Subpar Talks

E52 - The Worst Sounds in the World

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What’s the worst sound in the world? In the words of Kip Dynamite, “Like anyone could possibly know that.” But thanks to science, we can! Also this week, we discuss the Bud Light backlash, political burnout, and the fact that Texas gets sued—again. 

 Hosted by Chris and Jeff

 
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Jeff:

This week, the worst sounds in the world, Bud Light backlash, political burnout, and big surprise, Texas gets sued. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.

Chris:

And I'm Chris.

Jeff:

Thank you again for joining us, and yes, it is time for our standard disclaimer. Listener discretion is advised. We are gonna curse from time to time, and depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter, and we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff. So if that doesn't sound like it's your thing, then maybe this is not the podcast for you. But for everybody else, settle in because here we go with this week's topics. We have this time of year locusts just everywhere. Just, yep. They're, you know, they're noisy in the morning. They're noisy in the evening. It seems like now though, just in the middle of the day. You just hear'em all over the goddamn place in the trees. They live for like, what is it, three days or something ridiculous. And then they're fluttering around on the ground and just they're everywhere. It's like a plague. They make a real racket when they're dying. Yeah, they do. Just going crazy. So I come out to this and I just, I hate that sound. I hate the sound of the locusts. Really? Really? Yeah, I do. And it's it when they're all together and it just grates on my nerves. I just re, I remarked the other day that is the worst sound in the world. And obviously it's not, I was exaggerating, but then I thought, I wonder if anybody's actually quantified the worst sound in the world. Is that even possible? And thanks to science it is. So let me read you a little bit about this and then we're gonna go through, There's a list here, so this is from mental floss.com. It says, scientists agree that unpleasant sounds fall into two distinct categories. First, annoying sounds like incessant car alarms and snoring because they are intensive and disrupt our thought process or sleep. And second noises that trigger an immediate negative, visceral reaction like nails on a chalkboard or squeaking styrofoam. The items below are ranked in order of cringe worthiness, according to an ongoing study by Professor Trevor Cox of Britain's Sulfur University. So there's two types of sounds, uh, or unpleasant sounds. And, and the ones that you know, you find annoying, it's like, ugh, really? You know, you gotta listen to that, right? And then there's ones where you have an immediate reaction, like, holy shit. You know, you just, it cringe. Okay. Now if we needed any other signs that we are aging, this surprise me, they have the top 10 listed here, but then they list some others below that. Fingernails on a chalkboard did not even make the top 10. Oh, wow. And they think it's because so many schools now are using whiteboards. Right. And so you've got a whole generation or more of people. They don't even know what a chalkboard is or they know, but they don't even know the sound that nails on it makes.

Chris:

Wow, I have never thought about that. And I don't care for it at all.

Jeff:

I don't care for it either. You

Chris:

should be able to say that and just everybody know what you're talking about.

Jeff:

Exactly, and I still use that. So I guess I gotta put that outta my rotation for things that I say, like something I don't like is like fingernails on a jog board. I'm gonna start getting blank stares from people. I

Chris:

tell you what's almost worse to me in that category? Oh, see, I can barely say it is a fork on your teeth. Oh, yeah.

Jeff:

Like raking, crush your teeth. Oh, yes. That

Chris:

just, that sends chills through me.

Jeff:

Or the, uh, when you're, uh, you got a fork on a plate and Yeah. Um, The What are the, what are the things called? The things on the fork? The tines. Tines. Thank you. Yeah. I can't wanna say tongs. The tines. And when you have the, the, the edge of those on the plate. Oh God. Yeah. That's horrible. That's terrible. Okay. So number 10, working our way to most unpleasant sound in this study by this professor person chewing food with an open mouth.

Chris:

Yep. I gotta agree. That's disgusting.

Jeff:

Yeah, it's gross. Somebody's smacking their Yes. God, that's terrible. So we've both said, doing this podcast many times, we don't really know anything about audio. We kind of do now, but not just a whole lot. Do you know what a man's hum is? Have you ever heard that

Chris:

term? I've never heard that. Should I know?

