THE BEE WEEKLY: Biden's First Year and The Viking Heart
The Babylon Bee remembers the first year of Joe Biden's Presidency since he might have forgotten it and also talks to historian Arthur Herman about how to be more like the Vikings, but not the football team. The Bee also has an exclusive statement from Justin Trudeau, Weakly News from Adam Yenser, and an inside look to this week at The Babylon Bee. Check out Arthur Herman's latest book The Viking Heart. This episode is brought to you by Faithful Counseling. This episode is also brought to you by Enduring Word Bible Commentary. Kyle played board games, Adam went to Montana, and Dan's roof blew away in a windstorm. A subscriber makes it possible for The Bee to launch our subscriber-exclusive audio yacht. There's a banger and bomb article of the week, stuff that's good, and an exclusive statement from Justin Trudeau brought to you only by The Babylon Bee. Adam Yenser brings Weakly News and then The Bee remembers Joe Biden's first year of being President because it's possible that he doesn't quite remember all of it. Then Kyle and Adam talk to historian Arthur Herman about pointy helmets, conquering the world, and the indomitable spirit of the Vikings. Of course, The Bee opens up its hate mail for the week too. In the subscriber exclusive lounge on the third floor of The Babylon Bee Audio Yacht, subscribers are treated to the Bee's classic article, subscriber headlines, love mail, bonus hate mail, and the rest of the interview with Arthur Herman!
Hey guys, I wanted to tell you about a free Bible resource that has been around for more than 25 years and is used and trusted by millions of believers worldwide.
The Enduring Word Bible commentary explains God's truth in a simple, clear, and easy-to-use way.
And it's translated into many languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and more.
Find the Enduring Word Bible commentary by David Guzick at enduringword.com.
That's enduringword.com.
A 40-person fight broke out at Golden Corral in Pennsylvania.
Your move, Waffle House.
Rihanna is pregnant with ASAP Rocky's baby.
They're going to name their baby after the one who made it all possible, Donald Trump.
The Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals are going to the Super Bowl, marking the first time anyone has been proud to be from Cincinnati.
This past Tuesday was Groundhog Day.
And we talked to an expert on Vikings.
But which Vikings?
The ones who wear the helmet.
Oh, wait, that doesn't help.
The ones who do all the murdering and raping.
Oh, wait, that doesn't help either.
And finally, we do something that Joe Biden can't do.
Remember everything he did in his first year of being president.
All this and moron.
Moron.
The B weekly.
Hey, everyone, Babylon Bee Podcast, Babylon Bee Weekly, hanging out with Dan Coates, our producer, and Adam Jenser, our other guy here.
That's my official title.
Other guy.
That's my Facebook profile.
Current job guy here at the Babylon B. Here is here in the chair.
How's everybody's week?
Anything crazy happened?
I went to Montana for stand-up deserving.
That sounds crazy.
Any cool Montana stories?
It was 18 degrees.
That's cold.
So Montana's a real place?
It is a real place.
There's people that live there.
Yeah, there's an international film festival there.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Wow.
How are the Minnesota crowds for...
They're so supportive.
Because they treat, like...
I went with this comic who was a writer for Conan, and now he writes for Ellen.
And they treat you like a celebrity when you're there.
His name's Brian Kiley.
Yeah, he's very funny.
And the town's like so welcoming.
They're awesome.
Did you try your Vikings joke on them?
I didn't because I was still workshopping it.
I didn't think it was funny.
I didn't think it was ready for Brian to tie it.
Not quite.
Yeah.
Oh, the theme of the show was comedians in chairs eating popcorn.
So Brian and I each did stand-up set, and then the crowd did a Q ⁇ A about what it's like to work in television.
And the theme was that we were eating popcorn, but I was eating popcorn and one of the kernels got stuck in my throat.
And my eyes started watering.
I couldn't talk because I couldn't answer questions.
I was choking.
That's comedy.
Yeah, that's good stuff.
Well, half my roof blew away.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
We had a big windstorm to come in, and now I got to spend a bunch of money on a roof.
Sounds like you're in over your head.
Well, Brian and I brought the roof down.
So that was my week.
That was Adam's week.
What about you, Kyle?
What about your week?
I didn't do a ton.
We had a cool, fun board game night on Friday night with Dan and Dan was invited, but he didn't want to come.
Patrick and Brandon.
So we get to play Dune.
Yeah.
And once again, Patrick blow everybody up.
Blew everybody up again.
If you know Dune, the laser gun and the shield always cause a nuclear explosion or something in the Dune book.
So that's how it works in the game, too.
So every single time he goes in combat, this guy's just blasting laser guns like crazy and blows everybody up, which is awesome.
We're going to need you to teach us the Star Trek card game one of these days.
Oh, yeah.
I still need to do that.
We'll do like a lengthy three-hour episode where we just play through the Star Trek.
Definitely.
CCG.
I'm excited.
Yeah.
Hey, we got a subscriber there.
This is Subscriber Dare.
This person says, hello, I recently resubscribed to the B, but I should have been smarter about it.
I forgot to hold out to get a subscriber there.
This is a retroactive.
We don't even get anything from this.
Would it work to pretend like it didn't and then do the subscriber, Dare?
I think it's pretty easy.
You know, you don't even have to tell us that.
You could have just told us that you'd subscribe.
I think if they're at $5, now they got to go to $10.
Yeah, you have to upgrade your subscription.
I would love it if Austin could redo the premium subscriber lounge intro with the BB Yacht floating on Crisp Dollar Bills.
Thanks for your consideration, Derek.
So right now, do we not play the old Dave one?
Is that or you see we just want Austin to redo it?
Austin has redone most of our segments.
All right.
Well, let's message Austin and get him on the BB Yacht Floating on Crisp $100 Bills intro.
It might even be ready for this episode.
Oh, okay.
Oh, fancy.
There you go.
So he's already a subscriber, so he'll hear it.
