Common Sense about Common Sense (aired 11-30-2016)

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Sponsors: Jams By Kim, TrophySkin, Checkup Kits, Kamigami Robots

Title: Episode 30-16

Length: 30:00 minutes

Writer: Steven E. Savage

Host: Doctor Ackrite

Medium: Podcast

Music: no music.

ANNCR: Today’s Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast is brought to you by Kamigami Robots. Build your robot, design your app. Tell them how to move. Kamigami Robots, a new toy by American toymaker Dash Robotics. And we are also brought to you by Checkup At Home Wellness Tests for Cats and for Dogs. Find out what could be bothering your pet in as little as 60 seconds. We’re also sponsored by Trophy Skin Personal Microdermabrasion. Go to www.trophyskin.com and take the free skin assessment and  Find your best skin. And we are brought to you today by Jams by Kim. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling for less than the best.

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HOST: On this episode of Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast, we’re going to talk about common sense. What is it? Is it really common? Spoiler alert:  Nope. And if it isn’t, why isn’t it? And if it isn’t, why do we call it that? Let’s get into this topic right now (beat) as soon as the barista calls my name.

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HOST: Hey hey hey, guys! You’re gonna have to come over here by the fire. I live in Northern New Jersey and, let’s just say it’s cold. Cold, cold, cold. Yup. We knew this day was coming. We knew it. Not a surprise at all, but I can’t pretend to love it. But I love you guys, so I’m here for you anyway. Oh, thanks so much guys for loving me back. That’s so nice to fake-hear. It warms the fake cockles of my very real heart. You know? By the way, the fire isn’t real either. It’s 2016 and crackling fires are expensive. Got a space heater though. Right here in the studio. Who wants in? Who wants some of this magic? Nice and toasty! Just ask my make-believe studio audience. (falsetto ventriloquist voice) Yep. Nice and toasty! 

HOST: So, guys, because it’s getting cold. No. Because it is cold, when we go outside, we have to dress for the weather, right? That’s common sense, right? When it’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s not the time to wear your shorts and your tank tops. I know we have a large grouping of listeners from countries where Fahrenheit is a foreign term. Just know that 30 degrees is below freezing. You could literally take food from your freezer and place it outside and it will stay frozen. If that happens to hamburger meat and to frozen carrots, what do we think will happen to our bodies out there? So isn’t it common sense that you have to dress for the weather? Isn’t it common sense that you have to wear long sleeves and full-length pants or leggings beneath your skirt and a winter coat—zipped and/or buttoned—and a hat on your head and over your ears, and gloves or mittens on your hands, and a scarf over your face? We had a 22-year-old girl staying with us for about 18 months who was from Argentina—a very warm-climate country. 

HOST: And she had never left her home country prior to coming to stay with us for a bit. But she knew, as soon as she saw snow—for the first time, by the way—that she couldn’t go outside without proper clothing. Now I have spent a lot of time on this show bragging about my near-perfect children. And they are amazing people who make me happy every day I know them. But, guys, that doesn’t mean for a moment that they don’t ever get on my nerves. Get my goat. Annoy the skin off of me. Tick me off even. They do. Not often, but they do. My two younger kids are 11 and they seem determined to contract hypothermia before their 12th birthday. Guys, it seems that every single day I have to inspect these two otherwise smart, smart kids to make sure that they are not walking out of the house wearing bikinis and speedos.  Seriously. I’ve seen these kids… No, you have no idea. Love my kids unto death. Really, I do, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see my son wearing platformed flip-flops and a sombrero from Señor Frog’s. Let’s just say that their judgment is less than ideal sometimes. You see, guys, my kids have lived in a protective bubble called dad for the past 11 years. 

HOST: The totally unflattering term for the kind of dad I am is “helicopter parent.” I really can’t help myself because I’ve seen so much ugly in the world—and I don’t want them to experience any of it firsthand. So I’ve basically followed behind my kids with a broom and long-handled dustpan like the cleaner at the circus who follows the elephants and cleans up the poop.  Consequently, my kids have spent very little time in doctor’s offices and hospital emergency rooms—you can’t see me, but I’m knocking on my forehead like it’s wood. Don’t want to tempt fate. But seriously, guys, they have turned into truly nice people. They are thoughtful to a fault, careful of people’s feelings, generous and loving without having to be reminded. They are funny, creative, smart, clever, ironic, polite, and all those other things we want our children to be. What they are not, though, guys… What they are not, at least not yet, is intuitive about common sensical things. They don’t have that type of intuition. God love them. They just don’t. I suspect that I have, in my desire to give them all of those other wonderful traits—or at least help to bring them out in them, I have somehow cost them some of that instinct that seemed so common in my neighborhood when I was a kid.  

HOST: Don’t get me wrong. We had our share of idiots on and around Olive Street in South Bend, Indiana in the 70s and 80s, but I really think we had more innate survival skills. Because the temperature could be well below zero in the winter and well above 90 in the summer, we knew from our youngest how to dress for the weather. Seems to me that when we went outside and the wind cut through our clothing, we were underdressed and we didn’t make that mistake again. Seems to me that when we couldn’t walk more than a few steps without getting snow inside our high-topped Keds, we knew how to go home and put on boots—if we had boots. My kids don’t have those instincts. God love them. They just don’t.  Let’s take a break.

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ANNCR: Guys, if you’ve got kids and you’re stuck on what to buy them for the holidays, you’d better get on over to www.kamigamirobots.com and learn about these incredible new robotic toys. You’ll know right away why educators in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are going nuts for these little bugs. Why Kamigami Robots have won the Maker Faire editor’s choice six times, and why they’ve won the Mr. Dad Seal of Approval for being a great parent-child activity. My kids love them. Yours will to.  Kamigami Robots are shipping right now for the holidays. www.kamigamirobots.com. Use coupon code DocSavage30 and, for a limited time, you will save 30% off your purchase, guys. This offer is only available for shipments within the United States, but go to the website to see what other offers may be available in your country.

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ANNCR: Pomegranate Orange for Tammy, because she’s so sweet. And Lime Ginger for slightly weird cousin Stuey. Strawberry Habanero for Mom—of course. What else? Jams by Kim ships all over the country and to any APO box abroad. Easy peasy. I may still have to eat Margaret’s mashed potato flake surprise (“Surprise! It doesn’t taste very good”) , but at least I know one thing on the table that was made right and with love. Jams by Kim: One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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HOST: I truly don’t know why we started calling these instincts “common sense.” If they really were that common, would we really need to complain as much as we do? I don’t think so. So what kinds of things are covered by so-called “common sense” anyway? Dressing for the weather, clearly. Rolling up your windows before you bother to lock your car doors when you park? Yup. What about smoking in the room with your children? I’m not a fan of smoking to begin with, but I try not to judge what adults do to themselves—to a point. 

HOST: But how can I not judge you if you smoke in a car or room with your kids—especially a baby—who can’t just go to another room, get out of the car, or leave the house? What the actual heck is wrong with you? Why isn’t the harm caused to children by second-hand smoke a matter of common sense? I think it certainly is, but people still do it. And what about those people who take their children to gun shows and ranges and who celebrate greatness of guns and firepower? That part is a matter of personal choice. I get it. Our constitution has a whole amendment dedicated to that sort of activity. And it’s one of the biggies. No problem there. But then there are the parents who, after teaching their kids that guns are sacrosanct and magical, leave their weapons loaded and unlocked—around little kids. How many children have to die, or live with having killed a sibling or a parent or a friend, before we can all agree that this is a matter of common sense?  I know. I know. Some of you think I have my judgy judgy pants on today. Maybe I do. So sorry. Not sorry. Common sense also touches relationships, guys. In a major way. I sometimes think that some people suspend their good judgment when they become convinced that they have met the love of their lives. 

