This is the Babylon Bee weekly news podcast for the week of 3/25/2020. In this episode of The Babylon Bee podcast, editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle discuss the week's big stories like quiverfull families running afoul of social distancing rules, Dems and Republicans debating how much imaginary money to spend stimulating the economy, and Trump taking advantage of Disneyland being empty by going on every ride. Kyle and Ethan talk about stuff that's good and inform the listeners how to chase your hat with a life lesson from GK Chesterton. In the subscriber portion, Kyle and Ethan discuss the news media being so biased that it makes normal people defend Trump who otherwise wouldn't and how Tulsi Gabbard has been absorbed into the Borg collective and forced to support Joe Biden. Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Show Outline Introduction - Ethan is the Samwise to Kyle's Frodo, the government is chasing us to enforce social distancing, and Kyle got to go to a mountain cabin in a winter wonderland. We now have a premium section on the website with exclusive articles and behind-the-scenes takes. One of this week's articles got covered there. You can also preview the Babylon Bee big coffee table book cover there! Stuff That's Good - Kyle and Ethan talk about stuff they are excited about in a new segment where they talk about stuff th at is good. Story 1 - Duggar Family Found In Violation Of Ban On Large Gatherings Story 2 - Investigation Reveals Trump Caused Mass Hysteria So He Could Go On All The Rides At Disneyland With No Lines Story 3 - Dems Worried Stimulus Bill Would Stimulate Economy Democrats under Nancy Pelosi's leadership shut down a bipartisan Senate bill that would ostensibly go to helping the people and companies shut down by the virus and government mandates We discuss a list of all the things both sides are trying to cram into the bill no doubt. Topic of the Week - G.K. Chesterton On Running After Your Hat- How to have a sense of humor amidst tough circumstances and annoyances. Viewing things rightly. The right way to view things -- to find objective truth and meaning in the chaos Having the right perspective amid annoyance and inconvenience This is far from the worst thing to ever happen to humanity Just say, "I'm just chasing my hat" in your daily life! Love Mail/Hate Mail/ Feedback - We are told that we need a calvinist on staff again... Paid-subscriber portion (Starts at 01:07:48) Story 1 - 'Joe Biden Is The Best Choice For Our Nation,' Chants Tulsi Gabbard After DNC Completes Assimilation Process Tulsi Gabbard was anti-establishment until she wasn't. She was anti-war anti-interventionism and now she's telling people to vote for Iraq war supporting Joe Biden. We remember when Ron Paul told everyone to go vote for a third party candidate. Any of them. Story 2 - Trump Says, 'I Don't Want Any Americans To Die', NYT Quotes As 'I... Want... Americans To Die' The latest example of fake news. The New York Times changes its headline three times to make the Democrats look better in the relief bill obstruction. Went from "Democrats Block…" to "Partisan Divide…" Trump press conferences where reporters take him out of context to make the virus response super partisan and political and try to paint him in the worst light. "The virus is a hoax" "Trump is attacking the press." "Trump didn't plan ahead or order supplies in time." "Trump's response is delayed" "Trump disbanded the pandemic response team" "Trump cut funding to the CDC", etc... Trump tweeted out this fact check. WaPo reporter apologized and deleted the tweet which made it sound like Trump was calling the virus a "hoax." Trump was saying two medicines taken together might prove to be of help for those suffering from the virus, but they're still looking into it. NBC/Bloomberg ran a story about how if you take two grams of the substance, it will kill you. That would be like 4X the dosage though. A couple drank aquarium tank cleaner and reporters tried to blame Trump. Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
In a world of fake news, this is news you can trust.
Washing our hands of responsibility while pointing the finger at those other guys.
You're listening to the Babylon B with your hosts, Kyle Mann and Ethan Nicole.
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie, from that land, we come to you now.
And I am Frodo Baggins, and this is my loyal companion, Samwise Gamgee.
I guess I got to read Dune to understand these references.
Sorry, I'm just trying to trigger you.
You read Lord of the Rings.
I read it.
I have said I haven't read the third book still.
Oh, that's right.
That's what it was.
Well, we're not in Mortar, but we are in somewhere similar, which is California.
We do resemble, maybe for Halloween we can dress up as Frodo on the side.
That would be fun.
I'm down.
We might have to shave.
We have to shave our beards, though.
Because I really do, like, if I let my hair grow out and I shave my beard, I look a lot like...
We have the right stature compared with one another.
Weight difference.
Sure.
I mean, you know, you're twice the man that I am.
And Sam really was twice the man that Frodo was.
That's true.
Sometimes, you know, it's being the heavier guy gives you the bigger heart.
Well, that's what I was saying.
Sam Sam's character, you know, he resisted the room.
That's clearly true.
I wasn't making a weight reference.
Yeah.
Sure.
Sure.
But I could talk about Frodo and Sam all day, so we'll move on.
So this is a podcast where you get to hang out behind the scenes with the Babylon B writers, which is something that a ton of people want to do, apparently, for some reason.
That was kind of partly what inspired it.
Like, I don't think me and Kyle ever thought that we were the kind of people that people really want to talk to.
In fact, we're horrible at conversation, I think.
In general, I am.
I'm bad at conversation with people I don't know.
Yeah, but you know, that's why I actually think that's why I take well the podcasting because I like knowing ahead of time what we're going to talk about.
I like talking about things that we're, I feel like we're really trying to get to the bottom of when it's just like talking.
So if you were meeting someone.
I'm so quiet.
And so like, I just don't, I got nothing.
If you were meeting someone new for the first time, you were like, see, do you want to arrange topics of conversation ahead of time?
Yeah.
And like distribute notes or here's some topics I have some thoughts on.
Perfect.
Like, yeah, if we could just, if everybody I meet, the first thing we talk about is like, hey, do you believe in God?
Let's talk about that.
There you go.
Yeah.
Right now we're outlaws.
Are we?
Oh, yeah, we are.
We are quarantined shelter in place order by order of Governor Newsom.
Yeah, technically we are not.
We're supposed to be hiding in our house right now.
I think this is an essential business, though.
Yeah, people need to laugh.
Essential for me because it puts food on my table.
It was bizarre.
It's also that essential.
And making most of them essential.
Yeah, it's like, it's essential to me if it pays my bills, right?
Yeah.
So I don't know.
This whole thing's kind of crazy.
But I actually, the day that they ordered the shelter-in-place thing, I took off and went to a cabin in the woods.
So you're super whatever.
So we were worried about it.
Does that count as a cure?
Because I assume your cabin counts as your home, a different home of yours.
So it's not really that remote.
It's my parents' cabin, so it's kind of like...
It's really weird.
And I rehearsed.
I'm like, okay, if they pull us over, this is what we do.
You know, and we didn't know when he gave this order how enforced is this going to be.
Yeah, how do you enforce it?
Roadblocks with cartel.
Maybe it turns to that eventually.
I don't know.
It's kind of scary, but basically, what are they going to do?
I mean.
Yeah, like I think my wife was at the store.
It was packed that day.
I think a bunch of people was packed because everyone assumed enforcement's not out and about yet.
We better go stock up.
Yeah.
And I went to Home Depot and it was like loaded with people.
Yeah.
Everybody's doing home projects, which is what I did, and that's why my back hurts, and I'm tired, and I got pain in my hands.
Yeah, my wife started painting the walls as soon as we all got locked in.
So, your wife just starts painting, and you're not involved.
She just does things, yes.
Wow.
But eventually, I will have to be involved.
