THE BEE WEEKLY: Debunking the 1619 Project and Taliban Paddle Boats
In this episode of The Bee Weekly, cancelled standup comedian Josh Denny joins Kyle and Ethan to talk about what's been going on at The Babylon Bee this week, how Hitler opposed vaccine mandates, and how smart people are making blood bricks on Mars. Kyle and Ethan also talk to Dr. Mary Grabar about her new book, Debunking the 1619 Project. Kyle, Ethan, and Josh discuss the Bee's 'Banger of the Week' and 'Dud of the Week' and then jump into weird news like how scientists are planning on making blood bricks on Mars, how Hitler opposed vaccine mandates, and a couple that drives drunk together. A man decides to give up his life to become a hobbit, a new beer is illegal in 15 states, and the Taliban's new feared weapon is a paddle boat. Even cats and dogs are getting in on Guinness World Records. Kyle and Ethan talk to Dr. Mary Grabar who has previously debunked Howard Zinn to find out how she debunked the 1619 Project and whether she sleeps in a debunk bed. Someone doesn't like the Bee's new poop emoji shirt in this week's Hate Mail. Finally, the show moves to the subscriber-exclusive lounge where Kyle, Ethan, and Josh go into the Bee archives for the classic article of the week where Jesus turned water into grape juice, subscriber headlines of the week, and bonus hate mail.
A socialist magazine says Hitler opposed vaccine mandates.
But you know who else compared everything to Hitler?
Hitler.
Drunk man crashes, then is crashed into by drunk wife.
They're in a collision course with love.
Scientists want to use human blood to make concrete on Mars.
Now we know why they've been shipping all those tourists to space.
Sam Adams new beer was banned in 15 states.
This is a huge tragedy for people who like Sam Adams.
Taliban fighters were seen riding swan boats, confirming what many people have suspected.
These men are for the birds.
All this and more on the bee weekly.
When you scroll Facebook and you count on Facebook to give you the content that you want to read, it's like you're going up to Mark Zuckerberg every morning, knocking on his door and saying, hey, Mark Zuckerberg, what should I read this morning?
Or you could just support the Babylon Bee.
Babylon B.com slash plans, you can subscribe.
You get full-length podcasts, add a free podcast.
You get ad-free web browsing on our site, premium content.
At certain levels, you even get access to a little social network that our friends at Not the Bee have created.
Yeah, be part of the community, the in-crowd, the B crowd.
Well, we are sitting here today with Kyle and Ethan, the usual.
You guys are bored of us, but we have someone exciting with us, Josh Denny.
Hey, how's the week going, everybody?
Anything crazy happened?
My wife basically cut her thumb off.
Oh, no.
And decided that she didn't want to go to the hospital.
Was it a, what was it, like a soda can?
It was trying to slice up carpet with like one of those box cutter things.
Yeah.
So then we still went to the hospital, but just two days later when it was way worse.
Did they sew it back?
Was it like a flipping it like that kind of no, but like massive gash along and definitely need stitches, that kind of thing.
Are we allowed to say gash?
Gash.
It's gash.
Why wouldn't we be allowed to say gash?
Okay.
Like, oh my gash?
I don't know.
Yeah, sure.
But other than that, I'm doing great.
Cool.
So I'm waiting for a message from her any moment to say if she got admitted again to the urgent care.
So that's what I'm dealing with.
I got enough.
Now, if you cut your arm off, do you have to be vaccinated to get treated?
Well, that was the weird thing is I couldn't go into the hospital with her unless they're standing at the entrance.
Nobody can visit unless you take a $200 COVID test right now.
And then you have to pay for that.
And I have to pay them $200 to go see my wife.
Nice.
So I didn't do that.
I just waited up.
New York, I'm like, $200, see my wife.
I'll stay in the park.
How much did you pay to see Iron Maiden?
I saw Megadeth.
Oh, Megadeth.
I was like $150 a ticket.
My wife and my son, so $300.
It's getting to the point where like taking your wife to the hospital is like taking your dog in for chemotherapy.
You're like, how much is it for her to stay alive?
$200.
I'll just go to the pound and get a new girlfriend.
You guys could keep this one.
Yeah, but actually, didn't Gavin say that his doctor, I don't know if he wants to say this, but his doctor said that he has to be vaccinated to go in.
There's like a sign on the doctor's door, like to visit the doctor, you have to be vaccinated.
Don't you go to the doctor to get vaccinated?
He's like sick.
You can't go.
Catch 22.
How do you get in?
Yeah.
I'm here for that.
Now you got to go to a different doctor who's different from me and then come here.
This is subscriber day.
This guy wants to become a subscriber and he'll only do it if we read GK Chesterton's quote about Calvinism.
GK Chesterton.
That's an easy one.
Wow, so easy.
So Geoffrey says that if we read this quote on the podcast, he will become a paying Babylon Bee subscriber.
Shall I read it?
Sure.
Since I'm getting owned hard by GKC.
All right.
I'm bracing myself.
To the Calvinist, no act can have that sort of solemnity because the person doing it has been dedicated from eternity and is merely filling up his time until the crack of doom from G.K. Chesterton's What's Wrong with the Middle East?
Now, the wild coincidence here, this is nerdy, but so you know, we have a Chesterton group.
We meet on Wednesdays, we film this show on Wednesdays.
Secret has been revealed.
We are reading this exact chapter tonight.
This quote will be read tonight.
So, like, I've all just weird concerns of the country.
Many, many writings of Chesterton.
He had his quote, something from what we're reading tonight.