HOST: Look, sometimes they have. And I think that’s marvelous. Really I do. I do. Stop it. I do. Just because I haven’t had the best run myself doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in love. I just don’t believe it is as common as people pretend it is. But that’s another episode for another day. Guys, I want to talk about the people in relationships that are caustic, cancerous. You know the ones? I have a buddy who is a felony prosecutor in domestic violence. We talk a fair amount about the cases that come across his desk. He represents the people in his jurisdiction when he goes to court. He is not a lawyer for any particular person. But the nature of the work he does puts him into close proximity with domestic violence victims—most, but not all, of them women. And cases don’t usually land on his desk unless the alleged abuser has caused serious harm to the alleged victim. Often involving fists, knives, guns, scissors, acid, fire, or rolling automobiles. These are not emotional slap cases. These are stalking cases, attempted murder cases, rape cases. Not that slapping is without consequence, but an open-hand slap can be spontaneous and isolated. Most open-hand slap cases don’t involve premeditation. 

HOST: People don't usually plan to slap. But the other cases, the cases my buddy handles usually do involve some degree of premeditation. So think about that for a moment, won’t you? Imagine that you're dating a person or married to a person who claims to love you tenderly and dearly, and you start a life with this person, maybe buy a house, rent an apartment, have a child with him. And then one day, that person suspects that you might be seeing someone else, or that you are dressed too sexily, or that you have taken too long to put dinner on the table, or that you did not answer his call quickly enough, or that you didn’t get his favorite beer when you went to the store, or you didn’t respond quickly enough when the baby started crying, or just because he had a bad day and felt like taking it out on someone—and you were there. These are the cases that form a Jenga pile on my buddy’s desk. They join his pile when the alleged abuser threatens the victim with a pistol, or hits her in the head with a meat cleaver, or pushes her out of a moving car on a parkway, or cuts her face so she will only be pretty to him, or splashes her face with acid. Now this behavior doesn’t usually come without forewarning. 

HOST: This behavior usually escalates from verbal abuse and insults in the early days. That’s a matter of sociological fact. It’s also a matter of common sense. But here’s the part that blows my mind, sets me adrift on a rickety raft with no hope of rescue. A majority of the alleged victims whose cases land on my buddy’s pile wind up recanting. That is they either change their story—lie to the prosecutor so that he cannot reasonably proceed with the case against her abuser, or they fail to show up to testify before the grand jury and often the cases have to be reduced to a misdemeanor or lower. Then, flash forward a few days, weeks, months, and lo and behold, these alleged victims are back on my buddy’s desk—having been—you guessed it—attacked brutally by the same guy. You see--more often than not, she had never actually stopped being involved with her attacker.  That is clearly a matter of common sense, or a lack thereof, right? Once again, guy who loves you, beats you with a baseball bat, you don’t show up, and he gets a misdemeanor. You keep dating him—in violation of the order of protection—and he beats you even more severely the next time. 

HOST: Not lacking compassion, but who saw that coming? Umm, only everybody.  Or at least everyone with common sense.  We’ll be right back.

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ANNCR: There are some things I will never understand, no matter how hard I try. And I do try, guys. Really I do. For example, I was looking at the label of my store-bought jam just the other day. Of course it lists fruit as the main ingredient. They all do. But right after the fruit, there’s high fructose corn syrup. And then guess what’s next!?! Fructose corn syrup. Yep. Again. Look for yourself. Been eating that stuff for years. Lucky to still be here. Then I looked at the label from Peach jam from Jams by Kim.  Sugar, Peaches, Pectin, Lemon, Butter. Cream, milk, natural flavors. Those are words I understand. That’s what I expect to see. And that’s why no other jam tastes like Jams by Kim. And no other jam ever will. So go to www.jamsbykim.com to see it for yourself. Taste it for yourself. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling. Jams by Kim is now taking holiday orders! Beat the rush. Love goes fast!

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ANNCR: So I tried Checkup at Home Wellness Kit for Cats this week. My devoted listeners know that my kids and I recently became cat parents when a tiny stray kitten entered our lives a couple of months ago. We named her Gekko. Gekko is a healthy kitty, but she did have a tendency to drink water accidentally through her nose. And that causes her to sneeze sometimes. And it also causes her to breathe funny. So I wanted to know whether this was normal. I called our vet and she reassured me that this is fairly common, especially with kittens that may have prematurely separated from their cat moms. So we didn’t take her to the vet. Instead, I got a Checkup at Home Wellness Kit for Cats, just to be sure there was nothing major going on with little Gekko. This test is amazing, guys! It really is! Although you are collecting urine from a cat, the kit is non-invasive and totally stress-free. It’s also 100% natural and completely non-toxic. It gives four test results on the spot in 60 seconds. Checkup can detect the most common issues, including High Glucose Levels, Kidney Failure, Urinary Tract Infection, and Blood in Urine. 

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HOST: To me, although common sense is far from common, we ought to see a good deal more of it than we do. For example, we live in what could easily and objectively be described as “an uncertain world.” We do. Right? We live in a world where we know that our children are less safe than they used to be. They are less safe at church and at school. 

HOST: They are less safe at home and at the homes of some of their friends. They are so much less safe that we don’t even allow them to ride their bikes or skateboards a few blocks to hang out with their friends, unless an adult is available to supervise them. We read in the news or hear on the radio about abducted and victimized children seemingly every day. We are aware that children are exploited sexually every day in many homes, religious congregations, extracurricular activities, and schools. And we know that the internet is a minefield of, shall we say, bad messaging. It used to be possible to encounter pornography sites and hate speech online if and when we dug deeply enough or searched long enough. And that wasn’t that long ago. Now, of course, we don’t have to dig at all. Even with the child safety filters applied and safe search turned on, explicit and illicit content and advertising shows up in nearly every search session. We know full well that the average ages have dropped to 7, 8, 9, of children who are exposing themselves sexually online, using sites like YouTube, YouNow, Periscope, and Twitter, or using applications like Musicly, Instagram, and others. Look, I know this stuff is unpleasant to discuss, but we do need to discuss it, don’t we?

HOST: We know that children are creating a permanent record of their bad judgment and likely derailing their futures by—well, by being kids and pushing the envelope every day. This stuff used to be the purview of unscrupulous men and women working in undisclosed locations in unstable unnamed and uncontrollable third world republics where life was cheap and children were not valued, but they were valuable.  They would produce this stuff—they did it for decades—and sell it into this economy through networks not unlike those that smuggled hard drugs into our world. Oh, and the mob—organized crime—was instrumental in getting it out of those countries and into VCRs and dvd players and onto computer screens around here. That isn’t who's making and disseminating this stuff any more. And it isn’t random foreign children we don’t know. It’s being done by children in our own neighborhoods.  They're doing it to themselves. They’re roping other children into these so-called games. And it’s unclear whether any of these children do this stuff with any sense of the horrible adult people—the predators—who are out there looking for these photos and videos and waiting to add it to their collections of child pornography. 

HOST: Whatever their motivation, kids are luring other kids into sacrificing their innocence and potentially ruining their futures. We know this stuff is happening, guys. And yet, even though we are smart—at least we believe we are—we don’t do much to legitimately increase their safety, do we?  We hand our children laptop computers and internet access as soon as they can pronounce the words. We send them to their rooms and, as long as they're not making any noise, and as long as they're not actually asking for our help, and as long as they don’t raise any particular alarms, and, importantly, as long as they don’t interrupt whatever it is that we've got going on, we let them do their worst. To themselves. To other children. We hand them smartphones—not flip phones—I’m guilty of this one too. We tell ourselves, and our friends, that we want them to be safe as they come and go in the world. They need to be able to check in with their parents when their plans change and they need to be able to call for help if the worst should happen. So they need a phone. That part is most likely mostly true. 

HOST: But is it true that they also need a miniature computer with unfettered internet access? One that they can carry around and use however they see fit? And is it true that they also need an internet-connected video camera and webcam and applications that they can use to broadcast their indiscretions to the entire world? Umm. No. And do they need unrestricted access to YouTube and YouNow and Periscope? And do they need to be able to post photos of all kinds to Instagram and Pinterest and Twitter at all hours of the day and night, instead of doing homework and classwork? Instead of sleeping? And do they need to be able to chime in as part of these huge group texting chains? You know. The ones where bullying and body shaming typically take place and where there is absolutely no adult supervision—because you are too busy to supervise their phones and see what they're doing with this modern-day Swiss Army knife. I’m gonna say that they probably don’t need all of that stuff. In fact, we've pretty much just made their lives immeasurably more complicated when we introduce this device into their lives and don't really put any rules around its use. 