Okay.
At some point, she won't finish it, and then it'll be okay.
I'm like, are we going to finish this?
And then I'll have to go.
I'm bad at finishing things.
Our wives are different.
My wife could not stand a thing not being finished.
Every day that it's not done, it's a deeper chasm between us.
Although I think your wife, you said your wife started to take this whole thing seriously.
Like, I don't know, a day or two ago.
She started to get freaked out by it or something.
She's been way more serious about it than I have because she's in the medical community.
She's a nurse, and she's watching, she's hearing all kind of the warnings coming out, how it could affect her.
They're talking about, you know, if the military has to put together, you know, additional medical facilities, forcing nurses to come out of retirement to work, just all the contingencies that could come up in a real medical emergency.
The shortage of the masks, you know, is one thing, which is a little freaky.
And they're basically saying, like, if you work for us, you have to treat patients even if you don't have protective gear or whatever.
You know, my wife's type 1 diabetic, so that even makes everything a little scarier because she's, you know, everything messes with your insulin levels when you're type 1 diabetic.
So any irregularity in your life, she's struggling with that.
Wow.
So, I don't know.
I mean, that's just, and those are just realities that are in my life right now.
So it's, it's just interesting that it's hitting us like that.
And right now it's just all kind of, it could happen.
You know, I know that her, where she's working in the hospital is going to be closing down soon.
So she could be getting called into other where they're focusing.
They just got their first actual confirmed case of coronavirus in the hospital yesterday.
So it's here.
It's here.
Yeah, I was just going to say because my wife, it was similar where just, you know, she was fine.
She wanted to go out.
And then I think it was yesterday.
She's like, this is serious.
We're staying home.
You know, it was like that day.
It hit her.
Yeah.
So I think as you see more and more things shut down, you see the streets empty, you see all that stuff, you start to realize taking this thing seriously.
I feel like I'm like opposite.
I'm like, I really want to get around and do as much as I can because I feel bad for it.
I just, I feel like we can't survive too long to shut down like this.
And that's what I think.
I think two, three weeks from now, three, four weeks from now, maybe, you know, even if it's like government's still telling everybody to stay home for another month or two, people have to run their revolution where we all go out and buy pizza and video games.
Well, I don't know about revolution, but I definitely think there's going to be civil disobedience, right?
Where people just go, I'm going to open my business because, you know, and what's like, what are they going to do?
Shut down every business?
You know, I don't know.
So who knows?
We'll see.
We got a great show for everybody today.
Yes, we do.
Because did we talk about everything we're going to talk about in the intro?
I'm lost here.
Yeah.
We got into the coronavirus.
Your conversation is completely planned out and structured for us.
Okay, perfect.
You don't need to worry.
Scared.
We did want to mention for our subscribers that we have a new feature coming out.
We are introducing premium articles where we do a little behind the scenes, a little previews of things that are coming up.
And we're also adding comments to those.
Yeah, you'd be able to comment on that.
I think the comments are coming out for all articles, if I'm right.
And they should be up by the time this podcast comes out.
So if you're a subscriber, you'll get access to an exclusive comment section.
Yeah, exclusive comments and exclusive behind-the-scenes blog posts.
So we'll be adding more stuff.
There's a few things up now.
And if the comment section is a complete and total disaster, I reserve the right to turn it back off.
Yeah, he'll shut it right off.
So it'd be nice.
We assume they will be.
They paid for it.
Find that I've been on a couple of forums in my life, like video game forums where you actually pay for them.
You know, you pay five bucks a month or ten bucks a year, like not even much.
And even just that little threshold of like, I am paying to be here makes the forum so much better than public.
That's why e-harmony works well because it's expensive.
Oh, is that what it is?
That makes sense.
You get down there to find your soulmate.
You can only marry rich people that can afford e-harmony.
All right.
Well, on this podcast, we cover the stories of the week and then we discuss a topic.
And we also have hate mail, and it's glorious.
Glorious, usually.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
But now, this week's edition of Stuff That's Good.
Well, yeah.
What was that?
We have a new thing we're doing.
What was that?
We have a new segment, and it's called Stuff That's Good.
Yeah.
And it's where we talk about.
I'm just going to quickly recommend something that we like.
Me, Dan, and Ethan sat down and brainstormed for two hours yesterday what we should call this segment.
And we came up with stuff that's good.
Many, many, many circles who try to go all religious with it.
Finally.
We just landed on that.
And just to be clear, this is not, we're not making like you know, Christian.
This is stuff that will enrich your walk with Jesus and is the thing.
Yeah, this is like we know that God loves us and wants us to be happy because he gave us this cool thing to play with.
Okay.
Whether it's a book, movie, video game.
Yeah, but it's not the gospelized recommendation.
This is not the gospelized version thing.
Redeeming things for the gospel or anything.
So I think of it as like a, we're each choosing to give a free ad to something.
For the best kind because we're advertising without being paid.
So it just means it's just good.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
And pay no attention to the car that the company gives us when we advertise the problem.
Now, this is entirely of our own volition.
So the thing that I want to plug this week is a new video game called Doom Eternal.
Sounds satanic.
Well, yes.
That sounds like Satan's actual plan.
And I've been very excited for this.
I was excited for two video games this year: Doom Eternal and Half-Life Alex.
And they both came out this weekend.
Half-Life Alex?
Yes.
Is that his name?
So Half-Life is the video game series.
Okay.
Alex is a character in the game.
Okay.
And this is her story.
It's a girl.
Yeah.
A-L-Y-X.
This is her.
If you put the Y in Alex, that means it's a woman.
I've met women Alexes with an E.
Okay.
Well, I don't know.
It's short for Alexandria.
So anyway, I'm not talking about that game, though.
I'm talking about Doom Eternal.
And I'll just, you know, warn for the homeschoolers and the Christian families.
It's very violent.
Very, very violent.
But I think.
Do you think people die?
No, it's basically just demons.
And so that's what I never really liked the games that are super violent with humans.
And it's like you're shooting people in the head.
I'm almost more bugged by like war games where you're playing an actual war out and you're actually shooting.
And I'm like, these are like you're playing an actual war that actually happened.
Like people actually died in this war.
This is a person's life.
And I'm supposed to be getting entertainment value out of shit.
Yeah, that's really weird.
So I actually like it more when it's way over the top violence against aliens or something.
So I will warn that there's that element.
And obviously it's like demonic, but it's the fake Hollywoodized version of demons.
It's demonic, but whatever.
It's just, yeah.
It's basically like supernatural that TV show in terms of their demonology.
Okay.
Yeah, but you're killing the demons.
You're not the demons.
And you're killing them with shotguns.
So it's wonderful.
Anyway, it's a great game.
And if you, you know, PC game, it's obviously best on PC, but, you know, other systems also.
It's a great game.
So I recommend it highly.
All right.
That's what I've been enjoying this weekend.
So, I mean, this is like a, I almost feel like I should reconnect something better, but this is a guilty pleasure.
But I watched the new series, The Tiger King, on Netflix.
I saw that pop up yesterday.
It's insane.
I finished it.
It's like a documentary, right?
It's a documentary about these guys that are kind of competing tiger raisers.
They raise hundreds of tigers, if not thousands.
One of them had at least over a thousand animals.
They all have these independent zoos.
But there's like this feud within them.
Like there's the one woman who claims she's the one who's saving the tigers, but she has pretty much the same kind of facility as the rest of them.
And she's trying to get the other one shut down.