There you go.
Derek, you named it and claimed it.
And it's going to happen.
Let's do our B banger of the week.
Banger of the week.
Adam, you get to read this one because I think this was your joke.
Banger of the week.
The top shirt story was: Trudeau claims truckers only hate him because he's black.
Of course, it was based on the numerous times he's been caught wearing black face and other color phases.
That guy's got a problem.
He does.
It's like so.
It's not like they dug up one picture.
It's like, this is how he dressed up for every Halloween in every party he's ever been invited to.
Yeah, you get the sense that he thinks that this is okay.
Yeah.
So it really is this like convoy of truckers gunning for Ottawa, and I guess they parked around there, and then all of a sudden Trudeau was like, I have COVID and must quarantine as soon as they arrive.
First, it said he fled to like an undisclosed location or something.
Like, oh no, there's awesome.
I don't have to deal with my constituents.
Did he really say that they, or he said it was disgusting behavior of the truckers?
Yeah, there was some news story that came out where they were claiming some homeless shelter was claiming that the truckers were harassing them for food.
Okay.
And so that's become a big talking point: that all these people, they're just unruly.
Something about desecrating memorials, badgering these people for food and taking food away from homeless people.
So now Trudeau comes out with a statement, like, oh, they're disgusting behavior and they're doing this and they're doing that.
I've known lots of truck drivers, and one thing they are not is disgusting.
Probably the same FBI agents.
So does nobody know where Trudeau really is?
Like, he's just gone.
I don't know.
We actually have a statement from him, though, that we got.
Oh, yeah.
Let's find out where he's at.
Let's see what he's up to.
Let's play the statement from Trudeau.
Hey, hosers, it's me, Justin Trudeau.
He, him, hey, the president of the greatest state in the U.S., Canada.
This week, some truckers drove to Ottawa claiming that they're angry about a vaccine mandate, eh?
I would have had the Mounties pull them over, but their horses ain't fast enough.
I tell you what.
But the truth of the matter is, these truckers only hate me because I'm black.
That was me in college.
You privileged white folks have no idea how hard it was for me as a young black man.
I was a social outcast and only got invited to one party, eh?
It was so hard being black that for a while I tried being both kinds of Indian.
The feather kind and the kind that works at Tim Hortons, eh?
But I faced more racism and hatred because some people think it's funny to mock tired, outdated stereotypes, eh?
Sorry.
I apologize.
I was a little parched.
Please don't listen to these racist truckers bashing my vax mandate.
This pandemic is serious.
And I should know because I just tested positive, eh?
I want these truckers to get vaxxed, like I did, so they don't catch COVID, like I did.
New research has found that your COVID risk depends on your blood type, eh?
Your chance of catching COVID is higher if you have type AA than BA or ABA or OA.
But get vaccinated regardless of whether you're type OA, ABA, BA, or A. Eh?
The truth is, I want these truckers to get vaccinated because I care about them.
When they're out there chain smoking, driving 19 hours a day and eating truck-stop cheeseburgers, I want them to stay healthy, eh?
So they can keep delivering our milk in a bag, cocky pucks, delicious maple syrup, and of course, black shoe polish that we need for reasons.
Eh?
May the Canadian Indigenous Two-Spirit God bless you, and may she bless Canada.
I'm glad he came clean on that and issued that statement.
Yeah.
I especially liked his best speeches he's given.
I liked his picture of, is it Chad Kroger and Avril Levine?
Everything Canada's proud of.
Beaver a moose and Chad and Avril.
He really took a page out of the guy from Florida that chugs the water to say.
Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio.
Yeah, he needed a drink during his speech.
Is that a Rubio thing that he chugs water during?
Yeah, it was back during the 2016 election when he was running, and he reached for a glass of water and he had to reach way off stage for it.
But then what was funnier about it is Trump would make fun of him at every speech after that and imitate him drinking water, like as weird as possible.
Didn't Trump drink water funny?
Like, he was always like...
People said he would grab it with both hands.
Like, two hands.
Like a baby with his mouth.
Well, we also had an article that nobody liked.
Bomb of the week.
Bomb of the week.
Traveler having trouble finding luggage among scores of illegal immigrants on baggage claim carousel.
I thought the visual on this joke was nice.
I liked this one a lot.
I thought that joke was good.
I wonder if the wording is too like verbose.
Yeah, I got to confess.
I had no idea what this article was even about.
I think it's a good joke.
There's probably a cleaner way to write it.
There's night flights of illegal immigrants flying out to Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania or something that they've been reporting.
They're going to fight at a Golden Corral.
So it's like Biden bringing people into the country and then just flying them to different places in the country and just trying to be hush-hush about it.
Yeah, and then Saki said, well, the flights are just resettling unaccompanied children.
But there's clearly full-grown adults emerging from these planes.
I don't know if I'm a crazy conspiracy theorist, but it seems nuts.
Let's do some weekly news with Adam Jenser.
It's time for the weekly news with Adam Jenser.
A massive brawl broke out at a Golden Corral in Pennsylvania after two parties got in a fight over steak.
Ugh, that makes me sick.
Not the fight, Golden Corral.
In response to the fight, Golden Corral has changed their motto to when you're here, you're a dysfunctional family.
Today's show host Hoda Cottby announced that she and her fiancé have broken up, which is very sad.
She was so close to getting a pronounceable last name.
This Tuesday was Groundhog Day, the day the media takes a break from lecturing America about science and misinformation and lets a woodchuck predict the weather.
At this year's Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Los Angeles Rams will play on their home field, which is surrounded by homeless.
The stadium is located in downtown LA, which means the Bengals will have a five-hour flight and the Rams will have a four-hour commute.
Schools in the Bengals' hometown of Cincinnati have canceled classes the day after the game, while LA will celebrate with its traditional lighting of the cop cars.
Either way, lose or win.
Yes.
The cop cars will hurt.