I've been completely owned by Chesterton, and I am now converting to Catholicism.
All right, cool.
Another subscriber.
Easy.
Subscriber.
Thanks, Joffrey.
Jeffrey.
Do you say that, Jeffrey or Geoffrey?
I prefer Geoffrey just because it's, you know, why not?
All right, let's move on to the Babylon B banger of the week.
Banger of the week.
All right, this was our banger article that we released on Saturday.
FBI rally in DC ends without incident.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is disappointed by the low attendance at the DC rally they organized for Trump supporters today.
In spite of the FBI's best efforts to lure a bunch of angry MAGA insurrectionists to the Capitol this weekend, only a few hundred FBI agents dressed as MAGA insurrectionists showed up.
Ivermectin, get your hot, fresh Ivermectin here, cried one agent selling bootleg Ivermectin tablets from the tractor supply company.
Unfortunately, he only made a couple of sales to a few other FBI agents from other field offices he didn't recognize.
Another field agent passed out flyers for a super secret satanic pedophile meeting, but was sad to find that there were no takers, except one lady named Hilaria Quentinana.
Man, to put so much work into something only to have it flop like this, it kind of hurts, you know, said agent Arlo Chitbag, who had organized the event.
No one even seemed interested in my make your own pipe bomb booth.
The discouraged FBI agents will reportedly unwind this evening by spying on people through the webcams before attending their monthly satanic pedophile meeting.
Sad.
Arlo Chitbag.
Arlo Chitbag.
That's all I'm hung up on.
Arlo Chitbag.
I like how the name is the only thing that got alive.
All right, let's do our Babylon Bee dud of the week.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, it's moving on.
Bomb of the week.
Let's go.
Do you have something you want to comment on?
FBI, they're crazy guys.
Did you see that picture, though?
Yeah, like all those clearly the feds hanging out at the rally.
Yeah, pretending to be insurrectionists.
Come to look over their work of yesterday.
They all have the exact same output.
Sunglasses, marine cuts, like the whole, just all standing around.
Yeah.
Hello, my fellow Trump supporters.
It's one of those pictures where they're just like, all right, guys, take out your earpieces.
I don't know why I have to keep telling you.
The wire hanging down.
Yeah.
The whole deal.
Yeah, it's like the scene in a Sandler movie one time when Steve Buscemi shows up and he's just like, hello, fellow high schooler.
He's like dressed like a skateboarder.
Greetings, fellow insurrectionists.
All right, should I take this?
Sure.
The Babylon Bomb of the Week.
I like bombs.
Dude of the week.
Worship leader struck dead for lying after claiming we're going to sing this bridge just one more time.
Paulson was tragically struck dead Sunday morning for lying.
His fib, he told the congregation at Sunspring Community Church, we're going to sing this bridge just one more time.
Let's sing that again, he shouted excitedly after the 17th repetition of the bridge to a popular modern worship song.
We're going to sing that bridge just one more time, people.
Come on, fam.
Let's go.
Just then, a lightning bolt from the heavens pierced the roof of the sanctuary and struck him dead.
The bass player, keyboardist, drummer, and the seven background singers were forced to carry the rest of the song as the custodial staff came on stage and dragged Paulson's lifeless corpse off stage to be disposed of, along with all the other worship leaders who had been struck dead for the same sin.
Do not grieve the God Almighty, said theologian Dr. Pete Middleston.
It's clear from the scriptures that lying to the people of God can result in your immediate and painful death.
Remember, Ananias and Sephira, this is no different.
Their lie was about money.
This man's lie was about how many more times the congregation would sing the bridge.
The theologian went on to suggest that perhaps the Lord was telling them something about the importance of worshiping him in truth.
Or perhaps the Lord was simply sick of singing the bridge to that hillsong tune for the thousandth time.
At publishing time, sources of the church confirmed that their lead pastor had also been struck dead after claiming he was almost done preaching.
Get in.
These guys, they just sing those bridges so many times.
Classic worship leader.
So when one of these is the dud of the week, is it because it's the least shared?
And it's always the Christian one.
It's always the Christian one.
Do you guys have to execute whoever wrote it?
Well, that would be me.
After that show.
Do you guys keep score of who has the most duds?
This is the second time we've ever done this.
So last week it was Frank Fleming, our funniest writer.
This week it was me, our dud.
Second funniest writer.
Everybody has duds.
Some of us make fun.
Well, it's also a kind of, I think we like to highlight the ones that aren't getting shared.
Just people understand.
It's almost like a window in how things work around here.
This is the one that everybody shared.
This is the one that nobody shared.
Doesn't necessarily mean last week I thought was one of the funniest articles.
That's also my case.
It was our toddler reviewer who reviewed ketchup.
It's hilarious.
Toddler reviewing ketchup.
What's not funny about that?
Food review.
Food review.
Super, super adorable.
Adorable.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
All right, let's do some weird news.
This news is weird.
Man gets an accident while driving drunk, calls wife to pick him up.
Wife, also drunk, crashes her car into his upon arrival.
It's a rom-com.
They should buy the rights and make a rom-com out of this.
Yeah, so Donald Ricketts was out driving drunk on Highway 165, headed north.
Donnie Ricketts.
He crossed over to the wrong side of the road and crashed into a tractor trailer.
So he called his wife and she then crashed into his.
Come pick me up.
Donald blew a 0.28 in the breathalyzer and his wife blew a 0.22.
That's a lot, right?
What if it was funny if she was just stone sober, but just, you know, a woman?