HOST: Oh, and by the way, you're kidding yourselves if you honestly believe that they ever intended to use these “phones” to call anybody. Least of all you or me. Oh my gosh, we’re such idiots. Okay, not you guys. You guys are super smart. I, however, am a dumdum. Let’s just say that none of us is showing very much common sense with regard to computers and smartphones. And other aspects of their lives. I am not saying, even for a moment, that they shouldn’t have access to these modern-day necessities. Of course they should. But the access, like any other ostensibly good thing, should be limited to what is reasonable under the circumstances. Remember that concept of limited? Remember when things had limits? Remember when you first learned to drive and the law said that you could drive, but only with a licensed adult in the car? Remember when you used to go to the Buffet-style restaurant and it would place a limit on the number of trips you could make to the “unlimited” crab bar? Remember when we were afraid to talk too long or text too much on our cell phones back in the day because we worried that our horrible cell phone bill would go from merely bad to catastrophic in one afternoon? 

HOST: And remember how the bartender would cut you off after so many drinks, in the hopes that you wouldn’t somehow kill yourself or someone else because of your profound intoxication? Limits, guys. I know it’s a sincere pain in the butt.  Wait, can I say butt? The imaginary sensor in the imaginary wings of my very real studio has said yes, but only once per episode. Already used that one. Okay, so it’s a sincere pain in the bum to have to place limits on our kids. We want them to have it better than we did when we were kids. We want them to have it as well or better than their peers and their friends. And, not unimportantly, we want them to like us and to think that we’re cool. But guys, we’re never gonna be cool. Not to kids. And we can’t be their friends. Their friends laugh at fart jokes and eat yogurt from a tube and wear shorts when it’s just above freezing outside. And they’re 11. That ain’t us. Knock it off. Grow up. Be the adult in your relationship. If you don’t, you will be sorry. Place some limits and keep your children safe. Watch what they’re doing and keep them safe. 

HOST: Double check that they are where they say they are and they are with whom they say they are with. Check their homework, talk to their teachers, meet their friends’ parents. Meet their friends, for goodness’ sake. Stop thinking “not my child.” “That isn’t going to happen to Suzy or Arthur. They’re too good. It can’t happen to them.” Because the mothers and fathers of all of those missing and exploited kids have made statements just like that—and they were wrong. So now this is a matter of common sense. Now let’s work on making it common. Let’s take a break.

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HOST: Wow. Well, guys, we have reached the end of our half hour, again, and I hope you have enjoyed it even half as much as I have. I can’t believe we’ve talked our way through another 30 minutes. Well, at least I have, but I could feel you nodding and shaking your head. Hey, that counts, right? We want to thank our generous sponsors. Please visit their websites and learn more about their products. You’re gonna love them, so do not hesitate to buy. They deserve it! I’ll put the links in the episode description as usual. These sponsors keep us talking, guys so let’s show them some love! Many many thanks to Checkup At Home Wellness Kits for Cats and for Dogs. Your pet can’t talk, so you need to be sure. Go to www.checkupkit.com for more information and to buy your kit today! Thank you, Kamigami Robots. The very best toy gift for the future STEM superstar who happens to be your kid. We also want to thank Trophy Skin. Discover your best skin by taking a free assessment at www.trophyskin.com. And many thanks to finally, thanks to Jams by Kim. Find your good taste at www.jamsbykim.com. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling. Guys, come on back next Wednesday because you know I’ll be here, just like I always am. I know you’re busy this time of year, but you’d better make the time to be here too. If you're not, you already know we’ll just be talking about you. I love you guys and I hope you are already having a great holiday season, whatever that means to you and your family. And, by the way, guys, have an excellent week. Enjoy.

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Word to the Wise from a Wiseacre

(script from Doctor Ackrite's Get It Together Podcast Episode 29, aired November 23, 2016)

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ANNCR: Today’s Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast is brought to you by Jams by Kim. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling for less than the best. We’re also sponsored by Checkup At Home Wellness Tests for Cats and for Dogs. Find out what could be bothering your pet in as little as 60 seconds. And we are brought to you today by Trophy Skin Personal Microdermabrasion. Go to www.trophyskin.com and take the free skin assessment and  Find your best skin. And we are also brought to you by Kamigami Robots. Build your robot, design your app. Tell them how to move. Kamigami Robots, a new toy by American toymaker Dash Robotics.

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HOST: On this episode of Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast, we’re going to talk about words. Why some are powerful, some are weak, and some just get overlooked, ignored, or heard in ways they were never intended to be. Why are we so confused and how we can stop the madness. We’re going to jump right in (beat) as soon as the light turns green.

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HOST: Hey guys. Hey there. How are you? I mean it guys, how are you today? I just realized that we talk literally every single week. Every Wednesday, and I never ask about you. I never ask about your day. I never ask about your job. I never ask about your relationship. So, how are you? You’re quiet today, guys. Is everything alright? Did you finally talk with your boss about that thing? Did you and your mom finally have it out about whose house for the holidays? Did that sales clerk take back the item you were worried about? See, guys. I do listen.  I am listening. I do care about you. And I know you care about me, right? That’s what makes us such a great team, guys, isn’t it? 

HOST: This might be the most stable relationship I’ve ever had, guys. Geez, these affirmations are getting a little out of hand, aren't they? Well, crazy is actually on my resume—in a couple of places—so let’s not act suddenly surprised by that. Been a little crazy for a little while now.  But you’re a little crazy too, right? I mean “good crazy.” You know? Don’t you love it when people redefine a negative word by adding “good” in front of it? Doesn’t that just take all the sting out of the otherwise insults they're hurling at you? For example, I’ve had people say “Oh, Doctor Ackrite, you’re stupid. But I mean good stupid.” I’m not so sure about good stupid. I think my preference would be not to be stupid at all. I’m certain that there must be some virtue in being “good stupid,” but I’m guessing that there’s less virtue in that than there is in being smart. Am I right? Okay, the live studio audience that isn’t in the studio is nodding. So that means I’m right, right? But am I good right? Now the fake audience is shaking it’s collective head. Okay. (beat) Maybe I am good stupid. 

HOST: Is that the same as “good and stupid?” Nope. That means something totally different. And even though the word “good” is in there, it means basically profoundly stupid. That’s a deeper, wider, more generous form of stupidity that is reserved for a select few. Thankfully, no one has ever called me “good and stupid”—to my face. I cannot say for sure that nobody’s ever thought it before. In fact, I’m quite sure someone has—for sure. So today guys, I thought we should talk about words. Let’s really talk about them. I can hear you groaning. That’s not nice. Don’t be like that. Okay, the reason I want to talk about words is because I’m convinced that they’re losing their meaning over time. You know what I mean when I say that? I mean that it seemed that once upon a time, when you would say something to someone, using very specific language, the other person would either take you at your literal word or check to see if you were joking, you know? But now, I think that people I speak to all seem to hear only about every fifth or sixth word. And that can be frustrating. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but it is truly painful sometimes. 

HOST: Because, guys, I don’t know if you’ve noticed—after listening to me for a literal 14 and a half hours straight—but I tend to be very precise in my speech. I tend to articulate each word pretty carefully, and I tend to concentrate on prose at least as much as I do message. Here’s a little bit why: I grew up the only son of a single mom who worked as a court reporter for the superior courts in our home county in Indiana. So she listened to people speak all day long and had to take their spoken words and turn them into written transcripts. Let’s just say that enough of those words were spoken just poorly enough, especially in criminal cases, that my mom decided from my earliest days that I would be articulate at all times. She would actually come up behind me while I would try talking in a more relaxed manner with my friends and she would correct me in front of them. After a while, I stopped compromising my language, even when she wasn’t around. I also was identified in grade school as a kid who could benefit from intensive speech therapy, so my mom put me in it. Hey, the therapists were usually quite young and very cute and I was a growing boy, so I didn’t fight the system. Darned if I didn’t get better with my problem. 