It's either celebratory cop car burning or angry cop car burning.
But either way, they're going to burn.
And this year's Super Bowl will feature the youngest matchup of coaches in NFL history.
Tom Brady has concussions older than these guys.
And speaking of the GOAT, Tom Brady has just broken one final NFL record for most retirements in a single week.
It's already retired like three times this week.
A butterfly sanctuary in Texas closed for safety reasons after QAnon believers spread a rumor that it's housing a sex trafficking ring.
But they couldn't be more wrong.
It turns out no one who works at the Butterfly Sanctuary has ever had sex.
But this is such a ridiculous accusation.
I mean, monarchs don't engage in sex trafficking.
Princes do.
Rihanna and ASAP Rocky are expecting their first child together.
And to spend more time with the baby, Rihanna will take a few months off of work, A British man whose handsome mugshot went viral among admiring women is now being called the fit felon.
And no one is more jealous than the friend zone strangler.
A woman in the UK claims that she was virtually raped in Facebook's metaverse.
The perpetrator was ordered to hit Control-Z and undo the rape.
According to a new study by Johns Hopkins University, lockdowns in the US and UK had little or no impact on COVID deaths.
Of course, you already knew that if you listened to the misinformation on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Although lockdowns didn't stop COVID, they did destroy countless businesses and make people's lives miserable for two years.
Wasn't that really the point all along?
Yeah.
True.
CNN president Jeff Zucker resigned after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a co-worker.
He had initially denied the allegation, saying, Zucker, I hardly know her.
After violence broke out at a federal prison in Texas, federal prisons across the country were placed on lockdown.
Although it's still unclear how being on a lockdown in prison is different than regular being in prison.
That's it for the news.
If you want to see more, check out Canceled News on my YouTube channel.
But now, this week's edition of stuff that's good.
So my stuff that's good this week is Pokemon Legends, which is the first kind of open world, fully 3D Pokemon game where you actually get to sneak around in the bushes and stalk the Pokemon and then throw balls at them.
And it's very exciting.
And I love it.
It's the game that I always wanted.
Is it like the original?
I haven't played Pokemon since the original Game Boy game.
And I played Pokemon Snap a little bit.
Is it comparable?
Is it the same sort of game?
Sorry, I'm so old.
So it is a direct evolution of the old Game Boy games where you're trying to catch a team and build them up and then battle all these people.
But it's done where, like, catching the Pokemon works more how it does, like, in the anime, like, where you see them in the wild and, oh, there's a – and then you sneak up and, like, you know, I've got to throw a berry out there and distract him and then throw a ball instead of, like – the other games, you know, the Game Boy ones, like – You have to fight it and then – Well, you just kind of walk back and forth in the grass and then it's, like, you know, Pokemon appears is when they're actually in the world.
So you can see like a B Pokemon flying around and you're like, oh, there's one.
And you get them.
And it turns me into a fifth grader again.
What's your favorite Pokemon?
I have a soft spot for Bulbasaur, I think.
That was my favorite starting one.
Yeah, I was just picking Bulbasaur.
He was kind of the cheat because if you picked him, you could beat like the first two or three gyms really easily.
Oh, okay.
Because they were all weak against grass.
Charmander's good, but he does make it harder to win the first couple of gym battles.
And then you get Charizard at the end, which is everybody liked having Charizard.
Oh, man.
Yeah, I like that.
So you're saying they revamped the game so that it could be enjoyable by 35-year-olds.
So we have been demanding from Game Freak for years, like a full open-world Pokemon game.
Like, why hasn't that happened?
And they kept disappointing us.
Pokemon Coliseum.
Oh, it's going to be a full 3D Pokemon RPG.
No.
Pokemon XD, Gale of Darkness on the GameCube.
Oh, it's going to be a full 3D.
No, it's not that.
It's not what you think it is.
So then when this one is announced, I was like, it's going to be.
But this is actually pretty much like you get to walk around the areas.
And it's got some weaknesses.
You know, the graphics aren't great.
But it's clearly a step in the right direction for Pokemon.
Nice.
I think I dropped off at like Pokemon Red.
Yeah.
So to me, this is the best Pokemon game since Pokemon Red and Blue.
Wow.
And I've played almost every game since then.
Awesome.
And I'm a grown adult.
What's your stuff that's good?
It's a comedy show that I just stumbled upon recently because a friend recommended it, but it's several years old.
It's from 2012.
And it's called Burning Love.
And it's basically a parody of all those like bachelor-style dating shows, which I never watched them a whole lot.
But when I was at Ellen, we'd always have to show clips from them.
So I saw the types of people that are on there.
But this show is hilarious.
And apparently, it ran for three seasons.
And the cast is like incredible.
Like, Ben Stiller is in it and produced it.
And Jennifer Aniston's in it.
Kristen Bell is in it.
Ken Jung is in it.
Natasha Legero.
And it's just like hilarious.
The host is played by Michael Ian Black.
And then Ken Marino plays The Bachelor.
And he's got these girls living in a house that he has to choose from.
And they're all crazy characters.
One of them is named Agnes and is 84 years old.
And the humor is really funny.
Apparently, it was nominated for an Emmy Award for one season.
No one's heard of it.
I've never heard of it.
Okay.
Now, what's the tone?
Is it closer to a dry parody mockumentary, Christopher Guest style, or is it more over the top?
I would say it's sort of in between in that it feels like you're just watching an episode of The Bachelor.
It's very like true to form as far as those shows go.
The characters in it, I would say, are a little like wackier than like Christopher Guest.
It's not particularly dry.
Yeah.
But like they, one of the contestants is a WNBA coach, and she's clearly lesbian.
So it's falling for the other contestants instead of The Bachelor.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's very funny.
I just messaged my wife.
We need to watch Burning Love.
And I think it's on Pluto TV, which is like a free streaming app, or you can get it on Amazon Prime.
Okay, awesome.
