Talking iPINIONS

Episode 112: #OscarsSoMeh…

To be fair, the ratings were not as bad as I expected. But that’s only because suspended animation prevailed as most viewers waited with bated breath for host Jimmy Kimmel’s next joke about that slap. For my part, I waited with bated breath only for the winner in the Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress categories to be announced.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 20 sec

Episode 111: The Jimmy Carterfication of George W. Bush…?

To be fair, it’s not quite the canonization Jimmy Carter has earned during his post presidency. But George W. Bush is experiencing a reassessment of his presidency that is making his post-presidency seem very blessed indeed.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 7 min 40 sec

Episode 110: South Park Ridicules Harry and Meghan, and Predicts they Will Split

Harry and Meghan are going through a really rough patch. South Park has made them an international laughing stock by lampooning their royal hypocrisy and predicting the end of their fairy-tale marriage. And Charles has served an eviction notice that they must vacate their royal-funded Windsor cottage, Frogmore, before his Coronation.Of course, Harry and Meghan have been willfully pissing all over the British monarchy and betraying the trust of all members of the royal family. So evicting them is a no-brainer. But Charles is just inviting more pissing and betraying if he evicts Andrew too. Because Andrew might feel he has no choice but to publish his own tell-all. And if Charles thinks Harry’s Spare is damaging, Andrew’s is bound to be doubly so…
That said, too little is being made of Harry saying he “always felt different to my family.” Because I am cynical enough to think this is his passive-aggressive way of reacting to Charles evicting him from his home; that is, by disowning Charles as his father. After all, Harry knows this will fuel long-standing speculation that his mother’s lover James Hewitt is his biological father…
 
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 40 sec

Episode 109: Ukraine One Year Later…

Biden and Putin delivered dueling speeches to mark this fateful anniversary. Except that what they said had far more to do with political posturing for domestic audiences in the US and Russia, respectively, than with the war still raging in Ukraine.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min 09 sec

Episode 108: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott First to Announce Presidential Campaigns

Given the way Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is genuflecting to  White-supremacist MAGA trolls like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican Party can fairly be described by the idiom “Lunatics have taken over the asylum.”
Only this explains putatively sane Republican minorities like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott sounding more racist than Greene these days. This, in their craven and cynical attempt to challenge MAGA leader Donald J. Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 45 sec

Episode 107: Pope Francis on Pilgrimage to Africa Not to Save Souls But Lives…

For hundreds of years, Europeans explored, plundered, and colonized Africa. But decolonization offered the opportunity for Africans to reclaim not only their sovereignty but their right to self-determination. To say they have squandered it would be an understatement. But only that explains Pope Francis traveling there to save Africans from themselves.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 14 min 20 sec

Episode 106: Australia Day Getting Columbus Day Comeuppance

White Australians are finally beginning to reckon with the historical fact that their ancestors did not discover Indigenous peoples. This, just as White Americans have been reckoning with the historical fact that theirs did not discover Indigenous peoples either.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 49 sec

Episode 105: Did Brady Unretire Just to Become More Goat than GOAT...?

He will never admit it. But I am convinced Tom Brady will spend the rest of his life ruing the day he decided to betray his wife and children to play football … for a 23rd season. This episode explains why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 18 sec

Episode 104: Biden Is Finally Arming Ukraine to Win. But What?

A key feature of the genocidal war Russia is waging in Ukraine is the United States announcing one installment after another of hundreds of millions (and sometimes billions) in military aid to Ukraine. But that’s the problem. Because everyone in Ukraine, military personnel and civilian alike, will tell you they could have won this war months ago if the United States had provided the amount and kind of aid Ukraine began requesting from day one.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 56 sec

Episode 103: Pope Benedict Highlights Deaths of Famous People Not in Threes But in Droves

Granted, the belief that famous people die in threes was always a silly superstition.
On the other hand, you’d be forgiven the belief that they are dying in droves lately. Our interconnected world certainly makes it seem that way. This because, thanks to social media, we experience the deaths even of famous people we never met as if they were personal friends.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 59 sec

Episode 102: Happy Festivus

May the comfort and joy of just being with loved ones have far greater meaning than any gift you could possibly bring to them...
Note: This episode was originally published on December 23, 2021.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 6 min 17 sec

Episode 101: Marking My 100th Podcast Episode

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 5 min 14 sec

Episode 100: Chuztpah! Netanyah Calling on Trump to Condemn Antisemitism

What does it profit a man, if he gains political power, but his country loses its soul..? Alas, for men like Bibi Netanyahu and Donald Trump, their profit is worth the country's loss.
Netanyahu began his "reign" by giving former President Jimmy Carter just cause to admonish him about turning Israel into an apartheid state. He now seems hellbent on vindicating Carter's admonition. Which clearly makes him condemning Trump for anything more hypocritical than righteous.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 47 sec

Episode 99: China’s Covid Protests and the Spectre of Tiananmen Square…

Given the way Western media are covering the protests raging across China, you’d be forgiven for thinking they portend revolutionary change. But they are just sound and fury signifying … relatively little. This episode explains why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min 42 sec

Episode 98: A Nobel Rant … Worthy of a Prize?

I know, you’re never supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth. But some of the most celebrated recipients of the world’s most prestigious award should have done just that. On the other hand, some of the people most deserving of this award never received it.
Note: This episode was originally recorded on November 20, 2021. I plan to republish it annually in homage to Chinua Achebe, one of my favorite novelists. Listen and you’ll understand why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 25 min 20 sec