HOST: So there’s that. Then I went to a private high school where we had truly exceptional English teachers. Truly exceptional. I hated it in the moment, even as I was taking honors classes in English. It seemed so very uncool to me at the time. I just wanted to be cool and that wasn’t cool, you know?  But I secretly loved the novels and short stories we read and the essays and stories we wrote. I used to pretend not to have read the homework—not hard to believe because I rarely did all of my homework for other classes—and then I would proceed to answer the “embarrass the unprepared kid” questions flawlessly. Yeah, I was a weird kid. I can’t really explain it. But all of that focus on English, plus speech, debate, and other such courses and clubs, and the time I spent speaking, teaching, and singing at church gave me lots of practice on my diction and my ability to speak to others. Then there was college and the Marines—I was a journalist with a rifle—and grad school and law school, both places where one is taught to be specific, prepared, and articulate. So now it’s a disease that I have to manage, but will never completely cure. 

HOST: And my children are also very articulate people because I cannot stop myself from correcting bad grammar. Oh yeah, and because I love them.  Let’s take a break.

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ANNCR: You won’t go wrong sending Jams by Kim this holiday season, or taking them with you to Thanksgiving dinner! Who needs another bottle of wine? Want to be the hit of the party, suggest that Uncle Artemis spread some of Kim’s artisan-made Strawberry Habanero Jam on his hot crescent roll. He’ll love it so much, he’ll forget to ask why you and your boyfriend aren’t married yet. Jams by Kim has a lock on the most unique and amazing flavors and combinations you’ve ever heard. Pomegranate Orange, Lime Ginger, Tangerine Marmalade! Peach Habanero! Or even the blueberry or the strawberry will change your life for the better! The list goes on! Kim even has jams without sugar and vegan jams available, you know, if that’s your thing! My thing is Strawberry Habanero. www.jamsbykim.com. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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ANNCR: It’s holiday shopping time again already. Can you believe it? Got kids? Then you’d better have Kamigami Robots under your tree or somewhere in the house. Go to www.kamigamirobots.com and watch the videos. You’ll know right away why educators in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics are going nuts for these little bugs. Why Kamigami Robots have won the Maker Faire editor’s choice six times, and why they’ve won the Mr. Dad Seal of Approval for being a great parent-child activity. My kids love them. Yours will to.  Kamigami Robots. Now shipping for the holidays. www.kamigamirobots.com. Go there right now and use coupon code DocSavage30 and you will save 30% off your purchase, guys. This offer is only available for shipments within the United States, but go to the website to see what other offers may be available in your country.

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HOST: So, guys, now that you know I’m a fussy little so-and-so, word nerd extraordinaire, far too sexy to use your dictionary—mine is much bigger than yours, thank you very much—you must be wondering what has sent me on a tear today. I am a firm believer that we need to agree on the language we speak and then speak it well, and then let’s all agree to the plain English meanings of words, shall we? Who's with me? Okay… Just a weirdly cute blondish lady and a goldfish. This is embarrassing. Oh yeah, and Cuba Gooding Junior. This is embarrassing. Show me the money? No? No one? Okay. If you don’t get that reference, you aren’t old enough to listen to my podcast. So go play and let the grownups talk a bit. Okay? Let’s take, for example, literally. How many times have I heard, in just this last week alone, the word literally being used in a way that is exactly the opposite of its intended use?  Gonna say 30-40, maybe more. But folks, literally means: “completely true and accurate, not exaggerated.” What could be simpler than that? Literally nothing. (beat) See what I did there? Seriously, I can’t think of too many concepts that take less time to master than this one. Either we are exaggerating, or we are not exaggerating. 

HOST: There is literally no ground between those two polar opposites. Yup, I did it again. And yet as simple as this concept is, people use and abuse this simple word every day and have no remorse. That makes me sad. And the fact that that makes me sad makes me seem sad to others. And that makes me sad too. But not literally. Now, guys, I would be the first to admit that misusing words like literally is a pet peeve, and I know that I am a salmon swimming against the rolling river whenever I rail against their misuse.  Not going to stop me, but I do get it. I am Sisyphus, pushing my grammatical boulder up a hill, never getting it all the way up there, but pushing it nonetheless. I know that nobody cares about literally being used metaphorically as much as nerdy me and my perhaps even more nerdy best friend. But what about other words that are misused routinely in our so-called modern society? For example, how often do we use the term “friend” to describe people that we know somewhat, but either don’t know well, or don’t particularly like? I’m not even sure that we mean to be insincere when we do it, but rather we lack the vocabulary to fully express what we actually mean. 

HOST: I once wrote to Facebook—a company that updates and upgrades its platform sometimes twice a week—and suggested that it create additional categories of connections. Why is it that everyone is a “friend?” Is that even possible? I have hundreds and hundreds of Facebook friends, according to the platform, but how many of them would come and bail me out of jail, let me borrow a few hundred until payday, or watch my kids while I go out on a date? I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing far fewer than hundreds and hundreds. You know? And while many of them may have been special to me at various points in my life, and quite a few are special to me now, I would be being dishonest if I didn’t confess that there are lots and lots that are people I either haven’t seen in real life in years, or that I’ve never actually met in real life—we just share similar views online and decided to become “friends.”  See the issue?  My actual friends and I have history, however shallow, during which we have established rapport, shared laughter and tears, encouraged each other. They tend to know my heart, even when I can’t put my feelings into words. I know. I know. When exactly is that, Doc? When do you ever have trouble putting anything into words? 

HOST: Believe it or not, it even happens to me. And, during those times, I’m grateful that my friends know what I’m thinking, or what I’m feeling, or what I’m trying to say. And they don’t judge me for those thoughts—no matter how sad, stupid, selfish, depressing, pessimistic, inappropriate, unenlightened, misinformed, or just downright daffy those thoughts may be. And they don’t judge me for my feelings—thank goodness. Now the people who are also on my list of Facebook friends I think are fond of me to a point. But I don’t expect the fullness of understanding and depth of feeling that come with true friendship. They probably don’t know how to take my jokes—and there are many, many jokes, guys. I’m thinking that you guys keep coming back because of the jokes. So you already know that, don't you? Some of my jokes require the context of my twisted sense of humor. That mainly comes from knowing me in realtime. So that word “friend” is important. Much more important than for it to be a generic label we apply to every single person we meet along the way—the way Facebook would have us to use it. I am actually, as we speak, teaching my younger children the true meaning of friendship. 

HOST: As it turns out, most kids that are their age—11—tend to think that the more friends you claim the more popular you are and the more popular you are, the more influence you have in the world. They also equate large numbers of friends with being truly happy. But guys, my kids are weird. All of them. And how do I know they’re weird? Because I’m a quarter weird on my mother’s side. I think there was weirdness on my father’s side too, but that part I can’t confirm. He died without telling me. Weird, huh? (beat) So because my kids are weird—just like I am—they aren’t the sorts of kids who will do well trying to appeal to a cross-section of the world. They are super smart and creative to a fault. They don't suffer fools easily and they love old music and watching the news with me. Not really a recipe for having an entire herd of friends. But they each have their absolute besties. The friends that they have are, as we say, ride or die. By the way, their friends are weird too. Go figure. Let’s take a break.

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ANNCR: I don’t know which is worse: suffering through another holiday meal that largely came out of cans and the frozen food section of the local Food and Fly Grocery Mart, or feeling compelled to drop everything before I’ve had my fifth helping so I can try to get to the door busters before my ex-best-friend does. So this year, I’m saying no thank you to both, kind of. I’m doing my holiday shopping for everyone on www.jamsbykim.com. I’ll get Pomegranate Orange for Tammy, because she’s so sweet. And Lime Ginger for slightly weird cousin Stuey. And Strawberry Habanero for Mom—the salsa classes are really paying off, by the way. Jams by Kim ships all over the country and to any APO box abroad. Easy peasy. I may still have to eat Margaret’s mashed potato flake surprise, but at least I don’t have to leave the house early wearing my fat pants to get my shopping done. Jams by Kim: One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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ANNCR: Guys, do you know why cats hide their pain? If you are a cat parent, like I am, you are probably already aware that cats don’t share their sickness and their pain and their discomfort with us no matter how close they feel to us. Cats hide their pain and illnesses by nature. Before they were domesticated, They live alone and hid their weakness to defend themselves. Vocalizing in pain will not bring another cat for help. It will bring a big predator. Therefore, cats will never meow, or cry in pain, and you might not know they have a problem that requires your attention. Don’t wait. Wellness exams like CheckUp At Home Wellness Test for Cats by Kit-4-Cat Veterinary Products, are one of the best ways to monitor your cat’s health and to catch common problems—before it becomes too late. For less than $15, you can know for sure. To learn more, visit www.checkupkit.com. Also available CheckUp At Home Wellness Test for Dogs. Checkup Kits are available at Pet Value or get free shipping from amazon.com if you have a PRIME membership. CheckUp should not replace a periodic visit to a veterinarian.  

