Talking iPINIONS
An oasis of reasoned and informed commentary in a desert of visceral snark
Episodes
Saturday Mar 25, 2023
Saturday Mar 25, 2023
In one year Sergey Lavrov has gone from dean of the diplomatic core to the face of a Russian eyesore
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 36 sec
Saturday Mar 18, 2023
Episode 112: #OscarsSoMeh…
Saturday Mar 18, 2023
Saturday Mar 18, 2023
Talk about The Oscarsis usually all aboutthe win, loss, or snubBut thanks to Grant and Bassettthis one's all about the sulk
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 20 sec
Saturday Mar 11, 2023
Episode 111: George W Bush is Emulating Jimmy Carter. Who knew...?
Saturday Mar 11, 2023
Saturday Mar 11, 2023
George W Bush
Katrina defined his presidency
PETFAR will determine his legacy
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 7 min 40 sec
Thursday Mar 02, 2023
Episode 110: South Park Ridicules Harry and Meghan, and Predicts they Will Split
Thursday Mar 02, 2023
Thursday Mar 02, 2023
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
Saturday Feb 25, 2023
Episode 109: Ukraine One Year Later…
Saturday Feb 25, 2023
Saturday Feb 25, 2023
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
Saturday Feb 18, 2023
Episode 108: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott First to Announce Presidential Campaigns
Saturday Feb 18, 2023
Saturday Feb 18, 2023
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
Saturday Feb 11, 2023
Episode 107: Pope Francis on Pilgrimage to Africa Not to Save Souls But Lives…
Saturday Feb 11, 2023
Saturday Feb 11, 2023
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
Saturday Feb 04, 2023
Episode 106: Australia Day Getting Columbus Day Comeuppance
Saturday Feb 04, 2023
Saturday Feb 04, 2023
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
Saturday Jan 21, 2023
Episode 105: Did Brady Unretire Just to Become More Goat than GOAT...?
Saturday Jan 21, 2023
Saturday Jan 21, 2023
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
Saturday Jan 14, 2023
Episode 104: Biden Is Finally Arming Ukraine to Win. But What?
Saturday Jan 14, 2023
Saturday Jan 14, 2023
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
Saturday Jan 07, 2023
Saturday Jan 07, 2023
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
Friday Dec 23, 2022
Episode 102: Happy Festivus
Friday Dec 23, 2022
Friday Dec 23, 2022
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
Saturday Dec 17, 2022
Episode 101: Marking My 100th Podcast Episode
Saturday Dec 17, 2022
Saturday Dec 17, 2022
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 5 min 14 sec
Saturday Dec 10, 2022
Episode 100: Chuztpah! Netanyah Calling on Trump to Condemn Antisemitism
Saturday Dec 10, 2022
Saturday Dec 10, 2022
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
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
Episode 99: China’s Covid Protests and the Spectre of Tiananmen Square…
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
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