Jeff:

Well, you're gonna know now. I know you've heard the sound, but a man's hum. Wikipedia also says it's called electric hum or cycle hum or power line. Hum. Okay. This is the buzz that you occasionally hear through speakers. Yep. It says for audio files in the audience, it occurs at 50 Hertz. Is that hc? Is that Hertz? Yeah, in the UK and about 60 hertz in the us. So Wikipedia has a sound sample. I'm gonna play this and if it doesn't work, I'll edit it out, but here it is. I'm actually surprised that Made. Made the list.

Chris:

Yeah, I am too. I don't think, I mean, it can be annoying, but. Not one of the worst. Yeah. Yeah. I would say a person smacking their food bothers me more than that.

Jeff:

Definitely for me too. Uh, number eight, people arguing. I don't really think of that as a sound. I mean, it is annoying to listen to, but Right.

Chris:

No, see, I wouldn't put that on the list either. No. It

Jeff:

could also be funny. Well, yeah. Listen to people argue. Yeah. Wanna get in on it? Yeah. Seven flatulence. Well see. I don't think of that as annoying. It's funny, I hear somebody do that. Annoying,

Chris:

I would say concerning. Like it's, well, yeah, what's gonna be the after effect.

Jeff:

Good point. But in terms of this type of reaction to unpleasant sounds, they said cringe worthy. So it is definitely cringe worthy if you hear somebody do that in a crowd. Yeah. Or you just, oh god, that's true. Yeah. I had a student do it once in the middle of a test.

Chris:

Somebody did it in the middle of one of my exams in college. Yeah. Like loud, like there were rows and rows behind me and everybody heard. Oh my God. Yeah. But thank goodness it was far from me.

Jeff:

You ever, uh, been like sitting in a meeting and you like, make a sound, like your shoe makes a sound or something and then it sounds like a fart. Yes. So you try to recreate the sound so that everybody will know that it wasn't a fart.

Chris:

Sure. Do. Absolutely. Or turn and look under the table. Like

Jeff:

what was that? Yeah. Yeah, look. All concerned. What was that? Okay, uh, number six. I'm kind of surprised this makes the list, although it is definitely cringey, a poorly played violin. Somebody just raking the bow across the strings. That's

Chris:

true. That can be a rough

Jeff:

sound. Yeah, definitely. Uh, number, uh, number five. A squeaky wheel that needs some grease. They also lump in here. Not just a wheel, but anything like a door

Chris:

hinge. Yeah. That was

Jeff:

the next thing I was thinking. I find that more in the annoying category, not really cringey.

Chris:

Yeah, it's not, yeah. It's not one that you say, oh, I can't take any more of it. It's just Right. Annoying. Yeah.

Jeff:

There are a few things more satisfying. Then getting a can of WD 40 and squirting the shit out of a hinge or something, and then it's just silent. That makes me feel powerful.

Chris:

Wiped it right out of there. It sure did. Me too. Oh yeah. I feel very, very

Jeff:

successful. You've seen the King of the Hill where? Hank Hill is, uh, getting WD 40 to squirt on something and he pulls the little trigger thing and it squeaks. So he goes and gets another can of WD 40 sprays. That can, that's

Chris:

awesome. No, I haven't seen

Jeff:

that. That's hilarious. Okay. Uh, number four, uh, train wheels scraping on the tracks. So that high pitched. That's kinda rough. That's rough. Yeah, it is metal on metal grinding. Yeah. As they say here. Sounds dirty. It's not. Uh, number three, and I got something to tell you after this, but number three, a baby crying.

Chris:

Yeah. You can only take so much of that.

Jeff:

Yep. Before you're just ready to, to bang your head into the wall. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So when they gave this survey to people, they, uh, of course tracked the, the sex of the respondents. And women were less likely to say than men that a crying baby should be on the list. Like they were as not as, they didn't find it as cringey as the men did. Yeah. And flatulence was the complete opposite. Women were more likely to say, flatulence is cringey. And the men were not. Really. Yeah. Well, there you go. That tells you a lot right there. It does. It tells you quite a bit, I think.