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ANNCR: Are you happy with your skin? I mean really happy? If you’re like millions of men and women today, you already know your skin could be better. But how? Go to www.trophyskin.com. At www.trophyskin.com, you can take a skincare assessment with its state of the art web-based application. You can also chat, for free, with one of the highly-qualified skincare specialty customer service agents. And most importantly, you can learn all about the amazing, totally affordable home-oriented tools TrophySkin has just waiting to solve your acne, aging, discoloration, dry skin, oily skin, sun-exposed, or just begging for attention skin problems. Guys, TrophySkin even has a handheld home microdermabrasion device that starts at only $99! With free fast shipping, for crying out loud! Can you believe that? Plus, if you act now, and I do mean right now, TrophySkin is going to take 10 percent off your total order just because you tell them Doc sent you. Just use the coupon code of “docpodcast” when you check out. Shipping right now for the holidays. www.trophyskin.com. Discover your best skin!

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HOST: Now, I know full well, guys, that some of you are clutching your pearls right now. You guys are probably going a little crazy. Am I right? "Did he really just call a bunch of kids, including his own, weird?!” Oh yes he did. Yes I did. In my household, we actually literally celebrate weirdness. I never wanted my children to be prototypical linear thinkers. The linear thinker sees A problem or situation in a straight line way. She imagines that the only solutions to any particular problem are the ones that would be obvious to anyone. In my humble estimation, the straight-line solution is the correct one 80% of the time. That leaves 20% of the time on the table.  Which means that the linear thinker is going to be wrong 20% of the time. That means that the world is largely comprised of B students.  Good, but not great. At the risk of sounding judgmental, I think the world suffers from a severe lack of creativity. I am a creative person before I am anything else. It was perhaps the greatest gift my mother ever gave me. It is the gift I am giving my children that means the most to me. When I grew up, my mom—a person who never worked fewer than 65 to 80 hours per week in her life—somehow found time to pursue hobbies. 

HOST: Her hobbies included knitting, crocheting, counted cross stitch, embroidery, sewing, fashion design, cooking, and cake decorating. I'm sure I have left something off of this list, but Mom was one of the most inventive persons I have ever known. She endowed me with the charge to be the unusual person you guys hear every week. Because of my mom's mentorship and guidance, I fell in love with art, literature, poetry, Music, Film, And every other creative pursuit to which I was exposed. Some of these things I actively practice; some of them I am an avid fan. Either way, exposure to nonlinear thought on a regular basis makes an impressionable person begin to think nonlinearly. It happened to me decades ago. And, as a carrier of the nonlinear disease, I could not help but to infect all three of my children. Now, because my children, all three of them, are nonlinear thinkers, I knew from personal experience that the conventional thinkers in the world would find them peculiar. I have endured those criticisms about me my entire life long. Maybe "criticisms" isn't the right word to use here. Because I have certainly received my share of accolades when I have solved problems or resolved situations in an unconventional way. 

HOST: But, more often than not, there is some resistance to my not doing it "the normal way”. I married a very linear thinker—to my detriment. I truly believe that my worldview as a nonlinear thinker was a huge contributing factor in my becoming divorced. In my anecdotal experience, because conventional thinkers typically lack imagination and creativity, they tend to be sticklers for so-called standard operating procedure. I don't. I do believe that rules were made to be followed.  But only to the extent that they make sense under the circumstances. Blindly following the rules without further thought will generally leave us all worse off.  By the way, many may think it’s funny that I chose the practice of law as my professional pursuit.  Fair enough. The practice of law involves the study, understanding and application of rules, laws, policies, procedures, directives, orders, and dictates. That wouldn’t seem to be the most appropriate choice for a guy who has just told you that he is not such a guy. But, guys, also understand that in addition to accepting and embracing these rules and laws, a tough, smart trial lawyer often has to challenge them and creatively interpret them for the good of his clients. That was what I did. 

HOST: And my manner would confound even the greatest of linear sticklers. Because they never really knew what to expect from me unless they, too, were creative thinkers--and few of them were. So I won a lot of cases and made lots of money, but wound up disliking my job—because, as it turns out, most judges are linear thinkers too. But anyway, I do call my beloved children and their beloved friends weird. Because weird, to us, means not ordinary. Now, please note: I do not call them or their behavior strange. Pippi Longstocking, Punky Brewster, and the PeeWee Herman character were weird. Hannibal Lecter, Jared the Sandwich Guy, and the guy who played PeeWee Herman were strange. There’s no danger connected with weird. There’s no virtue connected with strange. But you have to be careful in celebrating weirdness with your kids. A few years back, when my younger kids were in the third grade, I got called in by the principal of their school for a meeting. All I knew, in advance of the meeting, was that my daughter had called another kid a name. Our school was getting very hot on this anti-bullying stuff, so every incident counted. 

HOST: When I arrived at the meeting and learned that the name was actually an adjective (take that teachers!) and that the adjective was, of course, weird, I was relieved. After listening to the principal and the teacher explain to me what had apparently happened and express “shock” that a “good” kid like my daughter would say something so mean, I explained to them that to my kid, weird was high praise. That she had meant it as a compliment. They didn’t believe me, so they called my kid in and asked her themselves. When my version was confirmed, the principal tried telling her that she couldn't call another kid that because weird was a bad word, I told my kid, in front of the principal, that weird was, by no means, a bad word, but that school wasn’t going to allow it. So don’t use it at school to describe other kids. She said okay. I winked at her on her way out of the office because I wanted her to know that she hadn't actually done anything wrong. 

SFX: say what?

SFX: say what?

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ANNCR: You won’t go wrong sending Jams by Kim this holiday season, or taking them with you to Thanksgiving dinner! Jams by Kim has a lock on the most unique and amazing flavors and combinations you’ve ever heard. Pomegranate Orange, Lime Ginger, Tangerine Marmalade! Strawberry Habanero! Oh my GOSH! The list goes on! Kim even has jams without sugar and vegan jams available if that's your thing! My thing is Strawberry Habanero.  www.jamsbykim.com. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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HOST: Oh my goodness, what a great show today. I can’t believe we’ve talked our way through another half hour. But, whether I believe it or I don’t, it’s time to go. We want to thank our generous sponsors. Visit their websites and learn more about their products. I’ll put the links in the episode description as usual. These sponsors keep us talking, guys so let’s show them some love!: Thank you, Jams by Kim. Find your good taste at www.jamsbykim.com. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

HOST: We also want to thank Trophy Skin. Discover your best skin by taking a free assessment at www.trophyskin.com. And many thanks to Checkup At Home Wellness Kits for Cats and for Dogs. Your pet can’t talk, so you need to be sure. Go to www.checkupkit.com for more information and to buy your kit today! Finally, thanks to Kamigami Robots. The very best toy gift for the future STEM superstar who happens to be your kid. Guys, I’ll be here next Wednesday, just like I always am. I know you’re busy this time of year, but you’d better make the time to be here too. You know if you're not, we’ll just be talking about you. I love you guys and I’m thankful for you everyday, especially at this time of the year. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and your friends. And have an excellent week. Enjoy.

###

What's My Problem? I'll tell you...

What's My Problem? I'll tell you...