Like, I wonder if women get in accidents and they go, could you put down that I'm drunk?
And they're like, but ma'am, you're not.
She's like, just put it on there, please.
You're going to set us back 100 years.
What is the legal limit?
Cheryl was arrested, but Donald had to go to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
So there's some sexism there.
Well, you assume he went to the hospital and then he got arrested.
don't they like treat you first and then they but it's non-life Oh, that's true.
Even non-life-threatening, you gotta be.
You gotta treat it.
Yeah.
What is the legal limit?
Does anyone know?
0.08.
0.08.
He's like, it's 0.08.
I don't even drink.
I don't drink at all.
0.28.
Isn't that the ⁇ I don't know if that's the same thing, but later we're going to talk about a beer that has like 28% proof that Sam Adams made.
Is that like he's that beer?
He would be illegal in 15 states?
I don't know how it works.
Hey, a socialist magazine actually ran this headline.
You know who else opposed vaccine mandates?
Hitler.
It's a good point.
Jacobin magazine went viral this week after running an article with the headline.
You know who else opposed vaccine mandates?
Hitler owned you all.
The article targeted conservatives who have argued that vaccine mandates are fascistic and remind them of Nazis.
I love Adam Yinger's point, which was in the opening stings that Hitler also compared everything to Hitler.
That's probably something a psychiatrist said to him, he's like, you need to stop comparing yourself to everything.
He's going to say, you know, you know who says that?
Me?
I do.
Have you guys seen my work?
Just a guy always patting himself on the back.
I have to mention that this is a fulfilled Babel on B prophecy, too.
Okay.
We published this article May 15th, 2020.
Reminder, Adolf Hitler also wanted to go outside and do things.
Oh, there you go.
Nailed it.
Quite prophetic.
You can almost pick anytime, though, there are certain things you can predict in this sort of liberal chain as like, well, the Hitler comparison is minutes away.
That's coming.
That's coming down the pike.
How vaccines are white supremacy?
I mean, you can pretty much guess what the headlines are going to be.
It's true.
Yeah, you know who else wanted to force people to get stuck with needles?
Maybe Hitler?
I don't know.
Well, and nobody's going to come out and go, actually, as an authority on Hitler, that's not true.
Like, no one's going to come out with that position.
Actually, I know quite a bit about Hitler.
No one in the room is going to say that.
Study him.
Yeah, and definitely not at the Huffington Post.
No one's going to come out and go, actually, I know quite a bit about Hitler, and I'm here to tell you.
I think we're off on this one.
I wonder if Jacobin magazine gets, you know, fact-checked a lot by Snopes and stuff.
Actually, Jacobin magazine.
Jacobin.
What is Jacobin?
Isn't that like the socialist?
Yes.
Like the French Revolution.
French Revolution.
Oh, okay.
Cutting people's heads off all the time or something?
Cutting each other's heads off?
I wouldn't.
If it's in France, there's a good chance that we're cutting off.
There's a lot of heads getting cut off.
Yeah.
Can you take the next one, sir?
Oh, number three.
This man lives as a hobbit and is building his personal shire in Italy.
Nicholas Gentile, a 37-year-old Italian pastry chef, I mean, that's the only kind they have, dresses and lives as a hobbit and has a goal of transforming five acres of land in the Italian countryside into a hobbit village.
Sounds great.
It's a worthwhile pursuit, in my opinion.
Yeah.
It says, in an interview last week, every time I click this, it gives me a link.
In an interview last week, Gentile, a lover of the fantasy genre, recounted his choice to live like a hobbit, explaining that the books and films were no longer enough for him to satisfy his passion for the Lord of the Rings.
Yeah.
You ever watched a movie and been like, they don't take it far enough?
You know?
This is amazing.
He's like, yeah, I've watched all the movies 30 times.
I'm just going to have to turn into a hobbit now.
Also, 37-year-old Italian pastry chef.
Isn't that like the youngest Italian pastry chef in all of Italy?
This man is a prodigy and he's giving it all away to live as a hobbit.
His second breakfast.
Got to make a lot of pastries.
Yeah.
And it's also one of those things, like, do you just look around?
How much cobblestone do you look around and see and go, we shouldn't be living in this time period?
He has an Instagram page, which makes me feel like he's not that dedicated to the Hobbit thing.
Yeah.
Hobbits don't have Instagram.
It's like 50% Hobbits, 50% pastry.
Is he game?
Like, what does he do at home?
I wanted to see him when he's just having sort of a quiet night in his Hobbit hole and he's just like online or something.
What does he do?
He's probably playing Xbox or something.
Can you imagine Frodo Baggins sitting there playing Call of Duty?
Yeah, if you truly were into the Hobbit Live, you wouldn't post it online.
You wouldn't be, I don't want to be, I want to be secluded from everyone.
Nine meals a day.
Yeah.
Don't want anyone to know where our shire is.
It's off in the middle of the night.
I'm like fireworks celebrations and things.
This feels like the precursor to one of those episodes of what's the surgery show?
Chopped?
No, that's not it.
Botched.
That's the one where it's just like, yeah, the movies were no longer enough.
So I decided to have myself shrunken down to Elijah Wood size.
Limb by limb.
Did he surgically become, did he get his feet enlarged and harrified?
They look pretty large on the Instagram.
They do, but they're kind of foreshortened.
And then you get everything else shrunken, right?
I think Tolkien would support a guy turning a hobbit into a pronoun.
Is it a pronoun?
I just assume he's identifying instead of Hobbit, right?