Chris:

Now I wonder on the baby crying, the question there is, do women really not find it as cringeworthy, or did they feel guilty to say that they found

Jeff:

it cringeworthy? Oh, that's a good question. Very good question.

Chris:

Because women have lots of guilt around all that stuff, so they might just not want to admit

Jeff:

it. True. That's a good point. And how would you even get that information? Like, are you lying? Like, I don't, they still wouldn't admit it, so I tell you what though. Before we had kids, I had so little tolerance for hearing a crying baby in public. I'm like, what the fuck? Can you not tell that kid to be quiet? Make it be quiet, take it outta here or something. But then you have kids and you totally get it. So I got quite a bit more tolerance. Now when I hear a crying baby in public, I know what they're going through. Yeah, exactly.

Chris:

Feel like you want to take care of the parent. It's like, right. I'm so sorry.

Jeff:

What do you need?

Chris:

Need a drink.

Jeff:

Yeah. Okay. Uh, number two is microphone feedback so that, yeah. High pitched whatever. I don't know, ringing kind of sound. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That is bad.

Chris:

Yeah, that's way worse than the hum.

Jeff:

Yeah. Yeah. Number one. Have any guesses of what it might be?

Chris:

Well, I, I mean, I could have certainly seen like fingernails on a chalkboard, something like that. I would think some kind of scraping or grinding of some kind.

Jeff:

Number one is vomiting. Oh.

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's got, I don't know about number one, but that's gotta fall in the category, especially when you say cringe worthy. Yeah, because then you don't wanna be the sympathetic vomiter either. No. It's like somebody else's vomiting and sets you off.

Jeff:

It does. And that happens. See, that doesn't happen to me, but that is a thing. Yeah. Where somebody hears somebody puke and they puke. Yeah. Like,

Chris:

what is that? No, that doesn't happen to me. But yeah, I don't want to hear it because then I start thinking about it too much and I don't need to think about

Jeff:

it. It says here in the, uh, in the article, What they used for the vomiting sound.'cause they had everybody listen to these sounds. What they used for vomiting was having somebody wretch, you know, make the, that sound. Yeah. But then they poured baked beans into a toilet. Oh, that's disgusting. When I hear that, I'm like, yeah, maybe that should be number one, but, Yeah, so it's bad, definitely bad.

Chris:

Speaking of audio and, and sounds like that, you know what a Foley artist is?

Jeff:

Yeah. Okay. They're, they're, well, I think I do. They're the people who do the sounds in movies, right? Like yes. Yeah. Okay.

Chris:

So I've never thought, first of all, you see it on credits all the time and you know, it's just one of those others that I never knew what that was. What they did. Yeah. But, When we started the podcast and we started looking at a bunch of audio stuff, one of the things that was coming across my feed was people recording sounds and how they were recording sounds as a Foley artist, and it was amazing the different types of things that they used to create the sounds that they were doing. And I never really thought about it in movies as that. A microphone is not going to pick up certain sounds that you're seeing either at a distance or maybe even right with the actor because they're focused on recording their voice. So they may be recording from up above. They want to catch the voice and they don't want to catch other background noise. So in order to have background noise, they have to specifically record that and put it in. And there were things like that where I don't, I don't remember if there was a vomiting sound, but there was something where they were like, Pouring stuff off into a bucket and things like that to recreate. Yeah. And if you don't watch it and just listen to it, it is crazy. It's amazing how they can reproduce

Jeff:

those sounds. Yeah, it is. I've seen a couple of videos on that where they show the scene in the movie and then they show the Foley doing the sound. That's really, really cool.

Chris:

Yes, it is. I've seen people walking. When you see people walking and you hear their footsteps. Yeah. As the Foley artist is doing that stuff, as they're walking on like a wooden floor to just record the sound and trying to follow the steps of the video, it's

Jeff:

amazing. It's very cool. What I hate though, and I have noticed this in quite a few movies and TV shows, Is when somebody gets in a car and they take off super fast and they have the squealing tires. Mm-hmm. But the pavement they're on is wet. Oh yeah. That doesn't happen. And I don't know why. Like who? How does somebody not catch that? But

Chris:

whatever. Well, they need to hire us. So I wanted to talk about the Bud Light business going on. You heard about all of this that's happening with them and the, the boycotting and everything I.