(script from Episode 28, aired 11-16-16)

Music: no music. jams by kim ad Spot 10-1.

www.jamsbykim.com

HOST: Today’s Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast is brought to you by Jams by Kim. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling for less than the best.

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HOST: On this episode of Doctor Ackrite’s Get It Together Podcast, let’s talk about hurt, sadness, rage, blame, and eventually healing. Totally appropriate at this particular point in time I think. Don’t worry, guys. This isn’t going to be my diatribe on politics, but instead will be my attempt to explain why so many Americans, and others around the world, are having such a hard time emotionally right now. Myself included.  This is going to be a particularly personal episode, so let’s get into it, guys. Right after this little piggy goes to market.

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HOST: Hey hey guys! Come on in! Hurry now. It’s really cold out there. I kind of hate to say it, but winter is coming, guys. It’s hiding there and waiting for us. As most of you know, I’m a fall baby. Born in the fall, in love with the fall. I am all about the slightly nippy air while the formerly green leaves suddenly explode into colors I had already forgotten were available in the world. Reds, yellows, oranges… yeah, I think you get the picture. I’m not really sure why it felt necessary to describe fall to you as if you’ve never seen it before. Well, but wait a minute, guys. We have a global audience now. We’re going out to more than 40 countries now, so there is totally a chance that someone out there has never seen fall they way I have. So, as I was saying… reds, yellows, oranges… Also, in our part of the country, we have white-tailed deer and this year, there seem to be more males, complete with the most amazing antlers I’ve ever seen. And they come right into my yard and eat leaves from the trees, or onions from my lawn—more weeds than grass by far, by the way—they’re really pretty spectacular. I can totally imagine that some of our listeners up there in Canada and Alaska and Russia. They are laughing out loud at me.  

HOST: “We have caribou, moose, elk… They eat your stupid tiny deer for snack…” (beat) Wow. That went dark quickly, didn’t it? Maybe we should to the parental guidance warning if we’re going to be eating deer up in here. No? Okay, my imaginary studio audience has said that we’re all done with the deer eating shenanigans. Alright. Good. Okay, so guys, today we’re going to talk about the aftermath of our recent presidential election. Before we really get started, I want you guys to know that this is not going to be a referendum on how much I personally dislike our president-elect, or how much more appropriate a president I believe our former secretary of state would have been. That stuff is a fait accompli. It’s a done deal. I do wish it had all turned out very differently, but it didn’t. So now we should just assume that we have the president we have for the next four years. I’m not one of those who is going to deny the fairness of the system or claim, like our president-elect did repeatedly before he won, that the election and the entire process are rigged. I do not like the outcome, but I have no evidence to allege that somehow the way the election turned out wasn’t ultimately the will of the people, the way our system was designed to work.  

HOST: So I am not disputing the fairness of the system or the validity of the outcome. Donald J. Trump is our president-elect and, unless something else unexpected occurs between now and January 20, 2017, he will become our 45th president and there’s nothing really that any of us reasonable people can do about that. No, guys. The thing I would like to share with you—whether you live in this country and are suffering through this with me, or you are a devoted listener from another country and are sitting at home totally mystified that we Americans have done this to ourselves—is how it feels to learn that about half of your fellow citizens are somewhere on the spectrum that has outright bigots on one side, and people who are somehow willing to easily forgive bigotry for the sake of electing a charismatic charlatan who makes up problems as easily as he avoids making up solutions. Why do I say that? What makes me think that half of the electorate falls on that particular spectrum somewhere? Well, guys, for those of us who are uninitiated, our president-elect was covered more than all other 2016 presidential candidates combined because he never failed to say or do something truly shocking nearly every day for about a year and a half. 

HOST: For starters, when he rode the escalator down to the press event in Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, when he announced his candidacy for president, Mr. Trump gave a speech. In that speech, he said, “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems….When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best… They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people….It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin American, and it’s coming probably— probably— from the Middle East. But we don’t know.”  Guys, this was a prepared speech by the guy who is soon to be the so-called leader of the free world. In this one speech, he insulted people of Chinese descent, Mexican descent, Middle Eastern Descent, Japanese descent, South American and/or Latin American descent, and more. Now four years earlier, this is the person who took to the airwaves and invented and perpetuated the lies that our current president—the first and only black U.S. president ever—was not born in this country and that he was secretly a muslim.  None of that was true. And he knew it. 

HOST: By the way, Mr. Trump used to be a democrat—same party as President Obama—and then he changed when he spotted a deficit of leadership in the Republican party.  This person, who will soon be our president, in order to win the white house, aligned himself with the lowest form of American life, those people on the extreme end of that spectrum that we mentioned a few minutes ago. He was endorsed by David Duke, the former grand dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan—America’s most notorious racist hate group. He was also endorsed by the KKK itself, as well as its most prominent newspaper. These are verifiable facts, guys. Please look them up for yourself.  He became best friends with Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News—America’s least enlightened, least culturally sensitive cable news channel, and had Ailes come to work on his campaign. He became close friends with Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and breitbart.com, and brought him in to be CEO of the Trump campaign. After the election, he was named as the “chief advisor” to the President. This is a guy who once infamously said that he didn’t want his daughters attending a private school with Jews.

HOST: This is a bad, bad man, guys. Breitbart is a company that specializes in promoting white supremacist and white separatist causes by fabricating scandalous news stories about people and organizations that such people consider to be enemies of their causes. The New York Times described it this way: “Breitbart has been denounced as misogynist, racist and xenophobic, and it served as a clearinghouse for attacks on Mr. Trump’s adversaries, spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Hillary Clinton’s health and undermining its own reporter, Michelle Fields, after she accused Corey Lewandowski, then Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, of assaulting her.” Some of the more memorable headlines by this so-called media outlet include: “World Health Organization Report: Trannies 49(TIMES) Higher HIV Rate.” and “There’s No Hiring Bias Against Women In Tech, They Just Suck At Interviews” and “Planned Parenthood’s Body Count Under Cecile Richards Is Up To Half A Holocaust.” Or how about this lovely one? “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.” By the way, none of these is intended to be comedy. 

HOST: They are all presented to Breitbart’s audience of millions as legitimate news. This is the guy who has the ear of the president-elect. This is the guy who is the biggest bit of proof that Mr. Trump is, at the least, a person who holds those different than him in contempt. At the most, it labels Trump a racist, homophobe, xenophobe, sexist, agist, rapist, islamophobe, and antisemite all at once. Trump also became close friends with Nigel Farrage. Those of my friends and listeners in the U.K. and all over Europe know already that Farrage is a fear monger who encouraged the British to leave the security of the European Union by making the common people terrified that little brown men and women were going to steal their privilege away. And instead of helping to facilitate the actual move that the U.K. must now endure, Farrage was here touring the country with Mr. Trump and stirring up the same fear of brown, yellow, red, and black over here.  You'd think he’d be to busy to have time to do that right now. By the way, people in Mississippi at a Trump rally didn’t know Nigel Farrage from Nicki Minage.  So ask yourself what his relevance was. Ask yourself why he was there.  Certainly not to Make America Great Again. 

HOST: Alan Dershowitz, perhaps the most highly recognized constitutional scholar who is also a trial attorney, wrote this in his recent opinion column on FoxNew.com. "This is what I wrote in my Ebook, Electile Dysfunction: ‘Think about the vote on Brexit. Virtually all the polls including exit polls that asked voters who they had voted for - got it wrong. The financial markets got it wrong. The bookies got it wrong. The 2016 presidential election is more like the Brexit vote in many ways than it is like prior presidential elections. Both Brexit and this presidential election involve raw emotion, populism, anger, nationalism. (Britain First, America First), class division and other factors that distort accuracy in polling. So anyone who thinks they know who will be the next president of the United States is deceiving themselves.’" That makes it abundantly clear that one of our greatest analytical legal minds believes that Farrage and Brexit weren’t part of this crazy crazy crazy show by coincidence. Let’s take a break. 