And there's this guy named Joe Exotic who's got a crazy mullet.
And he's this weird gay guy, like he's really flashy and strange.
And he tries running for president.
But it's a bizarre.
There's a weird cult-like thing going on with all of them.
One of these guys has got like many wives or multiple wives.
And there's this weird world of these very strange people.
And so, full warning, this is an adult program.
So have your filter on for that.
But if you like shows about very interesting, bizarre characters, the Tiger King.
I think it's like seven or eight episodes or something.
Yeah, one of those limited series things that they're doing.
But it is entertaining.
Awesome.
Yeah.
All right.
Is that it?
We did it.
Stuff we like.
Stuff that's good.
Stuff.
Yeah, we kept changing stuff we like.
Stuff that's good.
Stuff that's good.
That's what we're doing.
That is.
This has been stuff that is good.
Yeah, we need a soundbite for that.
This has been stuff.
That's good.
Perfect.
This has been stuff that's good.
All right.
It's time to move on to stories of the week.
Every week, there are stories.
These are some of them.
Duggar family found in violation of ban on large gatherings.
How big is the Duggar family?
You know, I guess I should have looked it up before we did this news show, huh?
They have the way.
Well, the show's called 19 Kids and Counting, but I mean, but they kept changing the name, and now they're called Counting On, I think, because they just gave up counting.
Now the show's just called.
Etc.
You know, not quite sure how many kids and counting.
They've got to have kids all over the house they totally forgot about.
Yeah.
Okay, so I have four kids, and the last thing I would want in that house on top of four kids is a camera crew.
That is weird.
I don't know how they did it.
Like, that instantly makes me doubt the sanity of these people.
Because to make a show like this, usually, unless you're already known, like, it doesn't happen that they come to your door and they're like, we will pay you this ungodly amount of money to come into your home.
You know, the payoff isn't immediate usually.
Usually, it's like, you know, you come with the show together.
It's like, oh, this would be great for a show.
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's make the come up with a pilot all this stuff.
And there's a lot of sacrifice in the beginning.
So I'm curious.
Like, you have a family of this many people and you bring cameras in and you're like, don't even know if it's going to work out.
I just can't imagine doing that with my family.
So I'm very dubious about these shows where they turn their family into a TV show.
Yeah.
I judge them hard.
They're going to hell.
Brutal.
Yeah, it's let me dial that back.
I judge them.
I think they're like quiverful is the movement where you're supposed to have as many kids as possible.
Yeah.
I don't even have a quiver, so I don't know where to put them all.
I assume a quiver is like a you put arrows into it.
Yes, that's what a quiver is.
But yeah, you know, so obviously they don't do like, yeah, they don't block the thing that would let kids happen.
Yeah.
Whatever.
And she's like, what's that?
Yeah, I don't know.
So she's those, I don't know, that was a homeschool description.
But she blocked the thing.
But she that sounds interesting.
I think she's like pregnant again, too, the mom, or she just had another baby or something.
Like the matriarch one?
Yeah.
Like the old one?
Yeah.
Like she's got to be a grandma, right?
That'd be Michelle Duggar.
Sorry, yeah, I don't know their names.
My wife watched it some.
It's Jim Bob and Michelle.
Oh, yeah, Jim Bob.
Which is just a great name.
Yeah.
And yeah, my wife follows them all on Instagram and Twitter.
She knows all their.
Oh, we got a shout out, too.
I think Anna Duggar retweeted our article.
She shared our article.
She shared our article, which was great.
So because obviously we're supposed to be grouping in what, less than four or something?
Yeah, I don't know.
It depends on where, right?
Because some people said CDC ended up saying 10, I think.
I'm like, some families are bigger than that.
Yeah.
The weird thing is I'm hanging out with you guys.
I'm less in violation than I am with my family.
So why isn't it better?
Why isn't it even more legal right now than it is if I'm at home?
More exactly.
Right?
Yeah.
Right.
So what are some other reality TV shows you've gotten into in the past?
I don't get into my wife.
I only watch them to spend, because otherwise me and my wife would not get hardly any time together on our busy, unbusy days, you know.
I feel like so many of them are like watching a train wreck.
It's like that kind of pleasure.
Yeah.
You know, you just like watch somebody else's life.
So you get pleasure from watching trains crash.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like YouTube compilation of the music.
Dying according to blood.
Right, but it's like a sick.
It's like one of those can't look away.
Pleasure.
Yeah, it's very pleasurable.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of get the sick fascination.
I'm just giving you hoarders.
I'm picking on you.
Yeah, I know my wife loves hoarders.
I don't, you know, I never got into it, but I've watched a few episodes, and you get that can't look away element there.
It's the exact, and it's the exact same episode every episode.
Like they have a paint by numbers, so they just fill in all the, you know, they have a conflict moment, they have a come to Jesus moment.
Yeah.
You know, they have, they got to get a big fight between them and a family member at some point.
And I expect all that is like 100% staged.
Yeah, or at least to some extent.
Yeah.
Or they're poking up.
And they just know that they need to fill each of these plot points in the episode.
And they know when they have an episode.
Right.
Which is, I mean, that's like when I wrote Act Cop, I knew I needed to get certain plot points out of Malachi before I had a story.
So I had to just get him to play in that direction.
So I think it works the same way.
We're dealing with people that have the minds, these minds of probably like five-year-olds, some of them.
And you're just prodding them around and poking them and prodding them and getting different things thrown into their life.
like um this is getting a little boring we should call the because i'm there's certain episodes where like the uh human services like show up like the government shows up to shut him down You know, they called them.
Like, the show called them.
Oh, absolutely.
Because of the amount of drama that would add.
Yeah.
Like, well, better turn this guy in.
Yeah, or the hoarder isn't getting all riled up.
Yeah.
And then they're like, well, why don't you throw away some of her china or something?
Yeah, they got to find the item.
And then they go up to her.
Hey, your China just got thrown away.
That's my big teddy bear.
Doesn't that upset you?
Yeah.
But yeah, you know, so I'm not a huge reality TV guy.
I don't like how it's all scripted and very fake.
Yeah, it feels so fake.
My wife likes 90-day fiancé.
You ever seen that one?
No, what's the deal?
It's like people that like they get engaged to somebody, like they meet him online.
So they meet in person for the first time and the show follows them the whole time.
And they have 90 days to decide if they're going to get married because of the whole and which country they're going to move to.
So these people are like, they found a person online.
In 90 days, they're going to decide if they're going to leave their family and their culture and everything behind, move to a different country and get married.
And they're doing the whole thing on a reality TV show.
So sad.
Why?
What a horrible way to start your marriage off.
That's crazy.
And it is mostly the train wreck you would imagine.
Yeah.
Some of them do seem to have stayed together.
My wife, you know, they but uh is there some like legally binding thing that they have to stay with this person if they agree on the show.
No, because there's ones where it's obvious.
That's one part of the drama people like about it because like you'll have like the hideous, obese white woman and this like sexy black guy from Jamaica is like shacking up with her.
And everybody in the family is like, he's just trying to get here so that he can live in America.
He's going to divorce you soon you marry him.
Hmm.
Drama.
Because that's what always bugs me is when you know that they present this false choice because it has to have that game show like feeling at the end where they decided on this.
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
You know, they do that on the on those like house hunter shows where they'll say, here are the three homes you are looking at.
Which one will you pick?
You know, they kind of frame one in each way.
But I've actually heard that like when that show's filmed, they've already bought their house.
