Talking iPINIONS

Episode 23: Vernon Jordan, Civil Rights Fighter-cum-Urbane Power Broker, Is Dead

Vernon Jordan was generally recognized as the most influential politician in Washington, DC. This, even though he was never elected to any political office.
For me, though, his rosy reputation had one glaring black spot.  
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  9 min 06 sec

Episode 22: Hey, We Wipe Our Baby’s Ass, Why Not Wipe Our Dog’s…?

I mean, really, am I the only one who finds the routine failure to do so a viral mess, literally?
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  6 min 39 sec

Episode 21: Impeachment 2.0 - Republicans Condemn Trump but Condone His Crimes

When Donald Trump famously boasted he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any support, you probably thought that was just Trump, well, being Trump. Except that, when Republicans supported him even after he incited a MAGA mob that threatened their lives, they proved him more right than even he could have possibly have imagined.
But district attorneys across the country have been chomping at the bit to prove to citizen Trump that it’s not up to ignorant supporters and craven politicians to make him pay for his high crimes and misdemeanors. And the ball is now in their court now.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  14 min 22 sec

Episode 20: Super Bowl 55 - I Begrudgingly Hail Tom Brady’s Return

It is true that no player is bigger than his sport. If Tom Brady leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory on Sunday, however, he will come closer to being so in football than even Michael Jordan ever was in basketball.
But I fear another Super Bowl championship, especially in his first season with a new team, will give sports writers just cause to hail Brady as the greatest professional athlete of all time. This is why I’m praying Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs chop him down to size.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  8 min 12 sec

Episode 19: President Bush Has Done More for Africa than Any Other World Leader

Chances are that the tragic blunders associated with the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina are what you remember most about the presidency of George W. Bush. I submit, however, that the karmic benefits associated with the Millennium Challenge Account for African Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (aka PEPFAR) should be mitigating factors in history’s judgment of his presidential legacy.
And perhaps nothing will seal that legacy in this respect quite like having the first Black first lady of the United States shower him with PDA every time they appear together on the world stage.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  15 min 27 sec

Episode 18: The Inauguration of Joe Biden and Restoration of America

Donald Trump spent much of his presidency behaving more like the leader of a political cult than the leader of the free world.  Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that the whole world breathed a collective sigh of relief at high noon on January 20. Because that’s when, like a proverbial messiah, Joe Biden took the presidential oath that exorcised in an instant all the demonic forces Trump had come to personify.
No doubt Biden will do much to restore America. But beware that Trump's presidency said far more about America than Trump.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  30 min 32 sec

Episode 17: End Indentured Servitude. Pay College Athletes.

Watching surreal and dystopian events unfold in America these days, it’s easy to imagine them aping the fall of the Roman Empire and the American Civil War – combined. But, if that’s too ominous for you to contemplate, this episode is for you. Consider it a little oasis in the vast wasteland of Trumpism is leaving in its wake.
That said, when you think of sweatshops, you probably think of child labor in factories across Asia, where Nike and other Western companies manufacture their expensive athletic shoes.
But sweatshops abound on football fields across America, where colleges exploit mostly poor and uneducated players to generate billions. This, in exchange for an educational degree that, for 99.9 percent of them, is not even worth the paper it’s written on.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  14 min 59 sec

Episode 16: MAGA Madness: Trump Incites Insurrection at US Capitol

The world watched in shock and horror on Wednesday as President Trump incited thousands of his followers to storm the US Capitol.
He inaugurated his presidency on its steps with a speech fulminating against American carnage. Therefore, the irony cannot be lost on anyone that he’s ending it with carnage not seen there since the British burned the capital in 1814.
America has always been seen as a shining city upon a hill, offering a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. But Trump has spent the past four years breaking every light that made that city shine. No doubt, for him and his “Proud Boys,” it was lights out on Wednesday.
I maintain, however, that President Biden will need only four months to effectively repair all that Trump has broken in this respect over the past four years.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  17 min 05 sec

Bonus Episode - Brexit: The Hollow Men

This is an accompaniment to the article from The iPINIONS Journal:   
https://www.theipinionsjournal.com/2020/12/brexit-done/
Boris Johnson declares “deal in our time”
Contact:ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  2 min 24 sec

Episode 15: Men Should Be Barred from Politics

Men have been making a mess of politics since time immemorial. So it might seem natural to expect women now to clean it all up.
But the only hope for (man)kind is for this role reversal of the sexes to take place, and the sooner the better.
Contact:ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  13 min 57 sec

Episode 14: Hamilton Crowned King of F1. So Why Kneel for a Knighthood?

It’s arguable that Lewis Hamilton is as popular a sports figure outside America as Tiger Woods. Yet relatively few Americans know his name, and even fewer follow his sport, Formula One racing (F1).
This talk continues the quixotic quest I began on my blog 13 years ago to give him and F1 the recognition they’re due. Because Hamilton is not only doing for FI what Woods is doing for golf, but also doing for racial justice what Colin Kaepernick tried to do.
Of course, like all sports stars, Hamilton has his flaws. But the only one I find unforgivable is his own quest to be knighted by the queen of England.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  14 min 41 sec

Episode 13: My American Friends Doing ‘God’s Work’ with Malawi Talent Fund

Like the institution of Slavery, America’s treatment of the poor remains an indelible stain on its character and a damning charge against its soul.  But the abiding irony is that, just as American abolitionists provided a measure of redemption with respect to the former, American charities are providing the same with respect to the latter.
In fact, no people in the history of mankind have practiced the proverb ‘charity begins at home and spreads abroad’ quite like Americans. This talk hails the efforts of just two of them who are doing abroad in Malawi what so many do at home in America.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  15 min 22 sec

Episode 12: Maduro Outlasting Trump Like Assad Outlasted Obama (”Black-Swan” Song for Trump)

No person on this planet gets under Donald Trump’s skin quite like Barack Obama. This is why nothing would drive him crazier than being trolled for showing the same kind of fecklessness he trolled Obama for showing. But this was undeniably the case with their bungled attempts to get rid of President Maduro in Venezuela and President Assad in Syria, respectively.
Also, given that Trump is now a certified lame duck, this talk includes a swan song on his dystopian presidency. But I hope you’ll forgive my diogenesian tone. After all, I duly scoffed at the very notion of anyone voting for him in “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker! April 8, 2011, and when the unthinkable happened, I sounded the alarm in “WTF: President-elect Donald J. Trump?! America. What. Have. You. Done?” November 9, 2016.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  24 min 41 sec

Episode 11: Female Teachers Behaving like Pedophile Priests

The phenomenon of female teachers having sexual relationships with their students is foremost about child abuse. Which is why it upends so many conventional presumptions - about everything from women as nurturers to women as inured to the basic instinct for sexual conquest, especially of children.
Yet female teachers are rivaling pedophile priests (and Boy Scout leaders) when it comes to sexually abusing young boys.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  10 min 33 sec

Episode 10: African Migrants Imposing Reverse Colonialism on Europeans…

Just years ago, reports on migration to Europe gave the impression that Africans were threatening a 21st-century version of the colonization Europeans perpetrated in Africa throughout the 19th. In reality, Europeans were treating African migrants like the mother who wants nothing to do with the bastard child who shows up at her doorstep as a teenager. Not to mention the migrants who die trying to establish that umbilical cord of obligation.
But today, media focus on other global events - like the US presidential election and Covid-19 - is such that you’d never know African migration remains every bit as vexing for Europeans and humbling for Africans as it was back then.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length:  18 min 11 sec