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ANNCR: This year, I won’t be doing my holiday shopping at the mall. I’m going to jamsbykim.com. I’m having Jams by Kim send the world’s best artisanal jams to my friends and loved ones around the United States. And you should too. Pepper Jam, Tart Lemon, Berry Habanero. Can you imagine Cranberry Chutney on your Thanksgiving table? So many more varieties I might have to do a whole episode just to name them all! Jams by Kim, One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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HOST: Guys, I’ve been voting since I was 18. I’m now 49. This isn’t the first time I’ve been horribly disappointed by the outcome of a political race. I even have friends who have run for various offices over the years, and many of them with my help. The disappointment when we lose is hard to take, but you do take it and then you begin to accept the version of the world that has your chosen politician not in the role you wanted. You soon figure out how to make the most of the version of the world that has the other guy as the leader. 

HOST: You find ways to work with that guy for the good of society, but also how to appropriately challenge that leader so that she knows that there is a check on her power and that the constituency is watching and demanding solid leadership in the interest of the community. That’s the mature way to accept an electoral loss. Ordinarily. Now I didn’t invent that. People have done it that way since the very first democratic elections—going all the way back to the direct democracies of Ancient Greece. Certainly there have been bad patches where people couldn’t accept the loss so easily—assassinations, coups and civil wars. I don’t want to overly dramatize our current situation, but I do need to point out what makes this year’s presidential election exceptional. Because it is exceptional, guys. I’m sure there are some of you out there, in this country and around the world, who wish that people like me would just get over it. I’ve had people tell me “your side lost. Grow up.” They’ve said it on Facebook. They’ve said it on Twitter. They’ve said it in the grocery store and at a restaurant. It is true. My side did lose. I do need to get over that part. And I will. 

HOST: And I will try to respect my president as best I can, like I did in 2000 and 2004 when President George W. Bush was elected. Many may remember that his 2000 election was the subject of a truly contentious election that resulted in the final determination being made, for the first time—but not the last probably—by the United States Supreme Court. Most of my friends and family felt that outcome was wrong for many reasons. But none of us seriously doubted President Bush’s basic qualifications for the job. He had been governor of one of our largest and most populous states. He had dealt with crime and punishment, natural disasters, healthcare issues, financial distress, and military issues. He was, by no means, a scholar or a diplomat, and there were some concerns over his actual intelligence, but we all thought that he could govern with the right help. And President Bush surrounded himself with experienced, well-regarded leaders from his father’s presidential administration. There were plenty of times, during the 2000 campaign, where then-Governor Bush said and did some really dumb stuff. Really dumb. Comedians and cartoonists made whole careers out of making fun of him. 

HOST: And while I felt strongly that Bush didn’t specifically care about many of the issues that were important to me—or worse, that he took the opposite view on these issues, I never felt that President Bush was a bigot. I mostly felt he was out of touch. And, although I didn’t agree with most of the decisions the Bush administration made, I generally saw a method to his madness. The same will not likely be true with President-elect Donald Trump. Let me say emphatically that I did not believe that Mr. Trump was serious about becoming president of the United States. I still don’t. But then I don’t believe he means much of anything he says. Which is helpful in understanding why I, and many others, feel he is going to be so bad for this country. Why his election signals the end of many things we feel are special about our country. I have heard many of his supporters explaining away the horrible things he has said before, during, and even after this horrendous campaign. Seemingly well-meaning people have said to me and to others, with a dead straight face, “oh, he didn’t mean those things he said. He just gave into an impulse to say something outrageous.” 

HOST: They then go on to explain why this explanation makes it clear that “he’s not really a racist” or “he’s not really a homophobe” or “he’s not really a sexist” or “he’s not really a rapist” or “he’s not really an agist” or “he’s not really a xenophobe” or “he’s not really an Islamophobe” or “he’s not really a pedophile” or “he’s not really a body shamer” or “he’s not really a liar, cheat, or thief.” But they never kind of explain why and how he had the impulse or compulsion to do or say the things underlying the accusations in the first place. What prompted him to call Mexicans rapists with no actual evidence and no real context? What prompted him to tell African-Americans “You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” That diatribe wasn't actually made to a black audience. It was made at a rally in a Michigan community that is 93 percent white. And, while we’re on the subject, most everything he said was dishonest or misleading. But he meant to do that. It drove his underlying message to his core supporters.  

HOST: And who are they? They are white people who, in a fit of desperation for personal financial stability, societal normalization, and a “return” to “the good old days.” Am I saying white supremacists?  I am not. I am saying that President-elect Trump’s core group of supporters seems to be generally less-well-educated people who have been made to feel threatened by the our society’s contemporary emphases on inclusiveness and diversity. Look, guys, I would love to tell you to write off this entire group of people because they are the lowest of the low. I would love to tell you that there is no virtue in what they were trying to do by voting for and electing the most obvious charlatan ever to present himself in the history of American politics. But most of these people were either too worried about their own dire situations to be concerned about those who are somehow different from them, or they were so mystified by the tv star and fake billionaire and his hyper-dramatic presentation that they forgot to think about what he was saying. And some of them are people dear to me. Guys, let’s face it. Let’s be clear. There will be no wall. And Mexico won’t be paying for it. Nobody will, because nobody can pay $25 billion for a fake solution to a fake problem. 

HOST: And President-elect Trump has already admitted that he will likely be amending Obamacare instead of completely repealing it “during the first hour of his first day in the white house” as he has stated literally hundreds of times on the campaign trail. Oh yeah, and he probably won’t be deporting 11 or 12 million undocumented immigrants during that same hour either. And as for bringing back the high paying manufacturing and industrial jobs, unless he has a magic wand and a time machine, most economists and labor experts agree that there’s no real way to accomplish this either. So basically, our modern-day P.T. Barnum has sold a nation half-filled with sick people the desperate, but ineffective, medicine commonly known as snake oil. And they bought it because they have felt that nothing else has worked to solve the problems they have. And just like the real snake oil, this impotent mixture will taste just awful going down and will accomplish a big fat nothing.  We’ll be right back.

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ANNCR: I just love the colors that only come out in the fall. I also love fresh-baked, homemade bread. That only comes out when mom’s in town. Only two things could make this any better. The first is Strawberry Habanero Jam, which you can only get from Jams by Kim. The other one is having friends and family around to enjoy it with me. But the first one kind of takes care of the first. Get your jam from Jams by Kim and the family and friends just kind of show up. You don’t have to go with Strawberry Habanero. You can go Lime Ginger, Blueberry Lemon, or even Pepper Jam! You’re limited only by Kim’s imagination and your good taste. Which means there are no limits, guys. None at all with Jams by Kim! Peach Habanero! Berry Habanero! And all the baby Habaneros! Really the sky’s the limit! Go to www.jamsbykim.com to see it for yourself. Taste it for yourself. One good taste and you’ll know you’ve been settling.

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HOST: Guys, you have probably noticed that, inasmuch as I don’t want President-elect Trump to be my president, I recognize that that part is out of my hands. 

HOST: We voted. He won. This episode is not about his utter unsuitability for this highest and rarest of honors. He is unsuitable. But this episode it my attempt to come to grips with the fact that things have gotten so bad, from the perspective of half of my fellow citizens, that they wittingly voted for a person who is demonstrably a bigot. By his own words and his own actions, he holds Mexicans, blacks, women, gays, muslims, the elderly, the Chinese, and those from South America and so-called Latin America in contempt. By his own words and his own actions, they are simply not as good as he is. By his own words and his own actions, they are not entitled to the same courtesy, respect, or dignity that he believes he is. He has been discriminating against those different than he is since at least the 1970s when he was a landlord of luxury apartment and had to be sued twice before he would permit blacks to rent in his buildings. And in 1989, he called for the execution, without trial, of five black teenagers who were falsely accused of attacking and raping a female jogger in New York’s Central Park. 

HOST: Even after DNA exonerated all five, and a serial killer and rapist came forward and admitted to having committed the heinous crime, Trump refused to back down and ran ads in the New York Times to try to keep the five in prison. And he has been discriminating against women for at least that long. His three wives and two daughters, if they were to be totally honest, would have to admit that he has said and done some creepy things around, about, and to them all. And then we can consider his clear opinions of combat veterans (Senator McCain is a loser because he got captured by the enemy and held as a prisoner of war for five years in North Vietnam). And we can consider his contempt for at least one gold star family. Guys, if you don’t know, a gold star family is a family that has lost a uniformed member in combat or due to military action. Remember the speech by Mr. Khizr Khan, who was joined at the podium by his wife Ghazala Khan at the Democratic National Convention this past summer? These two amazingly dignified people spoke to the crowd about the death of their son, Captain Humayun Khan, while he was serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq in 2004.  