Oh, really?
They're already living in it.
And then they just go to like random friends' houses.
Oh, wow.
Clear them out and like walk through them and act like they're home shopping.
I do not understand.
Those are the shows I understand the least.
My wife watches a ton of them.
Like reality TV sounds like a great concept.
Like you follow someone around and see what they're, but it just ends up being you have to have drama and narrative.
So it still ends up being faker than a scripted show in some ways.
All right.
Well, that's the Duggars.
And sorry that the Duggars got arrested or whatever.
They did?
Well, it's the one guy, right?
No, no, no.
Just you know, in the story.
Yeah, not in the reality.
No, in our article, which is real.
Said Tyler.
And not said tired.
Yeah.
Investigation reveals Trump caused mass hysteria.
So he could go on all the rides at Disneyland with no lines.
Wee!
That's the sound of it.
Is that Trump?
Whee!
Why?
That's my best Trump being on a riot impression.
One of our writers pitched this like two weeks ago, and I never didn't do anything with it.
And then it just like popped into my head, and I was like, What that idea?
But the Holy Spirit reminded you.
I just had this image of Trump going on the Matterhorn, like, and it worked out.
So I think you photoshopped him on the teacups.
Yeah, I went on the teacups.
And it was nice because there were pictures of the tea, like Disneyland rides totally empty because they were from check out Disneyland with nobody in the rides.
It's crazy because of the virus.
Yeah.
Well, that's very sad for me, Disneyland being closed.
Yeah.
That was our escape.
You know, me and my wife and take our kids once a week or whatever.
Only once a week.
Maybe twice.
Sometimes.
Yeah.
I haven't noticed.
It has not affected me.
That was our place to hang out.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
I was just thinking about it that three weeks ago.
I was at a board game convention that had 1,500 people.
Two weeks ago, I was at Disneyland.
You know, one week ago, I was taking my family out to dinner.
And now it's like just everything is dead and stuff.
How fast it happened is insane to me.
Yeah, I guess I haven't noticed as much because I haven't done any of that stuff.
Just been at home.
The only thing I did do is I went to that Norm McDonald's stand-up comedy show.
All right, which would be canceled now, right?
It is because I did.
I signed up for a second one because I loved it.
And I wanted to go again.
And it got canceled or postponed.
And that one got canceled.
Yeah.
And yeah.
I coughed a lot of that show.
I felt really bad.
Did he start doing that or something?
He's like pure coronavirus jokes, and I'm back there.
Oh, yeah, and you might have had the coronavirus.
I don't know.
Now that's what we're all wondering, right?
You were hacking for a few weeks.
We all had this sickness that went through.
I don't know if you got it.
Dan got it.
Maybe very mildly.
Everybody in my family got it.
And it was pretty close to the coronavirus.
Nobody got a sore throat or fever, but I definitely had the like when I was breathing, it was like really, really chunky.
Chunky.
Chunky.
It's like an advertisement for coronavirus.
Yeah.
Coronavirus.
Now with real meat chunks.
Breathing chunky.
100% genuine phlegm.
Do you want creamy or chunky?
Yeah, I don't know.
And the sad thing about me for that Norm McDonald show is that like two days later, he sent me a message and said that he wanted to actually meet me.
Because I had messaged him before I went and told him I.
And he never has answered a message from me ever.
So his inbox is just like 100 messages.
I assume.
Well, yeah, I have like, there's like three or four I've sent him.
You know, the first one was just, thanks for following me.
I can't believe you follow me.
Another one was like, if you ever want to come on the Babylon Bee podcast, you know, maybe you're promoting a new book or something.
Let me know.
I think that was, I just had those that never even had the little check mark that showed he'd seen them.
So I had given up hope.
And then I sent one when I was going to go to the show.
I said, hey, I'm going to be at this show just so you know.
Two or three days after the show, I get the message from him saying, oh, did you go?
I would have loved to meet you.
Yeah.
So I signed up for another one.
Really desperate sounding.
You can just Google his address.
I actually did sign up.
I had signed up for the other show before he said that.
Because me and Kira, Kira Davis, who's been on this show, kept sending me all these tips about Norm McDonald.
Like, if he has two shows, go to the first one.
No, go to the second one.
She's a huge fan.
So after we kept talking about him and stuff, I was like, we should go together.
We should all do like a double date.
So we were going to do it, and then the coronavirus ruined it.
Curse you, coronavirus.
Yeah.
We were okay with you closing Disneyland.
We were okay with you checking out the economy.
But the Norm McDonald show.
The Norm McDonald double date.
That ruined.
Too far.
Too far.
Too far, coronavirus.
All right.
Let's see what our next story is here.
Democrats worried stimulus bill would stimulate economy.
That is concerning.
Complete and total disaster.
I don't know much about the stimulus bill thing.
Yeah, I tried looking at a I guess there's slush funds.
The story that was going around yesterday was all of the writers and such that Democrats were attaching all these other proposals that they had tried to get through and fail.
And they were attaching them all to the stimulus bill.
So it's things like conservatives.
We need to make sure that there are enough minority-owned banks and solar panels and solar panels, and we have to put more restrictions on airline fuel.
Yeah.
Like in the stimulus package.
Like, what is that doing there?
Yeah.
It's very similar to like when they announced the Green New Deal.
And it's like, we want to combat climate change.
And to combat climate change, it just so happens that all of our wish list and all of our economic plans have to be attached to that.
It's climate change.
I have seen some of the complaints from the left are that a lot of the stimulus stuff benefits the rich or the corporations.
The corporations and the businesses more than the workers.
But I assume when they say that, what they really mean by that is it's like they have to incorporate all of our regulation stuff because in their mind, they're benefiting those workers.
With the regulatory.
That's like always like anything, anything they do, they have like their, you know, if you don't get on board of how we're fighting racism, then you're racist.
It's like, no, we just think that you're really screwing it up worse.
Yeah.
If you don't agree with our very specificness.
Yeah.
And that's how I feel is the economy all the time.
It's like, I know, no.
I support working people.
I just think that you're screwing it up.
Yeah.
That your ideas are terrible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then the other criticism was the slush thing.
Like they said that there was, what, $500 billion that didn't have much.
Silver can't cost that much.
It's just ice and some flavor, maybe some sugar.
Yeah.
Some flavored syrup and water.
That's slushy.
Yeah, but you know, but slushy in its purest form is slush.
Slushy is just processed slow.
We shouldn't have taken this as far as the stupidest dash.
You started it.
Sometimes there's jokes where you hit it for a second and it's so dumb you jump.
But we just kept it.
Or maybe you just don't hit it.
I probably shouldn't have.
I shouldn't have.
Apologies to the listeners.
Yeah.
So what are some more things that they might have tried to cram into the bill?
Yeah, we have a list here of a lot of things that they did try to cram in.
These are ones they tried to cram in.
Yeah.
So we just rapid fire these.
Reparations for transgender Native Americans impacted by climate change.
Oh, yeah.
Military aid to Antifa.
A clause that says that they can freely kick Trump in the groin without consequence.
Well, just whenever they want.
Walking down the hall, Secret Service just stands there.
Is that the sound effect they get against Trump and Democrats demand provision that Trump will get no credit if the economy is saved?
It'll cover transgender ant surgery.
Funding an all-female remake of the Princess Bride.
That would be.
So what would you call that?
I guess you could still call the Princess Bride.
I guess so.
Yeah, because her bride.
They would come up with some pun in the title or something.