Jeff:

I have at least seen headlines of it. Yeah. Fill us in though. Fill me in on,'cause I, you probably know more than I do and maybe our listeners don't know. Yeah. So

Chris:

basically, Anheuser-Busch is the company that owns Bud Light and they own, I, I don't even remember or know how many different brands of beer, but it's a lot. I mean, they're, they're major, major owner of all of these different beer brands. So, For some reason, they chose, they picked Bud Light as the one that they wanted to do this with is, um, and I, I think it was during Gay Pride month when they started this. I'm not sure if that was exactly what it corresponded to. But anyway, they hired Ahan, a transgender woman As a spokesperson for the brand, and they changed the bottles to multicolor. I, I don't know that it was specifically like the, the gay pride flag and, and I'm probably messing something up here to even, uh, kind of interchange these of. Transgender and gay, because we know that's not the same thing but it, but it

Jeff:

was pride

Chris:

month. Yeah. And it seemed to kind of go along with that. So anyway. Yeah. Bud Light. And, and, and if you think about beer brands, you know, you've got your, your really high-end brands. You've got your really, really kinda low end scraping the bottom of the, of the barrel brands. Then you've got your kind of middle of the road and of those various brands, different people gravitate toward the different ones for different reasons. Mm-hmm. But if you look at the way Bud Light has ever marketed them themselves, They are kind of the every man's brand, you know? Yeah. It's, it's the, the quote appealing to everybody, American brand, middle America, all of that. Like, Hey, w we, we are, we are the guys, guys. Beer, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, The guys who drink this beer decided that they didn't like the transgender spokesperson, the transgender woman and so they started boycotting the brand. And there's been a massive boycott of the brand, and this has happened over at least three months. And so we're a little later talking about this because the immediateness of the. The boycott has kind of passed. Mm-hmm. But the reason I bring this up is because there are a lot of statistics coming out now as to what this impact has been, and it's really crazy to see how much influence all of the buyers have had on the brand itself. And so the, well, the brand and, and Anheuser-Busch as a whole. And so I was just gonna touch on a few of these things. One was in May that the Anheuser-Busch shares stock shares had fallen more than 10%. That number now is up to at least 15%. Wow. And, and the numbers that we're talking about in terms of dollars, and this is staggering, but they're looking at a 25 to$27 billion decline in market value. Jesus

Jeff:

Christ.

Chris:

Yeah. Wow. And I say, Some marketing person there made a

Jeff:

big mistake. Yeah, so two things here. Number one, I know very little about beer. I know what I like and what I don't like, and I know that Bud Light tastes like shit. Yeah. But I also know who drinks Bud Light and I don't know really anything about marketing, but holy shit, if I'm working for them, I'm not doing that. Yeah. You know, there's gonna be, I mean, do you think somebody in a MAGA hat is gonna be cool with seeing a transgender person marketing the The product? Exactly. They're gonna lose their shit. Yeah. So what the hell I, you gotta figure somebody got fired, right? Yeah. I,

Chris:

I would figure, I would figure a lot of people had to have gotten fired over that. I mean, that's massive, massive amounts of money, but it, it, it's just boggles my mind. I, I think about the, the, the whole idea. Know your audience. Yeah. Know your audience goes for so many things. It's who you're speaking to, it's who you're marketing to, who buys your stuff, who do you want to be selling to, and how do you attract those people? And it's like they said, we're going to do the absolute exact, you know? Right. I will do the opposite. And didn't turn out too well for

Jeff:

him. So that's gotta be covered in marketing 1 0 1, right? Know your audience. I mean, I would think that's like basic stuff. Okay, so that's my first observation. My next observation is, why the fuck do people even care? If you like the beer, why do you care? Why do you exert your energy? Something like this, I just don't understand. But it's not just that, it's a lot of these political causes surrounding a product. Maybe it's just me, but I don't have the energy. It's like, whatever. Well, you