So we're doing a trend here of everyone being very on brand.
On brand Pokemon.
Kyle's Pokemon, Adam's Comedy.
I'm going to recommend as a stuff that's good the RC Sprawl expositional commentary.
And so I think that there are seven of them now.
You didn't even go with like a pop version, like a layman's book or some, you just went straight for the expositional comments.
I think these are very approachable.
These are very much like the layman's because this is.
I'm just glad there's seven of them because I know if I read one, I'd be like, oh, that's it.
They're very bingeable.
They're bingeable.
Yeah.
But I mean, if you're looking for a book that you can read as like your daily devotions, it's like they basically took RC Sprawl's sermons and basically made them into chapters.
And so you have like a text of scripture and you open it up and he, it's like his sermon points of how he preached through it.
So you can go.
Yeah, I've seen these, like the one on John.
Yeah, they have John, Luke, Matthew, Mark, so the four gospels, all the hits, all the greatest hits.
Romans and Acts and 1 and 2 Peter, I think, are the ones they have.
The lesser known books.
I have Luke and Romans, and that's like my daily read.
It's very good.
That's awesome.
Cool.
So you can play Pokemon, watch some secular comedy with 30 jokes in it.
Or you can do something spiritual.
And then afterwards, you can read RC Spring to repent.
All right, let's do, let's move on.
We're going to go to now a retrospective on Biden's first year in office.
Biden's first year, a retrospective.
Now, Biden probably doesn't remember all of these things.
How has it only been a year?
What a year it's been.
What a year.
He's really done a lot.
Pulled some of the greatest hits.
It was hard narrowing it down because there's so many.
Because he's accomplished so much.
So let's go.
Let's go all the way back to March of 2021.
Biden repeatedly said that Republicans opposing Democrat voting rights bills were making Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.
I started seeing the memes about Jim Eagle before I saw the actual statement, and I thought people were just riffing on Jim Crow or something.
I didn't know that he actually said that.
That's awesome.
But I'm also trying to figure out, Jim, like, is that watching?
An eagle is bigger than a crow.
So if they're making Jim Crow look worse than it was, and the new thing is, is there a new thing, Jim Eagle?
Hold on.
I'm Googling Jim Eagle, Biden's Jim Crow analogy explained.
How does that make sense?
I never even thought of that.
I don't even know what he's trying to say.
Yeah, it shouldn't Jim like Dove or something.
Make Jim Eagle look like Jim Dove.
Yeah, bizarre.
Jim Eagle sounds like a Native American, like how they have modern first names, but they still have Native American last names.
Like this is Jim Eagle.
Jim Eagle sounds like a congressperson or something.
Yeah.
Vote for Jim Eagle.
But he's trying to say that Republican legislation is worse than Jim Crow laws.
Is that what he's trying to say?
That's what he's meaning.
Yeah, that's right.
I feel like he said it backwards.
But it's backwards because, yeah.
Well, there's 50 of these, so we better keep moving.
Also in March, Biden fell up the stairs of Air Force One three times in three seconds.
Oh, man.
The memes that came out of that were amazing.
I liked the Mario Kart one where the banana peels are falling out of his.
I like the one where he's like falling into a different dimension.
Just keeps rolling.
Poor guy.
Poor guy.
It really is.
He tries to recover and then he goes down two times harder.
Yeah.
Poor guy.
All right.
We have one in June.
Joe Biden appears to be lost at the G7 summit and he's walking around and he's like very disoriented.
And then the reporter yells at him.
They start asking him questions and his wife has to come and rescue him.
Roll tape.
How are your meetings going in Cornwall, Mr. President?
How are your meetings going here in Cornwall?
Very well.
It kind of makes you feel bad for the guy, like...
It really makes you think he's not all there.
And his wife is always trying to corral him at her places.
And what's sad is everyone that's there knows what's happening and they're laughing.
They're laughing at him while he's very visibly disoriented.
That's also hard for me about him.
It's like I dislike his policy so much and I dislike this presidency.
Yeah.
But I also have this like thing where I feel bad for him where it's like, whether I agree with him or not, he served this country for a long time.
It's like, let him go spend time with his family.
It's sad to watch some of this stuff.
I don't feel bad for him.
Just keep mocking him.
Let's move on.
July in the 4th of July, in the 4th of July, the White House announced that you saved 16 cents on your cookout this year.
Which is awesome.
Even if it were true, why would you announce that?
It's just wonderful.
I like the GIF on the tweet that that's from where it keeps rotating different objects.
It's like ground beef is now this.
Vanilla ice cream is now this.
Yeah, like even if they spent so much time working on it, and nobody, nobody in the PR team was like, this is a bad idea.
He just wanted to tweet about ice cream again.
In July, he falsely claimed that he used to drive an 18-wheeler.
Yeah, so I guess they looked into it and they found like there was one time where he went on a ride along with a cargo truck driver to like see what their problems were or whatever, you know, those PR stunts, like to do ride along.
And that's the only thing they can find that even remotely is close to this.
So in his brain, that just stuck.
I used to drive a 10-wheeler.
He has such a habit of just saying things that are just not true.
We've got more coming up, so just stay tuned here.
As a Christian, you know that God is always there for you, but sometimes things in this life can get overwhelming.
It's a crazy time, especially with the pandemic and all that stuff.
It's important to speak to a counselor, but you definitely want to talk to one who shares your faith and values.
Online counseling from Faithful Counseling is there for you.
You have Christian counselors who share your faith, who can deal with crisis of faith issues, and just deal with normal stuff that every human deals with, like depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, all that kind of stuff.
You can get help on your own time and at your own pace.
You can schedule a secure video chat with a counselor.
Everything you share is confidential.
They have 3,000 U.S. licensed therapists across all 50 states.
It's secure, convenient, professional, and affordable.
Listeners get 10% off your first month at faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B. Don't wait another minute.
You can get started today.