Something.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Whatever.
The cis.
No, I don't know.
Joe Biden insisted that it have a big chunk of funding in there for a bunch of wigs made out of real women's hair.
Just snuck that in there.
He snuck it in at the last second.
Let's see.
Funding for a species reassignment surgery for furries.
Interesting.
So you don't want to be a human.
Could be a fox.
Work that in there, yeah.
They like foxes.
They do like foxes.
Or you could be like, furries never like termites or maggots or.
It's all the fur.
They like the fur.
The fur.
But there's furry bugs.
Right?
I'm pretty sure there are some furries.
There's bugs with a little hairy stuff on them.
There's never furries that are into them.
I had a friend that was a furry that was an elk furry.
Because for where I'm from, like elk are really popular because it's like the Oregon Coast.
It was weird because he's really into elk furry.
So he had these human looking elk drawings.
Anatomically correct.
Anyway, sorry.
For the homeschoolers, furries are.
Yeah.
Just don't.
Your life is so much better if you don't know.
So another thing they tried to sneak into the bill was solar-powered marijuana farms.
Also, there's actually some of the right-wing people tried to sneak some things into.
Oh, the Republicans did.
Yeah, they tried to sneak in an AR-15 for every man, woman, and child.
Both sides tried to put a clause into the bill that the other side would get thrown into a gulag.
But it just cancels each other out.
They had preschool abortion classes.
Wow.
Shameless.
I usually like satire Ethan.
Hey, I didn't write that.
But this time you've gone too far.
All school lunches would be replaced with McDonald's catering.
I think Trump maybe tried to.
That's probably Trump.
Yeah.
Get that in there.
Baptist preacher diabetes research.
Ooh, man.
Who put that in?
I don't know.
Not me.
I don't know either.
It's all that sweet tea is what it is.
Yeah.
Drink like 128-ounce sweet cake every day.
Yeah.
There was a clause in there that Donald Trump has to legally change his name to Drumpf.
Owned.
Every time he says that, he's owned.
Yeah.
Drump.
Drumpf.
Why is Drumpf a worse word than Trump?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Who started?
Wasn't that Stephen Colbert or something?
Somebody started it, but I don't know it was Oliver.
John Oliver.
John Oliver.
That he started, that he's saying as his family changed their name from Drump to Trump.
Yeah.
And then it's like every time they talk about him.
Ah, Drump!
Drumf.
Yeah.
It's just, oh, come on, people.
Let's see.
Oh, they have a constitutional rights trade-in program.
So you can trade it in and get what?
Probably like some money.
Like a happy meal toy or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tax credit.
Worth it.
$50 billion was set aside for a giant gun magnet in space.
I assume that pulls off.
They've been wanting that for a while.
So, yeah, I knew they'd try to sneak that in there.
Any CEOs who receive a bailout will be required to become transgender.
Some strings attached to the strings attached.
Pelosi's blocked the bill until it includes free dentures for seniors.
Gavin Newsom, he snuck in a hair gel on tap in every home initiative.
So I think he thinks that like fancy designer hair gel or promade or whatever is so it's essential.
He's allowed to leave his house to go to the hair gel store.
What's the sound effect of...
I want you to give us a sound effect of Newsom's...
Newsom putting the gel on his hair every morning.
That's exciting.
How's that?
That's exactly what it's saying.
And then he kind of goes, hey, into the mirror.
He does the fawns with the comb.
And then at the last second, Ocasio-Cortez snuck in free Velcro shoes to prevent accidental shoelace stranglings.
Because she is stupid.
Well, you know.
Yeah.
Maybe if they stop playing games with this bill, I could have thousands of dollars sent to my house.
Sad.
Yeah, so I guess if they're ever going to get it figured out, they got to work some of these things out.
They're going to have to just hand some of these things over because there's no time.
Just do it.
It's an emergency.
CEOs are going to have to deal with getting a little transgender surgery if they want to save America.
If they really cared about it, they would do it.
All right, let's move on to our topic of the week.
Let's do it.
And now, the Babylon Bees topic of the week.
All right, we're going to do something a little different this week.
We're going off the reservation a little bit here.
But we all in the office are big fans of GK Chesterton.
And we have one essay from Chesterton that we always go back to in life.
And this one really, we feel like it kind of, not completely, but it fits really well with what's going on in most people's lives.
It's about inconveniences, things going wrong, things not going how you wanted them to.
And it's called On Running After One's Hat.
So we're going to read it, and we're going to do this like an expository sermon.
An expository reading of Chesterton.
It's just like a three-page essay.
We're going to read a bit and then expose it a bit.
Yeah, so we're hoping that the ideas in this essay, not only will be, maybe it'll be the first time you've ever heard Chesterton or, you know, read technology or quote-unquote read, we're reading to you.
But I think our hope is that this will do what it's done for us.
It's a concept from this article or this essay that we carry around.
And it's a useful way to kind of think when, which is what Chesterton does.
Another reason I like this one is it's very G.K. Chesterton.
It's a great introduction to him because it is really about making small things big in a good way, not a bad way.
It's about having the right kind of attitude.
It's very funny.
It is very funny.
Yeah, I'll say just to preface before we start that I did not get Chesterton for many years.
I didn't get it.
Didn't, you know, I was reading C.S. Lewis, who's a very easy read, and then moving to Chesterton, it's like a whole different thing.
It's not, not that it's actually harder to read in terms of his sentences or the structure, but it's actually the way he writes, the way he structures is he writes around the topic.
So he doesn't, you know, say, here's an essay about attitude.
Yeah.
It's about chasing your hat.
And then he writes about that and to get to the point.
He'll start somewhere totally different.
And he often never explicitly states the point.
Yeah.
Sometimes he writes around it, sometimes he does.
And so I feel like Chesterton needs to be read slowly and it's to be savored and it's to be discussed.
I mean, that's really.
Yeah, that's when we get together weekly.
We read Chesterton and we discuss it.
It's so fun to discuss.
And it helps to process.
It also helps to do a little googling on some of the stuff he brings up because almost everything he wrote was contemporary stuff that was published in newspapers.
So he was almost always referring to things going on in his day.
But one thing that made him great is that he spoke in a language of the eternal.
Like he was always thinking just like wisdom is eternal.
It's true, whatever the fashions are of the day, there are things that will always be true.
And Chesterton wrote from that perspective all the time.
He wasn't caught up in the fashions and what was cool at the time.
So that's one reason he's lasted.
I mean, this essay we're reading is from 1908.
So this thing's over 100 years old.
And it's as true today as it was when he wrote it.
All right.
On Running After One's Hat by G.K. Chesterton.
I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in my absence while I am in the mere country.
My own Battersea, that's his hometown.
Hometown.
My own Battersea has been, I understand, particularly favored as a meeting of the waters.
Battersea was already, as I need hardly say, the most beautiful of human localities.
Now that it has the additional splendor of great sheets of water, there must be something quite incomparable in the landscape or waterscape of my own romantic town.
Battersea must be a vision of Venice.
The boat that brought the meat from the butchers must have shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange smoothness of the gondola.
The green grocer who brought cabbages to the corner of the Lachmere Road must have leaned upon the oar with the unearthly grace of the gondolier.
There is nothing so perfectly poetical as an island.
And when a district is flooded, it becomes an archipelago.
So his hometown, he's away from his hometown and he has found out that it's flooded and he's kind of jealous.
Like he wishes he was there to experience it.
Exactly.
