm near you.
Just pop that pop that off with on them sugar.
All right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show If you like, the show means the world the miles he he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Byepathing