Think Tolkien would agree with that.
Listen, man, it's just a quick bro.
I don't want to be controversial here, but there are only two kinds of hobbits.
Okay.
There are no such things as trans hobbits.
And I refuse to let them compete against biological hobbits.
I think it's time we take a stand.
Yeah, you have the hobbit races, and there's like a massive guy, and he's like, I identify as a hobbit.
Yeah.
Yeah, you can't.
This guy's just going to be running past him on the way to the ring.
Are they going to do that in the new Lord of the Rings thing they're doing on Amazon?
Like the hobbits will be every race?
I know this.
There was like a Wizard of Oz movie where they did that where the munchkins were all different races.
You mean in terms of like skin color?
Yeah, like they'll have Asian ones and black ones.
It just seems weird that a race would be multiple races because they're a race.
So it's, I'm not against races, but it's just weird, right?
Yeah, so you think there should be more races of hobbits?
I don't know.
He's just saying that's what he thinks the Amazon shows.
You know, that's probably going to go over.
They'll be all any fantasy.
They're going to make everyone's like in Frozen 2 when they're like in Norway or whatever and like half the characters are black.
And I'm like, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm all for diversity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just like, would you do that in the movie about Haiti?
I'm just weird.
These Haitians are all too Haitian.
Yeah.
We should diversify.
Throw a bunch of Scottish people into Moana just to diversify.
I'm the islanded Moana.
Kicking off the island god.
All right.
Well, scientists want to use human blood to make concrete on Mars.
So I guess it costs $2 million to send a brick to Mars.
Of water?
No, like a brick.
Not a brick of water.
Because they need water, right?
Brick made of water.
is scarce.
Oh, so they got to send a...
Okay.
Just because like the brick.
Like one brick?
Yeah.
To like burn the rocket fuel to get up into orbit.
The brick is heavy, you know?
But researchers have found that astronauts can simply make their own concrete on site if they use Martian dust and mix it with their blood.
Martian dust and human blood.
So they've already made this.
It's a concrete-like substance called astrocrete.
Wow.
So they have like some kind of synthetic Mars soil and they've done these experiments.
How many substances do you think they went through before they landed on blood?
Oh, Phil over there with his piss bricks.
You'll never build anything, Phil.
That was my immediate.
We told you.
You can't.
It's like the three stories have lost pee-pee.
He made his home out of piss bricks.
Piss bricks.
Who's that guy out there on the jetty?
That's old Piss Bricks Johnson.
Okay.
Make that like the more sad.
He's never built anything that's lasted more than a day in his life.
Couldn't they make ones out of blood that are stronger than for stuff that would be more like fiberglass type stuff?
They could do like peepee or tears.
For like tear glass?
Yeah.
Tear glass.
Sounds like real.
Tear glass.
Yeah.
I just wonder how quick they just got to blood.
They're like, well, we've used everything else.
Try bleeding into it.
Yeah.
See what happens.
How far does that go?
I have so many questions that will not be answered right now.
It also really changes the conversation of like, anybody want to build a fort?
Be like, nope.
The last guy who wanted a fort had to die.
Or like, how, you know, like, how big does this building need to be?
That's looking to be a lot of blood.
So we can tone it down.
Doesn't need to be like a giant community center on Mars.
I'm wondering what the special property of blood is where they can just like use water to make it.
Maybe just because it's hard to ship.
Is it like coagulation or something that helps?
Do you think these astronauts get mad watching the news?
Like, no, you guys don't get it.
The immigrants are the wall.
You just aren't looking at this the right way.
Have you guys tried cutting them open and sprinkling in some Martian dust?
I'm glad I didn't go to college.
Hey, a new beer from Sam Adams, Samuel Adams, is illegal in 15 states.
The 12th edition of its Utopias brand, which is the brewery that rolls out every two years, will be released on October 11th.
It'll cost $240 for a 25.4-ounce bottle.
That should be illegal.
That's a lot of money.
Is that a lot?
I don't know what booze costs.
I don't know for a 25.4 ounce bottle.
That's one bottle.
It's like two beers.
The beverage contains 28% alcohol by volume, more than five times the average strength of a U.S. beer, making it illegal in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia.
Most of those states don't surprise me.
Why is that?
Is it because Oregon had most of them are in the South and then Utah.
But Oregon's weird.
They're all about beer and Sam Adams.
Is it this law of thinking that says, you know, like, well, if it's too potent, we'll make less money?
It seems like the price would keep people from buying too much.
It's like old school prohibition laws.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They just never got.
No, it's too good.
I've never been a fan of Sam Adams, so who cares?
I like the idea that, you know, how potent the booze is is going to determine how much people drink.
That's like those people you know are like, I only drink light beers.
And then you're like, yeah, but you drink 30 of them.
You could just have one of these.
It seems like a, it seems like a choice.
And like hard liquor is right there.
It's like right next to it.
You can get.
Yeah, if you're drinking 28% beer, just drink bourbon.
What are you doing?
I don't know.
I wonder if it is bourbon.
They're just like, we just put it in a beer bottle, guys.
Drop a beer in there.
It's like bourbon with gluten.
All right.
Oh, this one's me.
Yeah.
You're up.
Taliban fighters seen riding swan-themed pedal boats on Lake Afghanistan.
I was unaware they had any lakes.
They have a lake, apparently.
More than two dozen Taliban fighters armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles were seen riding in colorful swan-themed pedal boats at National Park in eastern Afghanistan Saturday.
That sounds nice.