HOST: In the speech, Mr. Khan, a lawyer who was born in Pakistan and who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, offered to lend his copy of the U.S. Constitution to Donald Trump. Obviously, it was a rhetorical device and obviously it was meant to whip the DNC crowd into a bit of a frenzy. All political convention speeches employ these techniques.  But instead of treating it as fair political discourse and letting it wash right past him, Mr. Trump decided that his best move would be to attack these two citizens and their religion—Islam—by implying that the only reason that this grief-stricken Gold Star mom would choose not to address the crowd herself is because she was somehow being controlled by her presumably domineering Muslim husband. That’s clearly islamophobia, but isn't it also misogyny? Oh yeah, and Mr. Trump did his attacks via Twitter and then national tv interviews. Considering that he apparently has millions and millions of Twitter followers and millions and millions of broadcast followers, his act also labels him a bully.  But the electorate decided that these things were not consequential to their choice of him as our president.

HOST: And do you remember when, during the first debate during the primary season, Moderator Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about the dozens of times he had, as a “celebrity” socialite and reality TV show host, insulted Rosie O’Donnell and countless other women by calling them “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” She also asked him about the time he also once tweeted about a female contestant on his reality tv show that “it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees,” making a clear reference to a sexual act. Mr. Trump was so defiant in his answer that it seemed certain that half of all voting Americans would turn against him in that moment. Yet, a year later, he was elected president. And that could not have happened had a substantial percentage women not supported his candidacy and voted for him. How does that happen? Oh, and by the way, a goodly number of Mr. Trump’s personal and categorical attacks on individuals and on blocks of the electorate take place on Twitter. It’s almost as if he believed that publishing these little nasty-grams to his now 14 million Twitter followers constituted free kidney punches for which he would never be held accountable. 

HOST: Like most reasonable people, I watched in horror and waited for the shoe to drop. But it never did. Like an eel this guy. A slippery, slimy, stinky, unpleasant, rude, lewd, crude, rambunctious, unctuous, non-compunctious, nasty, nasty, nasty eel. And somehow the American people let the devil in our door. And it really isn’t the devil’s fault. Comedian Chris Rock has a joke about a certain celebrity big cat trainer who was mauled years back by one of his charges. And, according to the story, people were concerned because the tiger “went crazy.” But Chris Rock disagreed with that assessment. “That tiger didn’t go crazy,” he said. “That tiger went tiger.” With all due respect to and empathy for Roy, the performer, the joke makes a huge point. Or should I say “Yuge”? Those who have ever heard our president-elect speak will get that comment. Anyway, the joke makes the point that much like it was unreasonable for Roy to have expected behavior from the tiger that was contrary to its nature, Americans are silly to expect this fatally flawed person to ever rise to the level of the highest caliber of leader. Again, not that I expect him or anyone to be perfect. I’m certainly not perfect and I’m not a hypocrite. 

HOST: But we want our leaders to represent a sort of moral high ground to the rest of the world. We want them to have the appearance of tremendous character, even if they are a little less good in private. Here’s a silly little game I like to play. We have generally put our most revered leaders on our money. Our coins and our paper notes. Now, in fairness, that honor has largely been reserved for men, but play along for a moment. Try to picture Donald J. Trump on a postage stamp or a $50 bill. Can you imagine it? Would it bother you to have it in your wallet or on your desk? Or would it be an honor and a privilege to see? Or would it be something that you don’t even register? My guess is that even most of those who supported his presidency are of the camp that they cannot even imagine this guy on our money. So why on earth did we send him to the white house. That is what’s behind the protesters in all of our major cities, guys. That is behind the divisiveness on Facebook and Twitter. This guy is why many people who have loved each other for years are finding their friendships and relationships fractured. We are all afraid, supporters and detractors alike. 

HOST: Because this guy will have tremendous power as president. More power than any modern president has ever had. Why? Because he will have all three branches of the federal government.  He will have the executive branch, of course, and will have the ability to reverse laws derived from executive orders and administrative codes—and these are the laws that tend to protect consumers and govern workplace safety and safeguard the civil rights and basic human dignity of people of diverse races, national origins, religious beliefs, physical and mental capability, sexual orientation, and gender. Further, as he has already repeatedly said, he will assume he has the ability to prosecute his former political rivals for actions that have not heretofore been considered criminal activity. He will also have the two houses of the Congress which pretty much guarantees that he will be able to easily overturn the statutes that protect the rights of these same people. 

HOST: Finally, because his party will have a majority in both houses, he will be able to easily appoint at least one conservative Supreme Court justice and several hundred conservative judges, virtually guaranteeing that the court-made laws that have protected the rights of these people will be overturned—blasting civil rights and women’s rights back to where they were some 60 years ago. Imagine an America where women no longer have a constitutional right to their own bodies. What impact will that have on the other aspects of their lives? Pretty profound I’ll wager. And what happens to the hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples that have become legally wed in the past few years? And what happens to their children when the courts and congress together eliminate their right to get, or even to be, married? And as a black father of three, including two young women in training, I am terrified for their future. What keeps them safe from the dial-back of voting rights laws, public accommodations laws, workplace anti-discrimination laws, public school education equality laws, medical treatment equality laws, and more? 

HOST: And if the government is officially “recognizing” them as inferior persons, won’t some private citizens simply follow suit? Isn’t that what happened in Germany, Austria, Poland, and a whole bunch of other places during the 1930s and 40s? The parallels between this situation and Nazi Germany cannot be overstated, and this isn’t just a rhetorical device people are using to advance their liberal agenda. We are afraid, and this president-elect is doing little to make us feel better. He knows that hate crimes are already abounding—in his name, by the way. Swastikas are being painted on public and private buildings. The primary difference between these Swastikas and the ones from Hitler’s day is that these have references to Trump and his recent electoral victory. Plus Latino children, most of whom are citizens or legal residents, are having personalized threats of deportation hurled in their direction daily. Muslim children, and some who aren’t even muslim, are being physically threatened by people purporting to be Trump supporters.  I myself have already been told to shut the blank up and go back to Somalia. Guys, I’m from Indiana and so were my parents. My grandparents were from Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. 

HOST: Their parents were from Virginia and North Carolina. The earliest direct ancestor I could find in public records was born in Virginia in 1804. His name was Dred Brown and he was my great great great great great grandfather. So I won’t be going back to Somalia, except as a tourist. Oh yeah, and by the way, guys. By the way. Our president-elect has stated emphatically that he believes that climate change is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese. So he will be reversing all of the regulations and policies that President Obama and his predecessors have put into place to try to save our world.  Guys, my children are these ever-hopeful, super-nice, wonderfully weird troopers who have always trusted me to protect them from the bad stuff and bad people in our universe. I don’t know exactly how, but I must protect them from this. You know? In the end, however horrible some people try to make this world be, the good people in this world, including my three children, will win out. I believe it. I really do. And look at how long the protests have lasted, guys. There are people out there—black, white, brown, yellow, rich, poor, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, Male, Female, Straight, Gay, Trans, Bisexual, educated elites and high school dropouts alike. They know what’s right and they’re going to stay at it until the new president and his team know too. And the fact that we live in a place where we can do that without fear of significant punishment is what made America great in the first place. Remember that and we will be okay.

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HOST: Wow, guys, wow!  Can’t believe how this time has just flown by once again, can you? I love the time we spend together each week. I can’t even pretend that isn’t true. But all good things must come to an end I suppose. Oh well. I’ll be here next Wednesday, no matter what else is happening in the world. You know I will be here. And you’d better be here too. Because if you’re not, you know we’ll just be talking about you! Have an amazing week with your wonderful families. Hug each person in your family and tell him or her how much you care. I think we all need that right now, right?  Anyway, until next week, guys, enjoy…

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