Go to faithfulcounseling.com/slash Babylon B. You're going to fill out a questionnaire and it'll help them assess your needs and get you matched with a counselor who shares your faith and a counselor that you'll love.
That's faithfulcounseling.com slash Babylon B.
Okay, in July, Joe Biden yelled, my butt's been wiped at reporters.
And we don't really know what he was trying to say or why he would say that.
I don't even know that one.
Yeah, like if you watch the video, we'll play the clip.
Roll the clip.
Is it feeling like a creation?
What must be what?
I don't know that he said, my butt's been wiped.
But what could he have been trying to say?
So, like, even if he wasn't saying that, what on earth was he saying?
I heard an explanation once that made sense to me that he was like trying to ask for clarification on what the reporter said.
And there was a phrase that made sense.
But just him walking up and okay, yeah.
So I think someone asked him a question and he was clarifying.
He said, it must have been what?
Or something like that.
And if you like read that phrase and then watch it, you go, okay, maybe that is what it was.
But I prefer just thinking that he randomly said that.
In August, a bumbling Biden got lost again in the bushes on the way to the White House after ignoring a secret service agent trying to point him onto the concrete path.
That's a great video, too.
Roll tape.
Yeah, so very clearly, the secret service agent is like pointing, come this way.
And I think he walks past like a pallet.
Like the pallet's like blocking the path.
He goes around it, and then the secret agents are like all trying to like, oh no, where is he going?
And then he's pointing, go this way, go this way.
And he goes around him.
Yeah, and he keeps walking way up.
And then there's like another entrance up there.
So they finally managed to corral him and get him back into the they should hire a border colleague to just turn him into wherever he has to go.
This is from August.
Biden was asked a question about the Afghanistan withdrawal by a reporter and he said he dismissed the Afghans falling off of airplanes saying Afghanistan was four or five days ago.
We've all seen the pictures.
We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17.
We've seen Afghans fall.
That was four days ago, five days ago.
What did you think when you first saw those pictures?
What I thought was weird.
We have to gain control of this.
Terrible.
Just terrible.
So, not even getting the days wrong, but just the callousness of that.
Oh, it's just four or five days ago.
Like, come on, let's get over it.
Let's get over it.
They fell off the airplane four or five days ago.
And you're still talking about it.
I've done so many other bad things since then.
Yeah, I think it was actually messed up so much in those four months.
Yeah, in addition, I think it was actually only like two days before, which makes it better.
Oh, man.
So, this is back in August.
Joe Biden said that 350 million Americans had been vaccinated, which is 20 million more than the entire population of the United States.
Now, this is almost too easy because anytime he has to say a number in a speech, he just says bizarre stuff.
If we were allowed to go back to the campaign, he had some crazy ones.
Like, 150 million Americans have been killed by gun violence, I think.
Oh, that was one of his like half the population.
So, that will be the case.
Yeah, yeah, it will be 150 million were killed in Chicago, though.
In October, rumors circulated online that Biden had soiled himself in front of the Pope with hashtags trending like poopy pants Biden and poopgate, which I don't care if that's true or not.
It's funny, it's so funny.
It's so believable, yeah.
Like, you think like that could happen, and the screen grab was funny because whether or not that's what really happened, there were just these shots of the Pope just stone-faced staring at Biden.
You just imagine that that's what the Pope is thinking.
Uh, also in October, Biden retells another false, completely made-up story about traveling on Amtrak train for 2.2 million miles.
And he's told the story five times in public now.
Uh, what's more, the conductor that he references in the story died decades before he supposedly took this trip.
So, 2.2 million miles on a train, yeah, isn't that like going to the moon like 10 or 20 times?
I think you figured it'd be about 10 times to the moon or five round trips, yeah.
So, like, how is that even possible?
Like, he did that in America on Amtrak.
What's so weird about some of these things?
Like, all politicians like lie and exaggerate, or like, try to relate to people, but usually there's some like purpose for their exaggeration.
Like, there's no purpose to claiming that you rode 2.2 million miles on an Amtrak.
Like, no one's gonna think about it.
I'm voting for this guy, he rode 2 million miles.
No one's gonna think less of him if he rode like a million miles or like 50,000.
He's on Snow Piercer, he's just circling the earth.
This is in November.
He tried to force a vaccine mandate on all large employers, employers.
I think that was if they had 100 or more employees and government workers through an OSHA mandate, but the Supreme Court knocked it down.
So, that's his legacy.
Yeah, but he didn't poop his pants or anything, so it's not that funny.
Yeah, but uh, yeah, he might have as it was happening.
That's a weird way to try to do that.
Like, you're not going to go through Congress, you're not going to do like an executive order, you're going to say, Well, through OSHA.
It made complete sense to me when I heard it.
Like, oh, that's how they're going to try to do this.
Yeah, like it's just like a bureaucracy, like the bureaucracy will enforce this.
And really, it really kind of emphasizes they said it was like a workplace safety issue or something, yeah, which is just such a weird thing.
Yeah, like they're supposed to make sure that you inspected your forklifts and stuff like that, not that you're injected with the vaccine.
They're going to test the forklifts for COVID.
Yeah, uh, in November, also, Biden called Satchel Page, who is a black baseball pitcher, the great Negro.
And that's in quotation marks.
I'm not saying that, that is in quotation marks.
But they were saying maybe he was stumbling over his words, he was trying to talk about the old Negroes.
Giving a speech honoring this Sagil page and talking about the history of the Negro League.
And then he, after saying the Negro League, which is what it was called, he then goes on to say, and we have here the great Negro at the time.
And it's one of those things that, like, I totally believe that it was just he stumbled over his words.
Yeah.
But it's also one of those things like with Trump, had he said this, oh, yeah.
Like, there's people that didn't even hear about this happening.
I didn't hear about it.
I ignored it so much.
And yet with Trump, you had like Bigley became a thing, Kofe became a thing.