Chris:

know what's, what's riling people up in general outside of this specific instance I'll say, is the fact that they feel like these kinds of things are being forced on them, crammed down their throat, those kinds of things. Like for example, if I'm a person who. Doesn't like, doesn't support, doesn't agree with transgender, gay, et cetera, then you showing it to me is offensive to me because that's not the way I am. And so then I feel like there's something wrong with it, and I think that's where it all came from. The irony there is that doing the opposite, you know, showing the heterosexual straight, uh, And so on, which while that is no doubt more the norm mm-hmm. In terms of sheer numbers, gay people could feel the exact same way about that. Right. You know? Yeah. Hey, you're forcing that on us. Yeah. And so I think, you know, it, it's amazing to me how many of these kinds of things become political. Like there's nothing political about it. Yet it's been made political. Mm-hmm. And so that is now this group riling up the base about all this stuff and saying, you know, they're trying to indoctrinate change, you know, force these things on you, all that. And then when they find an example of it, then, oh, well we're just gonna boycott the whole

Jeff:

thing then. There's another irony to it. These are the same people who get all upset because they say people are too easily offended these days. Right. They're offended at this. Offended at that. And then they have a transgender person marketing a product that they drink regularly and they lose their shit. Yeah. Like I thought you weren't supposed to get offended. Yeah.

Chris:

They're the ones calling everybody all

Jeff:

snowflakes. You're right. Yeah. And, uh, now their feelings are hurt so badly that they're gonna boycott their beer. Kind of segueing off of that, I used to, and I, tell me how you are with this. I used to pay a ton of attention to the news. I would watch news programs. I would read the news newspaper. Yeah. Uh, regularly and I was, I was all into it. And that lasted for years and years and years and years and years. And some point I can point to the 2016 presidential election. It, it started happening before that though. But I, I would say that that election accelerated it where I have. Very little tolerance for, not politics in general, but political arguments, debates, and I'm not talking about good intellectual, robust debates. Not like that. I'm talking about the shit you see on cable, right? Talking heads, shouting at each other. I used to eat that stuff up and now I cannot stand it. And there's a term for this, it's called political burnout. And so I'm glad I'm not alone in this because there was a while where I was wondering what the fuck is wrong with me? Like I, I teach government, you know, uh, aren't I supposed to be all into this? And I do still pay attention to the news. I, I pay attention to what's going on. I don't watch cable news ever. Uh, but I do get my news in the morning. Uh, so where are you on all that? Do you. Consume a lot of news,

Chris:

not as much as I did. I am, and I, I'm careful with this because I know this is a, a criticism of a lot of other people is I, I will get news in headlines, but I, mm-hmm. But I pay attention to the headline to make sure that the headline is indicative of what the story actually is. Yeah, so even if I'm not reading the entire story, it is the headline. I mean, true, I guess as opposed to clickbait, really. Yeah. So from that standpoint, there are probably few things that I really delve into the detail of. And I think, um, I've, I've hit different time periods. I feel like the election of 2016, I was kind of deep into things at the time, but, but I got burned out with it. Mm-hmm. And I feel like, like during, well, I don't know if that's fair. During Trump's presidency, I did pay attention to a fair amount of things, but, but kind of the. The, the, the biggest highlights where I really started paying attention again was Covid. I was all over the news with Covid. Mm-hmm. Like paying attention to everything going on and who's saying what and, and what happened today versus yesterday kind of stuff for, for probably the first couple of months as, as we were deep into it. Mm-hmm. And then it was all I could take, like, okay, I can't do this anymore. Then I, then I got back into it, um, with the presidential election again for 2020, and then I've kind of fallen back out. But I, I pay it. I mean, I'm like, you, I get my news and I pay attention to what's going on, but there's only so much of the detail that I can take, and I try to pay attention to these bigger things. And I'm not using Bud Light as, as an example either because. It's a big thing in terms of money and kind of what it represents. And I think that's just it. You know, we pick out stories to talk about on here, but I'm, I'm not only interested in the kind of the shock value of what, what the story is, but like what's the deeper part of it? And in this particular case, the deeper part of the Bud Light is what we've already touched on. It's. Who's getting upset and why, and is that even right or fair to be upset about those things? Should this be a political issue at all? Yeah, and I think that's kinda where you and I both are is we are actually still interested in political issues that are political issues. Yes. Yeah. We are not interested in all this shit that doesn't belong in that