And so when we were talking about what to talk about this week, we're like, well, we're in the middle of this pandemic.
Let's do the one where he talks about how his hometown is flooded and this natural disaster.
It's inappropriate.
Yeah, because it's the last thing you would think.
You'd think, oh, it's terrible.
And also, I think his point here isn't to say it's not terrible, but there's another perspective when things are going wrong.
And also that he's, I think, one carve-out on this is that there's nobody dying in this situation.
Yeah, and he's already, and you can already notice how Chesterton is using these poetic descriptions of this flood.
You know, most people say, oh, the flood is 12 feet high, and it has destroyed many homes and businesses.
And his take is, it's transformed my hometown into Venice.
Yeah, into a wonderland.
Yeah, which is taking a childlike view of things, which is really a Chestertonian way of viewing the world.
Totally.
All right, I'll continue.
Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly lacking in reality.
But really, this romantic view of such inconveniences is quite as practical as the other.
The true optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary indignant ratepayer who sees in them an opportunity for grumbling.
Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield, which is, we looked that up, that's where their martyrs were, I think, around like eight or nine hundred martyrs were burned for their heresy.
Protestant Reformation.
The Tudors in England.
Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing.
It can be supported, but scarcely enjoyed.
But after all, our toothaches are the exception.
And as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens to us at the very longest intervals.
And most of the inconveniences that make men swear or women cry are really sentimental or imaginative inconveniences, things altogether of the mind.
For instance, we often hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train.
Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train?
No, for to him, to be inside a railway station is to be inside of a cavern of wonder and a place of poetical pleasures.
Because to him, the red light and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon.
Because to him, when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains.
I myself am of the little boy's habit in this matter.
They also serve who only stand and wait for the 215.
Their meditations may be full of rich and fruitful things.
Many of the most purple hours of my life have been passed at Clapham Junction, which is now, I suppose, underwater.
I have been there in many moods, so fixed and mystical that the water might well have come up to my waist before I noticed it particularly.
But in the case of all such annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the emotional point of view.
You can safely apply the test to almost every one of the things that are currently talked of as the typical nuisance of daily life.
Well, I feel convicted because when I have to wait for things, I am the most impatient, angry person, irritable.
Yeah.
No, yeah, I am too, especially traffic or whatever, you know.
Whenever Chesterton writes about how he's out and about and he's thinking these things, I just get this hilarious image of him.
And we'll see that a couple more times here.
But he's standing in the train station.
The water comes up to his waist.
He doesn't even notice there's a slud until it's up to his waist.
And he's like, well, look at the wonder around us.
The trains.
That's just such a great image.
What would be the way of looking at traffic like that?
We're all riding our metal monsters, tamed metal monsters.
Yeah, that's what's so insane.
Herding through a, where we've turned the land into these, I mean, just thinking about what it takes to create a freeway.
Right.
That man has defeated nature enough to make us a giant path.
And we have tamed.
And we have these tamed metal beasts that we're all grunting behind each other, snorting smoke and blinking their eyes full of light.
Yeah, and just every engine inside is like a little universe of wonder, you know, of every car, and there's thousands of them passing you by.
Yeah, the complexity of each of those machines.
And I'm annoyed.
Yeah.
That's only kind of what this is about this is I mean he's talking about wonder, but he's also talking like we'll get into it We'll get into it For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have to run after one's hat.
Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind?
Not merely because it is running and running exhausts one.
The same people run much faster in games and sports.
The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting little leather ball Than they will after a nice silk hat.
There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat.
And when people say it is humiliating, they mean that it is comic.
It certainly is comic, but man is a very comic creature.
And most of the things he does are comic are comic.
Eating, for instance.
And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most worth doing, such as making love.
A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.
So true.
So that's obviously like where he gets to the part about chasing the hat.
And that's yeah, I think just standing back and seeing that there's so much comedy to our existence.
I've incorporated this phrase into my everyday life.
Yeah.
And my wife has started to say it too, but I'll, you know, I'll be stressed at the computer.
Oh, I can't write any funny articles today.
I got no funny ideas.
And she's like, you know, and she'll say it to me, like, just remember, you're just chasing your hat.
And it's just like, okay.
It gives me that perspective to see how funny it is.
Yeah.
It takes this ability to almost step outside of yourself and look at yourself as if you're in a sitcom or a.
Yeah.
Especially dealing with kids, you know.
Yeah, totally.
And you're just like, this is such a ridiculous situation every day, even the mundane things.
Yeah, trying to get our two-year-old to switch from his crib to a bed has been just, oh man, he will not stay in it.
It's so hard to fall asleep.
So we're pretty much having to just lay right there and watch him until he falls asleep.
And then he wakes up super early and gets out and it wakes us up by, he's found that an effective way to wake us up is to put his two fingers together and just start jabbing our eyeballs.
Wake us up.
That would be effective.
Jabbing our eyes.
And he's also got this thing that is where he tries to get my attention by tapping with his full hand the ends of his fingers, tapping on my Adam's apple super hard.
He's like, dad, damn it.
Stop it.
If I stand back, that is pretty funny.
Yeah, that I'm in the situation where this little creature is like dominating me because he's found my pressure points.
Yeah, it takes an extraordinary perspective and will to do that in that moment.
Because in the moment, it's not funny.
You want to shriek at it.
You want to yell.
All right, I'll continue.
Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, this is still about chasing a hat, run after his hat with the manliest ardor and the most sacred joy.
He might regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal could be wilder.
In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the future.
There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning.
They will be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in such and such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term.
Notice that this employment will be in the fullest degree combined, or wait, will in the fullest degree combine sport with humanitarianism.
The hunters would feel that they were not inflicting pain.
Nay, they would feel that they were inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who were looking on.
When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at the moment giving to the crowd.
This is what I was talking about.
You pictured Chesterton as a big goofball walking around.
I know this guy just chased his hat.
It's all money's all right.
You guys all ticked off running around after Chesterton's like, oh, hey, actually, everybody's laughing.
This is great.
You should be thankful.
But it is if you remove yourself from the situation, think about like, this world needs to laugh.
It needs levity.
Yeah.
And even if you're involuntarily part of that, you're bringing it into that into the world.
It's nice to stand back and go, you know, that had a purpose, too.
Yeah.
I think there's a pride, you know, that when you're too proud and you don't like it.
Yeah, we want to laugh, but we don't want to be part of the job.
Yeah.
The same principle can be applied to every other typical domestic worry.
A gentleman trying to get a fly out of the milk or a piece of cork out of his glass of wine often imagines himself to be irritated.
Let him think for a moment of the patience of anglers sitting by dark pools, and let his soul be immediately irradiated with gratification and repose.
Again, I have known some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and they could not pull it out.
A friend of mine was particularly affected in this way.
Every day his drawer was jammed, and every day in consequence it was something else that rhymes to it.
But I pointed out to him that this sense of wrong was really subjective and relative.
It rested entirely upon the assumption that the drawer could, should, and would come out easily.
But if, I said, you picture to yourself that you are pulling against some powerful and oppressive enemy, the struggle will become merely exciting and not exasperating.
And again, we got a picture of Chesterton here.
This friend is trying to pry open this drawer.
He's screaming cuss words at it.
Obscenity is at it.
Things that rhyme with jam.
And then here's what Chesterton says to him.
Imagine that you are tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea.
Imagine that you are roping up a fellow creature out of an alpine crevice.
You got to say cravase.
Cravase.
Imagine even that you were a boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French and English.
