Various & Sundry: Talking Heading

Explaing the One Big Beautiful Clusterfark to the Canadians featuring an on-air flub by me, all-night senate sessions, vaccines, cussin', politics, economics, & more

For Fox5 DC and the great Jim Lokay we talk vote-a-rama, One Big Beautiful Bill, and politics posing and otherwise

Forum Daily News had me on to talk the OBBB, and I did great until I tried to pronounce the word “Urban”…

My bit starts at the 10:30 mark:

Joe Catenacci on the Hot Talk Morning Show out of Myrtle Beach, SC

Howard Monroe and the Watchdog Network had me on for a double segment talking Donald Trump, vaccine debates, cursing in politics, the “neverending campaigning” now being standard operating proceedure

By bit starts at the 11:30 mark:

ICYMI:

“The arguments for 4th of July fireworks display, in Big Bear and elsewhere, always comes down to tradition and symbolism. Fireworks are just darn cool, and even in an internet world where anything can be viewed on command, live fireworks still get the ohs and ahs. In a world that is racing towards AI and amusing itself with CGI, the sights, sounds, and smells of a good firecracker display still stirs the mortal soul. Too much so, for folks with sensory or trauma issues, or those pets who don’t grasp it, or the wildlife who are disrupted. Pile on the traditions and symbolism of celebrating America, and you have something that for many folks is unassailable from even questioning, let alone relegating to the past.

But we should at least question it. “It’s just fireworks” and/or “It’s how we’ve always done it” and/or “it’s just some birds” and/or “shut up you (fill in the blank insult) for not understanding how awesome this is” does not change that symbolism and tradition are by definition what we make them. John Muir, who more than anyone else made the California wilderness something the entire nation learned to treasure, put it this way: “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

Amusing and entertaining ourselves is a poor reason to tug at not only a single thing in nature, but a singular thing in bald eagles making Big Bear Valley their home and enlightening the whole world of that special place. Arguing tourist season revenue against the comfort and well-being of two barely-flying eagles and their parents isn’t going to be a winning argument this 4th of July. But the groundswell of pushback is telling. That single thread in nature being tugged at is noticed, and has application to our wider view of things like the environment, conservation, and even the peace in our homes and peace in our minds for folks that would rather keep the rockets red glare to the lyrics of the national anthem.“