Sounds like a lovely way to spend a Saturday in Afghanistan.
It's a new side to the Taliban.
You don't get to see that.
Yeah, the playful.
You know, we don't really see a lot of Tinder Taliban, which is always what I've wanted to.
You can get a peak at.
Yeah, you want to see these guys, you know, embracing that side of things.
A little more feminine.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're going out for a fun day on the lake, why are you bringing your rocket launcher with you?
Like, look at this guy.
He's like...
How could you ask that as a man?
He's just like totally.
I would love to bring a rocket launcher out on a lake.
First of all, in a place that likely allows you to drink 28% proof Sam Adams, he's like, I'm pretty sure that's more of a, hey, guys, you guys ever seen this?
It's not really like a, I think it's more of a gag, you know?
I guess.
I mean, if you have rocket launchers, you just take them everywhere.
He's just like, Leishin Hanish, I know you know me for machine gun and, you know, rocket launcher, but I have a sensitive side, too.
I love who like thought of it.
They're just hanging out.
Like, you guys want to go ride the swan?
A little swan ride?
Yeah.
And are they riding them ironically?
Is the question, because I think, you know, we could get behind that, right?
That's also not the way you want to be killed by the Taliban is them riding on a swan coming after you.
Oh, man.
That's amazing.
I just, I just flash back to that moment and back to the future.
I was like, I don't know how, but they found me.
And he's like, the Libyans.
His picture, guys riding in on giant swans.
Hey, you look on a lake, you see a giant swan.
You're like, oh, that is nice.
You know, we're in Afghanistan.
Things are rough out here.
There's people jumping on airplanes and falling off.
And like, at least finally, you get to see a nice swan.
Holy crap, the guy's got a rocket launcher.
Then you die.
You're dead.
Oh, man.
In one of the photos shared to Twitter by reporter Jake Honrahan, a Taliban fighter appears to be aiming a rocket-propelled grenade.
We saw that already.
The deep blue lakes in the heart of the country had been considered a relative safe haven before the militant group's takeover last month.
Yeah, I remember all my friends in Afghanistan telling me about those beautiful lakes.
Blue lakes.
If only that we can keep these from the Taliban, they'll be wonderful.
Just can't have nice things.
They're thinking.
What's the fishing like in Taliban?
Or in Taliban?
Taliban.
Talibanistan.
That's it.
Yeah, Taliban land.
What's the fishing like out there?
I assume you just aim the rocket launcher in the water.
That's what they're doing.
Yeah, they're out there fishing.
Yeah.
Listen, Mohammed over there with his pole with a D-bag, right?
I will catch all the fish on the first try.
Watch me.
Inshallah.
Aim the rocket launcher on the other side of the boat.
Yeah.
A lot of splash damage.
Yeah.
So we've got one more weird news story for you.
And it's a Guinness World Record to no one's surprise.
A cat and dog.
Oh, gosh.
All right, let's just move on to our segment with Josh.
Cat and dog rode a scooter together.
It broke the record for cats and dogs riding scooters.
It broke the record for the fastest five meters on a scooter.
Time of 4.37 seconds and 5.5.
I don't know how far five meters is.
Listen, I got to be honest with you guys.
If I could give it all up for one job, I would love to work in the office that decides which things are unworthy of a Guinness World Record.
Have you seen that?
There's a documentary about this guy who decided he was going to fast for the longest ever and he didn't eat for a whole year.
He's a really fat guy and he's going to document his weight loss.
And he only lost like 30 or 40 pounds.
It was crazy, like a whole year of not eating, only drinking water.
And he calls Guinness at the end.
He documented it all.
And they're like, oh, we don't do world records for not eating because it's too dangerous.
We don't give records for things people can die doing.
So he didn't get his record after a year of not eating.
Which I bet that excuse would fall apart pretty quickly if you just perused any Guinness World Record book.
Like, this is something you could die doing.
This is something you know around a person's neck or whatever.
At some point, those rings they put on the neck, like tribal, I don't know the people that do that.
Tribal.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
There has got to be a number of rings at one point they die.
One more ring.
And the head pops off.
Almost any of those records, you could die.
Oh, she was so close.
Yeah.
At some point, this dog and cat are on the scooter.
They're not getting food.
They're not getting water.
They'll die eventually.
So if they did it long enough, you could die.
That's a good point.
I think David Rush, that guy that breaks all these records, he's probably pretty annoyed by this dog and cat.
Is there any money in holding a Guinness World Record?
As far as I can tell, no.
Exposure.
This David Rush guy has hundreds of world records.
Yeah.
But his whole thing is to do it and then raise money.
Like, donate to reach out to David Rush.
We got to interview this guy.
Just to get away from him.
We'll get him to break it.
Just get off record on the show.
Yeah.
That would be great.
Yeah.
Good luck breaking my record of longest fart undetected because pretty sure I still hold that one.
It's still happening.
Now we're going to talk to a sweet woman named Dr. Mary Graybar who wrote a book about the 1619 project.
Hi, Mary.
She had no warning that this is what she would be following.
And here she is.
So don't blame her for that.
Hey, sorry to interrupt that hilarious podcast that you were just listening to, but my buddy Ethan and I here were thinking, you might not be a Babylon B subscriber and we need to correct that.
Yeah, in fact, I could smell it in the room.
It smells like a non-subscriber in here.
Or is that cow farts?
Could be cow farts.
I can't tell.
Hey, if you subscribe, you get this giant, awesome, beautiful coffee table book full of beautiful images and hilarious stories.