Shortly after saying this, I left him.
But I have no doubt at all that my words bore the best possible fruit.
I have no doubt that every day of his life he hangs on to the handle of that drawer with a flushed face and eyes bright with battle, uttering encouraging shouts to himself and seeming to hear all round him the roar of an applauding ring.
Yes, I have no doubt that that's what happened.
GK I'll just finish it here.
Just take it home.
So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and enjoyed poetically.
Nothing beyond inconvenience seems really to have been caused by them.
An inconvenience, as I have said, is only one aspect, and the most unimaginative and an accidental aspect of a really romantic situation.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
And that is a very famous Chesterton quote, so I'll read it one more time.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must, if anything, have only increased their previous witchery and wonder.
For as the Roman Catholic priest in the story said, wine is good with everything except water.
And on a similar principle, water is good with everything except wine.
Do you get that last line?
That loses me.
We're lost there, GK.
If you had only stopped one longer to say, well, what does the priest mean?
Wine is good with everything except water.
Oh, because it adds flavor to it, right?
It's good with it.
Water just waters it down.
Vonner is good.
I'm guessing.
Except.
No idea.
Send your theories.
I don't know.
Send your theories to podcast at BabylonB.com.
Well, I get the water.
I feel like if I read water is good with everything that says wine, I would think it's the comparing.
It's what your perspective, you know, because if you're drinking water, you're like, this is great.
And then you have a glass of wine, you're like, oh, this is even better.
And then the water isn't good.
But that doesn't make sense with the other, the preceding one.
So I don't know.
I feel like he's making some ironic joke.
If anybody understands the context of this, we went off the rails with confusion at the end there.
Please send it to me.
Which is common in our Chesterton reading.
Yeah, but I like that wrestle.
I like that story.
It's fun to wrestle.
It's fun to wrestle with it.
So, yeah, I mean.
So if you ever heard that famous Chesterton quote, now you know the content.
That's where it came from.
And I do think this applies more to the situation of being stuck at home more than the whole pandemic.
I mean, we're not saying like, oh, it's just light and jolly that there's people dying.
But that there's this inconvenience aspect.
We're all very inconvenienced right now.
And it is amazing to try to have the discipline.
And I'm not saying I'm a master of this at all.
I mean, I am known as a grumpy guy at times in my home.
I hate that about myself, but I do try.
I try to stand back and have that.
It's really hard.
Stand back and have a perspective.
I guess something I like about this too is that it's a little different from the Sunday morning message that would be a little, I don't know what that would be.
It would be like something on hope in the midst of what God is doing.
I like the aspect that this speaks to me as a comedy writer, like to stand back and go, wait, you're a character in a comedy and think about how much joy comedy brings people.
And imagine the world without it.
We all got to be part of it.
It's finding hope and using perspective in the moment, not pointing you to a future, you know, eschatological hope or whatever.
And which is a great thing, obviously.
And that is part of how you deal with this.
And I think that's why you can have this kind of hope because we know that there is true meaning to things.
We know that comedy has eternal value.
We know that joy has eternal value.
We believe these are anchored in objective things and it's not just some, you know, well, we're going to make the most of it just because.
Because I think if you didn't have that grounding in objective truth, you wouldn't be able to maintain this kind of perspective, or at least not consistently.
Very well said, sir.
Thank you.
I wrote that.
I scripted it.
No, I didn't.
Yeah, it's interesting.
And even aside from the coronavirus thing, just more timeless, just at work.
I mean, the frustration you feel because we are living in a fallen world where your work is frustrated by sin and just being unproductive and being lazy.
I think just trying to deal with all that stuff every day and cracking up at all the goofy obstacles to just get something simple done.
It's funny when you step back and think about it.
Yeah, what a great way to defeat something that's, you know, if you can just laugh in a moment that you're grumbling.
You may look a little crazy, but who cares?
And I think Chesterton, I like how he recognizes that this advice is not going to be received well.
Like he has that sarcastic thing, like, I'm sure my friend was very appreciative of what I told him because it's hard and it's not fun for somebody to tell you, your inconvenience is funny.
Yeah.
We're all looking at you laughing.
Yeah.
And it's great.
I have noticed, you know, it is kind of encouraging to see how people are reacting to the virus and the lockdowns in the quarantines.
You do see there's so many memes.
That's true.
Yeah, the memes have been great.
And in comedy, you know, there's just people are retaining our human spirit in the midst of this.
And that's a great gift.
Yeah, you know, actually, this does kind of relate.
I saw Carl Reiner, very old, I think he's comedian, writer, actor.
But he said, for the first time in my life, there's nothing I feel I can joke about.
And if you look at his Twitter feed, it's I don't know if there's something going on in his life that's like he hasn't tweeted about that, I don't know about.
But if you look at his Twitter feed, it's pure Trump.
Like he's just so upset about Trump and all the things going on.
Like he says, I can't joke now.
And humor has been used by people in the worst situations in the world.
I mean, if you read Victor Frankel, he talks about the amount of joking that went on in the concentration camps.
People that are truly suffering, it's almost out of necessity for survival.
You go to jokes.
And I think a guy like Carl Reiner, I'm curious, he just takes himself so seriously, he can't joke.
Yeah.
And I think that's what Chesterton here is talking about.
Because I don't think it's almost like it's a sign of great privilege if you can take yourself that seriously and never joke.
Yeah.
Yeah, I talk about that a lot.
How like the it seems like the left has become so religious and zealous in their position that they kind of stifle comedy a lot in the on you know, obviously, and that also happens on the right.
People who are like anybody who takes themselves too seriously.
People who are very Trump-obsessed.
That's why we get all the hate mail from like Trump is our god or whatever.
And we also get the hate mail from the other side.
How dare you make fun of progressive values?
Because you can't take yourself.
That's why the middle, it's the best place for comedy right there.
In the middle.
Right in the middle.
Or in the side, the sneering jerks in the sidelines, laughing at everybody.
That's what we are.
That's what we do.
There's going to be a new sport in the future where people chase their hats.
Yeah.
And we're going to sit in the sidelines laughing.
I love that idea of an NFL game or whatever, and they're just chasing a hat in the wind.
There needs to be a drawer opening.
They keep trying to pry open a door Olympic event.
We could all sit there and laugh.
Oh, yeah.
Keys locked in car.
Well, yeah, I think there just takes some perspective to say this is far from the worst thing that will ever happen to humanity.
And to stand back and look at yourself as a character in a comedy more often than your life isn't always that you're in taken or Lord of the Rings.
You're not always a hero.
Sometimes you're the comic relief.
I'm always in Lord of Rings.
We're not always Frodo and Samuel.
Sometimes we're Gimli from the movies.
He was a comic relief character.
Yeah, I'm glad you filled that in because I wouldn't have gotten that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so you know, it's far from the worst thing that ever happened, and we got to take that in stride.
You know, Chesterton also talked about how he did mention real pain and real suffering.
He talked about the toothache and the burning at the stake.
And his thing was he didn't say, he didn't say suffering doesn't exist.
And that's what's unique about the Christian worldview: it acknowledges the reality of suffering, but it also acknowledges that suffering is temporary.
And that's what Chesterton said there: yes, there are toothaches.
Yes, there are burnings at the stake, but these come very far between.
Yeah.
Few and far between.
I think he meant by when he said that pain, real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having toothache is a positive thing.
That's where I got a little lost on that one.
I thought he said it can be supported but scarcely enjoyed.