Anytime he stumbled or said anything stupid, it was a headline and he tried to read into it.
If Trump had ever accidentally called a black person the great Negro at the time, it would have been the biggest racist headline of the day for a week.
CNN would still be talking about it.
Yeah.
This isn't like the first time he said something like this, too.
It's like when he said, well, it's not just rich kids, also black kids.
You're so racist.
It's so racist.
Like, just the assumptions there.
Black kids are just as smart as rich kids or something.
Yeah, something like that.
Yeah.
Poor kids are just as bright as white kids.
Yeah, that's what it was.
Yeah.
Another accident.
He farted in front of Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, at a climate change summit, and she reportedly couldn't stop talking about that.
I also feel like Camilla Bowles' face always looks like she smelled a fart.
This is how she walks around.
He's just trying to impress her.
General rules of etiquette in England.
You're not supposed to fart in front of the Duchess of Cornwall.
Yes.
There's probably a procedure for it.
You have to curtsy first or something.
And then you have to announce your fart before the royals.
Yeah.
As an American, does this make us like him more or less that he farts?
That's true.
That's a good point.
That's a good point.
So maybe that's a good thing he did.
So this is back in November.
I guess.
Oh, this is the same, the same.
I think it was the same summit.
Yeah, this is right after he farted in front of Camilla.
He fell asleep during the UN climate summit.
I think there's footage of this, or at least a picture.
You've got to watch this.
It's great.
Yeah.
So someone's giving a very impassioned speech on how climate change is going to wipe us all out.
And Biden just zonks out.
He's done.
I never found him more relatable than in that moment.
Yeah.
So this is another good thing he's done.
Also in November, he falsely claimed that he used to drive an 18-wheeler.
Again.
Told the story again.
What's crazy to me is that they never get called out on like they'll say if they make a totally fabricated story.
Yeah.
I used to drive an 18-wheeler.
Nobody in the media goes up to him and says, no, you're lying.
Stop saying that.
Yeah, at least not in the moment.
Like, I was actually surprised CNN did a whole compilation thing.
Here's all the false claims Biden did in his first year.
I was like, oh, that's cool.
But if you read the article on the top paragraph, it's like, let's be clear, Biden is not as bad as Trump.
That was how they opened the article.
Yeah.
December, Biden reads, and then the message said, end of message off of a teleprompter.
So he's reading the directions of like, you know, like the stage direct.
Yeah.
Pause.
End of message.
End of message.
But at the end of the day, we've always found ways to come together.
We can find that unity again.
And the message said, end of message.
This is in December.
Democrats mocked for Twitter graphic thanking Biden for two cent gas price drop.
They didn't learn their lesson from the 16 cent market.
Yeah.
So like inflation, like I think the official number like over the year was like 7% or something or 8%.
That's the official number, which is probably not as big as the actual number.
Yeah.
So, like, if you could, if you just compare gas prices from Trump to Biden in the end of the year, well, wouldn't that just be on its face false?
Well, because it's it spiked like massively and then it like went down two cents.
Yeah, and they were like, Look at that, two cents.
And then the way that they cropped the graph, okay, the scale of the graph, they actually just showed it going two cents down.
I saw people doing that with the Spotify thing, like, well, after they defended Joe Rogan, their stock went down this much, and it's like, well, all the stocks went down that much, and then like it went right back up.
So, oh, other, yeah, other companies went down further.
It's so funny how they just frame information, like, they just look at the wind, the narrow window of what proves their point.
Yeah, uh, in January, he called Peter Doocy, does he say Deucey?
Do you see Ducey?
That's a funny name.
He uh, Biden made a Deucey in front of the Pope in January.
He called Peter Doocy an SOB, which was awesome.
Now, the way he does it is so interesting.
It was the most quick way that I've seen him, though, as president.
He's like, Oh, yeah, inflation.
Peter Doocy asked him, He goes, Do you think inflation is a liability for your campaign or presidency?
And he goes, No, inflation's great.
More inflation, stupid son of a president.
It was awesome.
Well, I like what happened after that because, like, all of like CNN and everyone came up with an article.
Like, what Biden said was bad, but Trump was worse.
It's the same thing at the CNN thing.
They always have to go back to Trump.
Also, in January, Biden cleeps, Biden keeps claiming he was arrested at various points, often for civil rights causes.
He said, I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walk these grounds, but I walked other grounds because I'm so old.
I was there as well.
You think I'm kidding, man?
It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested.
And if you look up the facts, it appears Biden was never arrested.
He's claimed that he, as a kid, wandered onto the Senate floor and was arrested.
And then he claimed like he was trying to approach Nelson Mandela in South Africa and was arrested.
And there was another one that he claimed he got arrested for.
There's just no evidence that he's ever been arrested for anything.
So he's just flat out lying, trying to boost his street cred.
Like, oh, yeah, I'm down with the struggle.
But I feel like now he probably frequently wanders onto the Senate floor.
No, sir.
Back this way.
Well, everyone, that is a look back at the year of Biden presidency.
End of message.
Okay, now me and Adam sat down and talked with a Viking expert, Arthur Herman.
And he's got a lot of interesting commentary on the Vikings and like philosophical conclusions.
Yeah, he wrote a whole book about the Vikings and about both their history and their sort of impact on America and their legacy.
Yeah, awesome.
Let's check it out.
Does the Bible seem too big, complicated, and overwhelming?
There's a free resource that has helped millions by breaking the Bible down book by book, chapter by chapter, and verse by verse.
The Enduring Word commentary is a popular and trusted Bible resource, and its clear and simple approach makes it helpful both to everyday Christians and seasoned Bible teachers.
Find the Enduring Word Bible commentary by David Guesick at enduringword.com.
That's enduringword.com.
And now for another interview on the Fee Weekly.
It wasn't specific to you either.
We asked all our guests to wear Viking horn.
Yeah.