Jeff:

category. That's a good point. And I, I was. Yeah, to, to build on what I said earlier with the Bud Light stuff is why do people use their energy over this type of stuff? But it's people getting upset, offended, whatever term you want to use over stuff that they shouldn't even get upset over. And it dominates the conversation when it shouldn't. So when people get upset that Starbucks has happy holidays on their cups, and they say Happy holidays and not Merry Christmas. You have people getting angry over that. It makes its way onto Fox News War on Christmas, whatever. That's what we end up talking about. We don't end up talking about stuff that actually matters in people's lives. It's this trivial shit that you're right, is not even political to begin with. So I looked into this political burnout. As I said, I was glad it had a term'cause it lets me know that I'm not alone, but. I found an opinion piece, and I'll post this in the, in the episode notes. Uh, there's a political strategist who's quoted, uh, she's a political strategist and lobbyist, Diana Banister. She said, political burnout happens for four reasons, and reading this makes a ton of sense to me. Widespread uneasiness with the government. That's the first thing she lists. So yeah, you look at people's opinion of government. Do they trust government? Right. And I show my students this, but during the, uh, since they've been doing these surveys and since the Eisenhower years, and it might've gone back a little bit before that people trusted the government, like, like 70 something, 80 something percent of people said they trusted the government, the federal government to do what's right. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, uh, you had Vietnam. So, you know, we find out, you know, in the late sixties that that government leaders were lying to the American people about the progress in Vietnam. So once people found that out, that trust starts to erode. And then you had Watergate right after, right after that and trust roads even more. And it's never really recovered. So people are just, you know that, that general feeling about government, which I. That can be a very dangerous thing, but I guess that's a topic for another day. So that's one. Here's another one. This is a huge problem. Media becoming more sensationalized and polarized. Yeah, it's a huge problem. People going to their own corners of the world and consuming the media in this echo chamber, and conservatives and liberals are guilty of it, and you're not even. Communicating with the other side. Right. And it's gotten to such a point now where we can't even agree, agree on what the facts of something are. You know exactly. Back when Walter Cronkite was giving people the news, you could at least agree on what the facts of something were and, and whether something was a problem or not. And now we, we can't even get that far with it. We have to argue about what's true and what's not. Yep. Drives me crazy.

Chris:

That's frightening, is what it is. Yeah. Is when you, when you can't even find that foundation. Like, yeah. Yep. Well let's all agree that that X is true. Now let's have opinions beyond that. But if you can't agree that X is true, where you can't

Jeff:

start from anywhere. Right. Uh, so two more things she lists here. Uh, frustration with the political process. Yep. Yeah. Uh, we've mentioned money, uh, in politics in a previous episode, probably more than one, but that's a massive problem. The goddamn electoral college is another issue that's so antiquated and stupid. So yeah, people feel just a general frustration with the whole process here. And then finally disillusionment with politicians. So look at some of the absolute idiots, and that's putting it nicely. Yeah. That we have in positions of power. Just stupid people. How did you ever get this far? How do you even put your pants on in the morning and you're here in a position of power? And I mean, I was disillusionment with Trump. I mean, I never had any illusions for Trump. He's, he's an idiot. Uh, we learned how big of an idiot when he actually, you know, started running for president. But when's the last time? Can you think of a time when you were really enthralled with a politician? Like they made you excited about what they were saying? Wow, that's a good question. Because I haven't had anybody like that in a while. Obama's probably the last one. Uh, I would say the last one where, uh, he actually, I felt like he actually had a shot at winning and could make a difference in things. There have been some sense that got me excited about some stuff they were saying, but I didn't. Didn't think they ultimately had a shot. So you kinda become disillusioned with that. Bernie Sanders is a good example. Like I, I, I like a lot of what Bernie Sanders says. I don't agree with everything he says, but I don't agree with everything that every politician says that I like. But, uh, you know, somebody that actually had a legitimate chance. Yeah, I was gonna