Premium subscribers get this for a limited time, which is crazy because this book is like half the cost of that one.
It's like a brick of gold.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
So you get a coupon code for cheaper merchandise.
You get to be part of the community.
The advantages are endless to be a Babylon B subscriber.
Literally infinite.
Oh, you get our bloopers from her.
Oh, yeah.
Those are really funny.
Those are hilarious.
The gas.
So please.
Yeah.
Go to BabylonB.com/slash plans.
Subscribe.
Become one of the elite.
The few.
The Babylon Bees.
All right.
Well, thanks for coming on, Dr. Mary Graybar.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
How are you?
We're doing okay.
How are you doing, Ethan?
I'm pretty good.
Have you done any debunking lately, Kyle?
I have not debunked anything.
In fact, my whole job is to write fake news.
So you bunk.
I bunk.
So you're a bunker.
I'm a bunker.
Well, this could be the fight of the century because we have a debunker right here with us, Dr. Mary Graybar.
She's debunked the likes of Howard Zinn and a little-known thing called the 1619 Project.
So what kind of bed do you sleep in?
Is it a debunk bed?
You don't have to respond to that.
So a lot of people have probably heard of the 1619 project, but what the heck is it?
Can you explain to us the 1619 project in 1,619 words or less?
It was back in 1619, they had this project that they put together.
Well, I'll let her answer.
Let her do it.
Okay.
Well, it was just a special issue of the New York Times magazine that came out on August 18th, 2019, and it's supposed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans at Jamestown.
And it had a number of essays by people who work as historians, only about four of them out of 34.
17 were creative literary works, but they all focused on this arrival.
And it was the brainchild of a woman named Nicole Hannah-Jones, who is a reporter for the New York Times.
And her beat is race.
And so she remembered learning about this from high school, from reading Lerone Bennett back in the 90s.
And so she thought this would be a good opportunity to put her learning to use.
So when you said her thing is race, like is she a NASCAR driver?
No.
No.
Racial issues.
That has been her, you know, that's what she has covered as a journalist.
So it was intended to be a historical accounting.
And the unfortunate thing is that it was immediately distributed to 3,500 schools.
And it's in at least 4,500 schools now.
But it is, as the title of my book indicates, Debunking the 1619 Project.
It is a project worthy of being debunked.
There's a lot there to debunk.
So what are your some of your favorite parts of the 1619 project?
Well, it, you know, the idea that slavery here was like nothing that had ever existed in the world before.
Slavery is an institution that goes as far back as we can go in history, and it has been practiced all over the world.
It has been, you know, justified by all the major religions.
It has been practiced in Africa, Asia, the indigenous peoples here and in South America practiced it.
So that is just a ludicrous statement to make.
And it pretends that slavery was something that was basically invented here and practiced exclusively here.
So that's a biggie.
The other is that these Africans were kidnapped by Europeans from Africa.
And that has never happened.
Only the Portuguese tried it a few times and they got slaughtered.
And so they didn't do that anymore.
The only way they could go inland and capture these slaves was to have the help of warrior tribes like the Mbangala, who were the ones who helped in capturing the ones that did come to Jamestown in 1619.
So the African role is totally excluded from the 1619 project.
And the other outrageous thing was that our country was not founded in 1776, but in 1619 when these Africans arrived and it was founded as a slave occracy.
And these Africans were not slaves immediately.
We did not have slavery established until the mid-17th century.
It was a slow process that evolved.
And actually, the first court case that established the legality of slavery was by one of those Africans who had enslaved another African who was suing for his freedom.
He claimed he was an indentured servant, but the owner actually won that case.
So 1619 project, they say founding the 1619, some people that are a little more extremist say it was 177 something, 1776.
Why not compromise, split the difference, and make it like around 1698?
Just all agree to that.
Well, yeah, I mean, you might as well, considering how fictional this project was, you know, toss a coin and say, you know, it started when, I don't know who else came, German redemptioners.
I don't know, you know, first what load of them, you know, in the 18th century.
Yeah, it's, you know, it seems to be very arbitrary because nothing in the arrival of the Africans really had nothing to do with establishing our form of government or the principles.
It was almost accidental.
So I guess you could say that you might have a project that's the 1698 project, and you can make a lot of money doing that.
Kyle proposed the 1999 project, which is the year Mambo number five came out.
He loves that song.
Sorry.
What came out?
Mambo No. 5.
That one.
Sorry, Kyle hasn't asked a question in a while.
I feel like I'm hogging you.
Well, you just asked, you just said my question for me about the Mambo number five.
Sorry.
Well, so who the heck cares?
Why does it matter if our kids think that it's 1619 or 1776?
I mean, what's the significance for education and kids and stuff?
It's the numbers.
Yeah.
Well, if you want to teach children that this country was founded as a slaveocracy, that it's based on slavery, you would use 1619.
It's a twisting of history to convey this idea that we are a nation that has, you know, as its principles, you know, bondage and forced labor.
You know, Nicole Hannah-Jones in her lead essay calls plantations forced labor camps.
So if you want kids to sort of get that image of the United States, then you start with 1619.
But if you want them to understand what is in the Declaration of Independence, the events that led up to the Revolutionary War, what was being fought for, which was definitely not slavery, then you would teach 1776, which is the truth.
Makes sense.
Makes sense.
Good answer.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it seems like she did some reading.
Yeah, you seem like you know what you're talking about.
You know about the founders and stuff, like George Washington and Jeff Jefferson and all those guys, like how really they're really racist.