I don't think he said it was a positive thing.
No, I just read it.
I read it word for word.
No, you said supported, but he doesn't say positive.
Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield or having a toothache, is a positive thing.
Oh, it's a positive.
He says positively.
It can be supported but scarcely enjoyed.
I don't see it.
He's talking about the indignant rate payer who only sees things as an opportunity for grumbling.
So I guess he's saying that in real pain, maybe if you're being burnt at Smithfield, you have the right to grumble.
Is that what he's saying?
Yeah, I don't know if he means positive in the sense of that we would say positive.
Yeah, not like happy.
Yeah.
What's the other way?
I think he just means it's like a real pain.
It's real.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah.
It's a positive.
That makes sense.
It's real.
It's objective.
It's objective and real.
It can be supported.
Oh, can be, yeah, it can be like the pain, the attitude, like the feeling of pain can be supported, but scarcely enjoyed.
After all, our toothaches are the exception, and as for being burnt at Smithfield, only happens at the longest intervals, so it's pretty rare.
Positive, characterized by the presence or possession of features rather than their absence.
It's like the opposite of negative where there's a void.
Positive is something that exists.
Gotcha.
See how we learn when we read Chesterton?
We learn words.
You knew that already, but we learn how to pronounce things.
We learn words.
It's just great.
Well, if you enjoyed this at all, let us know.
We could do some more stuff like this.
We were talking about maybe doing some bonus content for subscribers where we do some of these readings from time to time.
Yeah.
And we like virtual Chestertonians.
Virtual Chestertonians.
So if you were to do that.
We could do some Lewis here and there and do some other, do some favorite theologians every once in a while for the main topic, pick out an essay and dig in.
Read Lord of the Rings, the entire thing.
Read the whole thing?
I would be down.
Okay.
We could do riff tracks of Left Behind.
Archipelago.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Archipelago.
I don't know how to say Egypt.
Archipelago.
Gulag Gulag.
Gulag Archipelago.
Is that right?
Oh, I even have that book.
I bought it when I was in the book.
I've never been meaning to read that.
They don't have it on Kindle, so I'm probably never going to read it.
Oh.
They don't?
They're going to have a new one coming out with Jordan Peterson writing the intro, I think, so they're waiting for that.
All right, so we encourage our listeners when you're encountering frustrations and inconveniences, just say, I'm chasing after my hat.
Oh, jolly good.
I really miss Adam Ford.
Oh, yes.
It's time for that hate mail you all have been waiting for.
I don't think I've read this one.
For anybody who listened all the way up to here, you could have just skipped here.
There's a feature.
There is.
Well, I don't know.
Can you skip?
I assume you can skip.
You can skip forward.
I don't know if you can find it unless you're really.
Just guess around in 45 minutes, maybe, depending on the episode.
50 minutes.
Usually around there, yeah.
Dear Babylon B, when the B started, it pointed out the hypocrisy of the world.
So we could properly laugh at the foolishness of sin and the stupidity that floats around claiming to be Christianity.
I will say this hate mail is very articulate so far.
Very thoughtful, yeah.
No capital letters, punctuation in the right place.
It was done reverently, carefully, and vicious for the truth.
I feel like you lost your sauce.
Well, we lost our sauce.
Now you joke about hell, and the political filler has just become stupid.
I don't see the reverence that was there before.
You need a Calvinist on staff again.
Get back to the gospel.
Contra mundum.
So is that like their code name?
I don't know what against the world, maybe?
Contra mundum.
Oh, that's not their name.
I thought they were signing off.
I'm just kidding.
Signing off.
Contra mundum here.
What does mundum mean?
Oh, it means defying everyone.
Hmm.
Okay.
I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel them.
There's a totally legit opinion, legit feedback.
I mean, the thing, there's the shift of, it wasn't that the B was at one point not political.
It's just that the shift, a lot of the shift happened because of the fan base.
Yeah, the fan base shifted.
Shifted.
And the articles that are political got so much more sharing, and it became way more of our bread and butter.
I mean, we just don't get shares on the.
Yeah, we still do them.
We still do them.
We did more Christian jokes yesterday than political jokes.
They just didn't get shit.
That's why the day didn't go so well.
And that's why nobody shared it.
I mean, that's just what it is.
Yeah.
The only reason I wanted to do this as hate mail is because of the legit criticism.
Like, sure, that's fine.
I can accept feedback.
And then you need a Calvinist on staff again.
how many of us are i mean i'm i'm not an avowed calvinist yeah I'm like a kind of a middle-of-the-roader.
I don't know how to like, I just don't get how you can be that hardcore.
So, Ethan's future Calvinist.
Yeah.
I'm a Calvinist, but I'm a contrarian.
So, if I'm in the midst of a bunch of Calvinists, I'm going to argue with them.
You're going to lose your sauce because they're all hardcore and I'm rolling my eyes.
I'm going to lose my sauce.
It sounds like someone who just goes nuts.
He totally lost his sauce on all of us.
And Dan, I think, would be five-point Calvinist.
He's a straight-up tulip.
Yeah, straight up tulip.
Hey, good job.
All the way hardcore.
Adam, obviously, still part owner of the B, Calvinist.
Calvinist.
Seth's an Armenian, so maybe Seth is wise.
Because he's like a rich guy, so rich guys are.
You got to be Armenian.
Why?
Because you got to believe that you earned it all.
Oh, brutal.
Hopefully, Seth doesn't listen this far.
I'm putting it on my skin.
I think anybody who leans Armenian has a bent towards wanting to believe that they earned it all.
Wow.
Savage.
I'm not saying Seth.
Seth's a good man.
He's a good guy.
That's the Norman McDonald's.
Why do you call him good?
No one is good.
What about Chris Cowan?
I don't know.
Do we know?
What about Frank Fleming?
Do we know?
No idea.
Yeah, we got to find out.
I have a feeling that there's a good chunk more.
Yeah.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Trying to think who else I know that is Calvinist.
Oh, our social media guy, Matt Carabini.
Say that right?
I think so.
Outed.
Now you know who he is.
He's on the site.
Yeah.
A lot of Calvinists.
We got a good mix.
I think we got a good mix.
And maybe we add more Calvinists, we can get our sauce back.
Get that sauce back.
What kind of sauce do Calvinists use?
Like Martin Luther's finger-licking barbecue.
Oh, Zwingli's barbecue.
Zwingli is the one who did the weenie roast.
Wait, what?
You're losing me.
We talked about this.
You weren't paying attention.
You were just making jokes.
Ulrich Zwingli did the Weenie Roast sausage protest.
I like how you're shocked every time it comes to the end of a podcast.
Is that it?
Did we do the podcast?
We did.
All right.
We're going to move on to our subscriber portion.
We do want to remind everybody that we have our Babylon Bee best of book of for pre-order on our store.
You can get to it at babylonbee.com.
Click on the store link at the top.
Pre-order that bad boy because it's going to be freaking awesome.
If you're a subscriber, there's an exclusive article that shows a little preview of the book cover.
And I'm going to have Ethan throw up some of the page spreads also so you can see a preview of kind of how the book's going to look.
It's going to be absolutely glorious.
Kyle thinks he can just tell me what to do.
I'm going to ask Ethan nicely.
I'm going to sovereignly ordain that Ethan do this.
All right, let's move on.
Bye.
See ya.
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Until next time, this is Dave D'Andrea, the voice of the Babylon Bee, reminding you to go forth and eat lots of soup, unless it has bats in it.