Chris:

say he's never gonna make it. I, I could say, yeah, Obama's a good example. Uh, there were definitely times where I felt that way about Obama. Not, not the whole time, but yeah, I did. Mm-hmm. Maybe a little bit about Bush before him, but it depended on what he was talking about. There were so many times that he just seemed kind of, I think he's a nice guy. I, I think he can be a nice guy more personally. Yeah. But, He just comes off kind of buffoonish. Oh, no doubt. And I, I loved what David Letterman used to do with him. You know, these great moments in presidential history. Forgot about those. He would play these, you know, awesome quotes from a former president and then he would do something with Bush. It's

Jeff:

hilarious. That's right. That was a great bit. I love that.

Chris:

Yeah. I'll tell you, Clinton had a good presence. Yeah. Clinton, Clinton had a really good presence and, and he was amazing. And, and this is true with Obama too, how both of them could speak, uh, extemporaneously. You know, they don't have to go off of the teleprompter and they could say the right things and really, Evoke the emotion from the crowd that they wanted. Yeah. They, they were both really

Jeff:

good at that. People, uh, people said when Clinton would speak, he, he would make you feel like you were the only person in the room. Mm.

Chris:

I could see

Jeff:

that I'll, uh, I used to show some old campaign commercials to my students. I haven't done that in a while, but there's one, and if I can dig this up, I'll post this. In the episode notes, I'll post the link to it, but it's, uh, it's 1992, so it's Clinton versus, uh, h w Bush, who was the president, and then Ross Barot, he had enough support. So where he was in the, in the debate, and it's a town hall style forum. Mm-hmm. So that's right up Clinton's alley. Right. Like, you know, he's gonna get close to the people and this woman. Gets up and asks Bush a question, something about the economy, and I don't remember what else it is. And he made the mistake first of looking at his watch when she was asking the question, which is a major faux pa. Wow. Wow. Yeah. It's like, holy hell, how long do I have to listen to this? So that was bad. But he gets the question and he, he fumbles it like he's just not. He was kind of like his son, George W. Bush, not the best speaker, although HW was a better speaker, but not, not eloquent all the time. And he kind of fumbles around with the response. Uh, but then Clinton gets to question and he walks right up to the woman and starts talking to her on a personal level and he just knocks it outta the park. And it's just such a contrast there. But yeah, you're right. Clinton had that. That presence, uh, that could, you know, get people excited about politics and yeah, I just don't see that much now. I mean, I suppose somebody could come along, but it's like Joe Biden, I, you know, I agree with what a lot of Joe Biden says and, and his policies and what he is for and all that, but he doesn't, can you honestly say that he gets you excited about politics? No. No, no. Not at, not at all.

Chris:

This is really going back a ways. Someone who did, and I, I was, I was too young to experience this a lot for myself, but clearly he did for the country is Reagan. Oh,

Jeff:

definitely.

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. Plenty to be said about his policies and politics, but nevermind any of that, what he said and the way he said it. Holy shit. Yeah. He'd get people excited. And, and look at the election results. And that's know, that tells you right there. I mean, I wish, that's what I wish, I wish that we could have, I don't know if you could have a reaganesque type persona publicly. That could also have the personal touch of, say, Clinton at the same time. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that, maybe you could, I don't know if that would happen, but in any case, I feel like we need a presidential president, as in that person who can excite people about things, really get them on the same page, riled up in a good way. All of that, but have. The decent policies behind it. Yep. And Clinton was a good one for that. Obama was a good one for that. We've, we've been hit and miss in between all of that. So Texas is in the news again. Big surprise. Uh oh yeah. And yeah, see, you can already tell. Well, it can't be positive,

Jeff:

right? No, it can't.

Chris:

So they're getting sued by the D O J because, uh, Texas answer to the perceived immigration issues. Is they're gonna put a barrier in the Rio Grande River to keep people from crossing the river, and D O J is now suing them for the very first thing I thought of. The D O J suing them is kind of like, okay, well the state has taken it on. To control immigration into the country. Mm-hmm. Which should be a federal issue and not a state issue. Right. And apparently that's at least part of it. Then I think you can't, you had something else also as to why they were suing them.