Did you read about all that research in Michael Keaton?
Who?
Michael Keaton.
was the founder in that movie the founder that's not in my footnotes She's looking, but it's not in there.
Actually, I do spend a bit of time on Thomas Jefferson because he is presented as an enslaver who never freed any of his slaves.
That's not true.
You can just Google Robert Hemmings, and the third thing that comes up is his manumission date when he was 32 years old.
So, and the claim is that Jefferson never wanted to abolish slavery, which is completely wrong.
He was not an abolitionist.
He was not, you know, freeing his own slaves, but it was a difficult thing to do at the time.
And he wanted slavery to end.
He tried to think of a way to end it peacefully without war.
He could see that the potential for war was there and that the actions that he took as a political leader could actually backfire and make things worse for slaves.
So it's a smear on Jefferson and is born out of complete ignorance.
The woman writing that obviously did not do any research on Thomas Jefferson.
So I spend a good bit of I'm in my book discussing the complications how Jefferson, you know, tried to resolve this issue, but couldn't in his lifetime.
So, I mean, what do you think the goal is of these 1619 people?
Are they trying to, I mean, what are they trying to do?
They're trying to push critical race theory, wokeness.
You know, we got all these buzzwords going around.
Why do they care?
Why are they trying to do this?
I have a theory.
What?
I think that they work for like, like, you know, there's like big pharma.
I think they're big history.
So like, they add 100 years, 157 years to history class.
That's like thicker books.
That's more homework.
Well, I think there's history.
There's way more stuff you got to do at history class.
You had all that history to America.
I mean, I think even if you think America was founded in 1776, you still know that there's years before that.
I don't think it actually adds.
I mean, you know, that's a quick American history.
What do you think?
What are your thoughts?
Well, yeah, this history does support critical race theory.
It's driven by the theory.
It's not driven by the evidence.
And so critical race theory is a neo-Marxist theory that looks at stages of history and people acting as groups.
And so the 1619 project presents all white people as this mass of people who were either enslavers or supported slavery or benefited from slavery.
Racism is in white people's DNA.
And all blacks were victims.
They were enslaved or discriminated against and descended from slaves.
So it's this Manichean vision of black and white.
And the goal is reparations.
Nicole Hannah-Jones in June 2020 came out with an article in the New York Times demanding reparations and going back to the 1619 project to justify it.
And she's come out in other places to advocate for reparations.
So it's a political, there is a political goal to the 1619 project.
So you feel like the 1619 Project could be improved upon?
I don't know if it could be improved upon.
I think the whole thing needs to be you don't think like the Snyder cut would help.
No.
I don't even know what that is.
Sad.
Do you know who Batman is?
Yeah, my son used to, you know, watch Batman.
So they made this movie.
Yeah, never mind.
Kyle's finally got something you can talk about here.
That's too much to explain.
So, okay, so one of the things they talk about in there is about how all these white racists stole black music.
And there's nothing more racist than a culture that steals another culture's music and loves it and dances a bunch to it and spends billions of dollars on it and makes people celebrities.
So how do you feel about that atrocity?
Well, at least they have a point there, right?
Well, I don't know if it was ignored, if black music was ignored and wasn't appreciated, there's, you know, that would be better, right?
I don't know.
I mean, there's really nothing much good about this country, according to the 1619 project.
I mean, you know, and that's what I point out in my debunking the 1619 project.
Even something that is happy is presented as, you know, arising out of oppression and, you know, lack of recognition.
And, you know, I mean, the fact that Elvis and the musicians that came after him and even before him, that we've integrated these musical forms should be something that's celebrated.
You know, I mean, I don't deny that black culture has influenced American culture.
It is American culture and it should be celebrated.
But this is the 1619 project is a downer.
It really, it will make students very depressed.
Do you listen to any rap?
No, not if I can help it.
Okay.
Sad.
So I'm picking up that you see it as a slightly slanted view of American history.
Yeah, as slanted as William Z. Foster's history and William Z. Foster was a Communist Party leader.
So yeah, along that.
Did you debunk that guy?
Who else have you debunked?
Well, he's kind of debunked in my book on Howard Zinn because Howard Zinn sort of follows William Z. Foster because Howard Zinn was a communist.
Okay, bonus debunking in that book.
Any future plans to debunk anyone else?
Oh, I'm looking.
Yeah, I've got several ideas.
I can't talk about it yet.
Okay.
I've been working on a biography, though, for 10 years.
So, you know, but I definitely do have another debunking book that will be coming out.
Can't talk about it yet.
It's top secret.
I have to have to tell my agent first, and then he has to pass it on to the publisher.
Okay.
We do have one question from our staff here.
Patrick just messaged me.
He said, you were born in Slovenia when it was still part of communist Yugoslavia, before the Slovenian Spring pushed it toward a constitutional democracy.
So I have to ask you, did you know Melania Trump?
Or related.
No.
Wow.
Man, Heidi.
Okay.
Okay.
Cool.
No, I don't know her.
Okay.
You got any cool stories from Communist Yugoslavia?
Well, I went there.
So I came here when I was two years old and I went there in 1969 when I was 12 years old.
My family spent six weeks there visiting and my cousins who were my age were barefoot.
There was no indoor plumbing.
They didn't have any appliances, needless to say, and no bathrooms, no toilets.
And but there were, you know, in the village at the time, you know, there maybe was one family.
They were members of the Communist Party.
And so they got the privileges.
And I heard a lot of stories from my parents and my relatives and their friends that would come over about, you know, how the communists would allocate so much of the crops that you produced to you.