In fact, I think I just saw a news article like literally yesterday or a day or two ago that researchers found that those horned helmets predate the Vikings by like 3,000 years or something like that.
Did you happen to see that?
Could be.
I mean, that is possible.
I mean, I mean, someone could, you know, it's very likely that maybe, you know, Neolithic warriors wore it as a kind of totemic symbol of one sort or another.
It's hard to say.
But you guys know the Viking Quest, right?
And the character from the fictional character, Johnny Drama, who was supposed to have launched his career.
This is an entourage, launched his career as a playing a Viking on a fictional TV series called Viking Quest.
He shows up at Comic-Con wearing this utterly ridiculous Viking headset, you know, with horns that stick out about two and a half feet on either side.
And I think that's the kind of caricature that gets conveyed about what sort of helmets they wore.
They wore almost like everybody else.
It was there to protect your nose and your upper face and whatever other kind of ornamentation or decoration you had was the least.
How did the horn stereotype get associated with Vikings?
Like, where did that sort of, you know, what?
That's a good question.
It comes out of the 19th century, when it was seen as a way to provide a kind of romantic headdress for representation, not just of Vikings, but particularly in Wagner's ring cycle, where, you know, the classic one of Brunhilde, right?
The clistic image of Brunhilde and the Valkyries with their sort of winged helmets and so on.
All of this is a 19th-century invention.
And it kind of got carried over into the way in which people thought about how Vikings would dress or how they would go into battle.
I understand the story of the Vikings is pretty personal to you.
And that, like, your ancestors came over from Scandinavia.
So you're descended from Vikings.
Would they be ashamed of you seeing you just sit in a cozy office?
Oh, you should.
The temperature in here is like it's 60 degrees.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, no, I mean, I put up with, you know, that kind of temperature toughened up.
And for and for winter, it's required.
And growing up in Wisconsin, as I do, you know, temperatures, indoor temperatures in the 50s, that's one for tank, that's tank top weather.
My grandparents on my mother's side came over in all seriousness just before World War I. You know, World War I and the German U-boat threat really shut down transatlantic crossings for ordinary passengers and for passenger liners.
So they came over from Norway to and eventually settled in Minnesota, which is sort of the hub for Scandinavian immigrants.
I never even knew that Minnesota was known as the hub for Scandinavian settlers.
Is that where the Minnesota Vikings football name comes from?
Yeah, well, that's exactly it.
That's exactly why.
Right.
Yep.
Well, it's, I mean, all of that sort of upper tier of the Midwest, Wisconsin, which is where my parents still live, Minnesota, Iowa, the Dakotas.
That's definitely Scandinavia, American Central.
Now, the Danes, here's an interesting little facto for you.
Danish immigrants, large numbers of them settled in Utah as well as California.
And the reason is because many of them came over as Mormons.
And so that's why the Danes are, I think, the second largest ethnic group in Utah to this day.
So did you know a lot about Viking history growing up then because of your family heritage there?
Not so much for that.
It was not so much a part of the family heritage, as you were saying.
It's interesting too, my grandmother, my mother's mother, always called them Vikings.
Not a hard V, but a W.
It's the Minnesota Vikings football team and the Vikings from Norway.
No, my interest in the Vikings really and my knowledge of it, from which the book, Viking Heart, really comes forth, that first part in particular, which is really about the Vikings and their voyages and their settlements in Europe, comes out of my background in medieval history.
I originally thought when I was in college, I was going to become a medieval historian.
Didn't happen that way.
It didn't.
My destiny took me in a variety of other directions.
But that background in medieval history through undergraduate and graduate school came in handy for talking about their context, the dark age and medieval Europe, writing the book.
No doubt about that.
How did the Green Bay Packers get their name?
Meatpacking.
Back in the days when Green Bay, Wisconsin was a big, you know, meatpacking.
Do you want to go through all the NFL teams?
In fact, that's one of the reasons people have suggested that with supply chain issues with the meatpacking industry that they mobilize the Green Bay Packers.
They carry them.
I mean, you know, for crying out loud, live up to your name, guys, and get out there and do your job.
So that's the story with the Packers.
What do you think about Harold Hardrada?
And do you like him?
He's an interesting figure.
I talk about him at length in the book.
And he winds up having an important revenue, a rendezvous with destiny, not a revenue with destiny, a rendezvous with destiny, because he is the Viking leader who King Harold of England defeats at the Battle of Stamford Bridge and secures England from a second Viking conquest.
It's 1066.
Then Harold, having defeated Harold Hardrant, heads south and gets defeated in his turn by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, the more famous of the two battles in 1066 that decides sort of England's future, who's going to rule, what ethnic group is going to control the court and the kingdom.
But Harold himself is, you know, his whole, his life story is like a Viking saga.
I mean, it's an incredible one of how he was disinherited from his brother's inheritance of the kingdom, traveled to Constantinople and served in the Byzantine emperor's bodyguard, the Varangian Guard, made a career for himself as a freebooter and as a warrior in the Middle East,
then in the Mediterranean, then headed home to reclaim his throne, which he did, and established himself as the sworn enemy of the Danes and the Norwegians and everybody else that he could find to engage in battle.
And then the opportunity, as I explained in the book, the opportunity comes up for him to get a slice of the kingdom of England when King Harold's brother decides that the end of the struggle for succession,
who will be the king of England after the death of Edward the Confessor, when he convinces, and he convinces Harold Hardrart that they can split the kingdom between them if Harold will help him assume the throne.
That's how Harold ends up on the other side of the North Sea, occupying York and then killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.
Dying with a poem on his lips, because as the saga tells us, Harold was not only a great warrior and a ruthless king, but also a brilliant impromptu poet.
It's the Viking equivalent of being a rat.
So he could freestyle.
Exactly.
When you're in battle, you sort of riff on the scene and what's taking place.
Your guys are dying.
They're about to win, or their guys are dying.
We're about to win.
And so you compose a little verse like that while you're hacking your way.