Jeff:

Yeah, so you're right. It basically boils down to federal government versus what states are allowed to do when it comes to immigration laws. The Supreme Courts ruled on this before in actually several different cases, and reiterated that the federal government, it is under the purview of the federal government when it comes to immigration matters. So what states are allowed to do is pretty limited. And so what was this that, that Greg Abbott started, it was a, uh, like it was like some kind of floating thing in the middle of the river. Right,

Chris:

right. Yeah, it's something floating in the river, but, but some type of barrier. I don't, yeah, I saw a picture that I wasn't sure what I was seeing, if it was like barbed wire on it. Also, it's like some kind of fencing material out in the river. I'm not sure.

Jeff:

But okay, so this article here says, um, The Department of Justices lawsuit, uh, aims to remove the buoys. Those aren't buoys. Uh, remove the buoys and razor wire. Holy hell, there's razor wire on them. It argues that Texas installed the barrier without permission from the federal government, which is charged with administering the nation's immigration laws. Okay, there you go. And the states cannot obstruct navigable waterways without congressional authorization. Something Texas did not have its lawsuit demands that Greg Abbott remove the barrier and any other structures or obstructions in the Rio Grande. Associate Attorney General Venita Gupta said in a statement that the barrier quote poses threats to navigation and public safety and presents humanitarian concerns. It just from that, it sounds like the federal government has a pretty strong argument, but it does. Who the fuck knows? I mean, I could see this going up to the Supreme Court and they're so conservative now, and they obviously don't have a lot of respect for precedent, so, If they could just go back and say, Texas has a right to do it. I don't know.

Chris:

Well, that would open up all kinds of issues to every other state that borders any waterway.

Jeff:

It sure would. If you're a state and you can keep people from coming from another country, then what's to say? You can't keep somebody from coming from an adjacent state. Yep. So, yeah, here we go. Right?

You

Chris:

could absolutely see that. Uh, yep, for sure. That that's gonna be a mess. What caught something else that caught my attention was, uh, when the, the lawsuit was filed, Greg Abbott, and of course who knows if it's really him doing it or his people, but it doesn't matter. It's the messaging coming from him. Says, we'll see you in court, Mr. President. And I'm thinking, does he realize that this is not Biden suing him? Like there's this Right. You know, there has and, and just look. Okay. Let's talk about the prior administration with Trump. It was like the D O J reported to him. Mm-hmm. And I think there's too much confusion over that is. Thinking that, I mean, yes, the president appoints the attorney general, but they're not beholden to the president.

Jeff:

Exactly, and it's, uh, yeah, it's confusion, it's lack of knowledge. I, I keep seeing people saying that Biden is going after Trump. Biden is prosecuting Trump. No, he is not. Yeah. That's the Department of Justice under the purview of the Attorney General. Ultimately, and there are assistant attorneys general all throughout the country. They're the ones that handle that stuff. Uh, the, the upper echelon, uh, the executive branch Biden has nothing to do with that, and they bend over backwards to make sure that that stuff does not appear to be political. Yep. Because if people have that perception, then you already have a problem, even if it's not political. And,

Chris:

and that's just it. I think there's too much, uh, misunderstanding around that lack of understanding.

Jeff:

All right, that is another episode. If you like this stuff, then you should absolutely, positively follow us on whatever platform you listen to podcast on. That way, you will get new episodes delivered to you every single Tuesday when they drop. And while you are there, go ahead and rate us. We would be really happy if you would give us five stars. And while you're there, go ahead and type something. Uh, the way a lot of these apps work is if you type something that makes it easier for people to discover the show. So go, go ahead and write something. Doesn't matter what you write. Uh, we would appreciate that. We have a website. It is Subpar Talks dot com. There you can email us. You can leave us a voicemail. If you wanna leave a suggestion for topics we should cover on future episodes, please go ahead and do that as well. We are on social media on Twitter. We are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts, you can do that as well on there. I am at@independentjeff.

Chris:

And I am at Chris Bradford,

Jeff:

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