And then they would take what they said was rightfully theirs to redistribute.
And often that didn't leave quite enough.
So, You know, the people who are like my relatives, the peasants, had to, you know, hide their livestock like hogs.
If they had an extra hog, it had to be slaughtered in the middle of the night.
So that's that's what communism is.
You have to hide food in order to survive.
You can't speak freely.
My father couldn't really talk to his brother or brother-in-law, even in their own homes.
They were afraid to speak freely in their own houses.
And I just heard stories and I saw what it was still like in 1969.
And it's not what you want to live under.
It's not, you know, sharing and peace and love.
So I think that has sort of shaped me and made me want to warn people about the neo-Marxists and the Marxists, like those who are writing the 1619 project about what it's really like.
So it needs improvement.
The communist.
What's that?
So communism needs improvement.
Just to sum up.
Let me just try it out for the summing up.
Summing up.
You sound like the students I used to have when I was teaching college.
This needs another try.
Just needs another go.
Yeah, it's just not the right people.
You know, Stalin was authoritarian, but if we get the right guy in there, AOC, Harry Stiles, who else?
Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders.
Well, yeah.
He's not going to be.
Yeah, Bernie's going to get it right.
He'll get it right.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, we have one more question from Patrick, who just wanted me to ask you this.
You studied at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization.
That being said, what was your favorite song in Hamilton?
I didn't see it.
Yeah.
And so.
I thought you researched American history.
Wow.
Well, I did not see that.
You know, frankly, I couldn't afford the tickets at the time.
And I am here at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, which is in Clinton, New York, which is a ways from New York City, from Broadway.
Do you know Bill Clinton?
Do you know Bill Clinton?
You said you were.
No.
Okay.
I wasn't sure if there's a connection with Clinton.
Clinton is the name.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, you should watch Hamilton.
It's on Disney Plus.
So that's, I guess that's about it.
Everybody, we want our readers, not readers, what are they?
Listeners, viewers, etc.
Go check it out.
Debunking the 1619 Project, Exposing the Plan to Divide America.
It's on Amazon, other bookstores, everywhere.
Thanks for coming on, Dr. Mary.
Good debunking to you.
Good debunking.
Good luck with your debunking endeavors.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks.
All right.
That was great.
Thanks, Dr. Mary.
Thanks, Dr. Mary Graybar.
Let's do some hate mail So we tweeted out our everything woke turns to poop emoji Which is like a clean version of what trump said Everyone loves that, don't they?
And a president once said, Everything woke turns to bleep.
Whoa there, Trump.
We thought you were a Christian.
We don't talk like that at the bee.
However, we agree with the sentiment.
Have no problem wearing a shirt with an image of cartoon feces.
Yeah, I drew that poop.
And then someone replied, and his name is Richard They Them.
The pronouns right in the profile name.
He says, I'm so sick and tired of racist media outlets like the B gaining traction in this country.
Stop talking about Trump.
He lost.
That makes me want to watch Lost because he spelled Lost List.
I was thinking the same thing.
The all caps makes me think of the TV show.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
So it's racist.
I don't know how that has to do with this.
Yeah, they're just throwing it out.
If you say woke isn't great, then it's racist, right?
Isn't that the whole idea?
If you don't like, if you criticize wokey wokeness, if you use woke as a derogatory term, that implies racism.
Don't you know that, Kyle?
Wait, you guys haven't known that this whole time?
Yeah, if you're out.
I guess that's what it is.
I feel like wokeism is just like a theoretical understanding of black people by white people who don't know any black people.
It's a reframing of racism.
It's like, you know, I bet they'd be offended by this.
Why don't you ask them?
Dear God, no.
Talk to them.
Yeah.
Racism is a good idea.
In my community, I'd have to open the gate.
Well, maybe they just decided you can't get rid of racism.
Racism needs to be reworked.
It's a new version.
I guess.
I don't know, man.
It's just so confusing.
It's virtuous racism.
Ah, the good kind.
It's the good kind of racism.
The sweet, sweet, good kind.
Yeah.
Delicious.
Hey, we're going to go to our subscriber lounge now.
We're going to get some cool stories out of Josh Denny.
And we've got bonus hate mail.
And we have a classic B article all the week and some subscriber headlines.
Oh, man.
That sounds like a cornucopia.
Has he done the 10 questions?
I think so.
Yeah.
So we're going to talk about the second 10.
I'll do second 10 of them.
Second 10 questions with Josh Denny.
Converted to Islam.
I hope it's not a problem.
We'll convert you back.
Yeah, we'll get you.
We'll get him.
We'll get him.
Don't worry.
Thanks for joining us.
See you there.
Oh, yeah.
Hit that join button if you want to join us, YouTube.
And go to babylonb.com slash plans if you're not on YouTube.
And if you want the whole package, yeah.
Whole package.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Yeah.
And I sound like Kermit the Frog.
I sound like a guy going through puberty.
No, you don't.
You know, you don't have like a puberty voice.
He'll squeak.
My voice cracks.
You sound like a guy who has book storage at home.
Book storage.
Yeah.
You know, like some people's books are just strewn about.
You're like, no, no, this requires a specific shelf and a very interesting place in the world.
It's like a nerd.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
A red man.
A red man.
Yeah.
Like a well, like a well-red man.
Oh, yeah.
I have a card-carrying Cherokee.
Wondering what they'll say next?
The rest of this podcast is in our super exclusive premium subscriber lounge.
Go to BabylonB.com slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.