Just give them a sick burn before you die.
It was Harold's case.
Was everyone named Harold back then?
It's a very popular name.
There's no doubt about that.
That's right.
There's a lot of Svens that go around as well.
And of course, it also becomes: there's a name in my case that's also very close to my family because my mother's younger brother was Harold.
Could he freestyle?
Well, actually, you know, he did have, he was sort of a sort of James Taylor minstrel kind of guy.
That's pretty much freestyle, right?
So it's a music, it's a music.
The Viking heritage could be a musical heritage, shallow, as well as a warrior heritage or one of intrepid exploration.
Well, you've touched on it a little bit already, but with your new book, you know, The Viking Heart: How Scandinavians Conquer the World, just in terms of movies, films, how we think of as Vikings, what's accurate, what's not, what are the most common inaccurate characterizations of Vikings that you see out there?
Well, actually, I think, I will be honest with you, I think a lot of the more recent characterizations, especially the TV series Vikings, it's probably more accurate than one might want to assume from the point of view of screenwriters and film producers.
I think probably the further back you go and look at movies that are made from about Viking themes, movies like The Long Ships, the one with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, who is of course no longer with us, but one of his justly forgotten roles in The Longships.
There you go, I have to sort of say that the representation is probably pretty stereotypical and not very accurate.
I would say, by and large, the one important inaccuracy that seems to creep into every representation of the Vikings on film is that every time you see them, if they're not engaged in battle, they're reveling all the time.
You know, they're sitting around the fire, drinking from the skulls of their enemies and aquavit or whatever it else, the alcoholic beverage that is the beverage of choice.
And they're, you know, it's this sort of constant partying.
Vikings wouldn't have been able to survive or get anything done if they'd spent all their time partying like that.
This is not, you know, a Viking village was not a fraternity house.
Of course, there were times when it was important.
Certain feasts related to religious sacrifices or victories of battle or greeting visitors from a neighboring community or neighboring kingdom just before you slaughtered them in battle the following day.
But by and large, I mean, you know, you can't really get anything done if you're going to spend all your time reveling.
You don't see a lot of good representation of Vikings, you know, having a cup and a couple of boiled eggs for dinner and turning in early.
And that doesn't make for an exciting TV series.
That is one.
That obviously is one of the problems.
And I think people would be very disappointed if they were to see the Vikings living kind of, you know, the same old, same old, as part of part of the routine and life in the village or life on shipboard.
One representation, though, seriously, that I would say is probably pretty accurate has been when you look at representation in series like the Vikings is the role of women.
You know, part of that, of course, is the demand, right?
Today, the cultural demand is we have to represent women as much as equals as we dare in whatever historical setting we're portraying.
But in the case of the Vikings, we know, and as I talk about in the book, The Viking Heart, that they, of all of the dark age, of all of the dark age communities and kingdoms, the Vikings were the ones in which women probably had the most active roles, the most rights and privileges, certainly by comparison with their counterparts in Mediterranean,
in Mediterranean civilizations where women were very carefully sequestered, very much in unequal status.
In the Viking world, we have this evidence from the sagas, from the archaeology, which a lot of which contributed to sort of our new look at and understanding of the role of the Vikings.
That a lot of what we see here is that women did occupy a much more active part in Viking society.
Did they only make 72 gold pieces for every 100 gold pieces that a man Viking made?
Yeah, that, well, I think it really would sort of depend upon where you got the gold pieces from.
You know, I think that was basically it.
In terms of the division of loot, it's very hard to know whether Viking women got equal share to the men.
But we do know that they did participate in Viking expeditions, that they were often fighting side by side with their men folk in it.
And as I explained in the book, there's one particular burial site in Birka in Sweden, in which the grave of a Viking leader, which was unearthed in the 19th century, has turned out to be, thanks to DNA evidence, the grave of a woman, woman leading Vikings in battle.
Not unheard of, and the historical evidence suggests that there was at least one or two who engaged in that.
In terms of diversity and representation, so we know that the women Vikings is a thing.
Were there different races of Vikings?
Were there Black Vikings and Mexican Vikings?
Black Vikings and Mexican Vikings, I'm not sure.
I don't know.
But what we do know, and again, the DNA evidence confirms this, is that there was no sense of a kind of sort of ethnic or racial stereotype that made you a Viking and made others non-Vikings.
With the key element in what it is that makes a Viking, in other words, someone who participates in these expeditions, whether it's marauding expeditions or exploratory expeditions, looking for new land, looking for new territory to settle.
What made it is if you've got the guts to set out with 30 or 40 buddies, comrades, into the, you know, going to sea and spending perhaps weeks or months, right, at sea to land on some shore where you don't know who you're going to encounter.
You don't know whether you're going to be facing hostile tribes or whether you're going to face friendly natives who will be happy to engage in trade with you or not.
If you were willing to engage in that kind of enterprise, hell, they would take you.
You were a Viking.
But the idea that caught on in the 19th century that there was somehow some sort of a Nordic type, Nordic racial type that defined the Viking community and therefore was the root cause for the Vikings' accomplishments and their courage in battle and their superior skill as conquerors and as explorers.
The evidence doesn't really support that.
And the DNA evidence that we've got from Graves and Simon really blows it to smother.
Now, I've heard stories of like when they go on these sea voyages, I've heard stories of them like reaching North America and that Vikings, you know, had been here years before we sort of think of America as being discovered by 500 years before Columbus.
And what's interesting in your book, you talk about how the Vikings' legacy, like how much impact does their sort of mindset and their culture have on what we see as like American culture today?
Well, that's an interesting question.
It really goes, what you're asking about, Dan, really goes kind of to the root of the book.
Because what I really wanted to do here with the Viking art was to say that the skill set, the incredible cultural skill set that really drove the Vikings to do the extraordinary things that they did in terms of their voyages of exploration,
their voyages of marauding and conquest, that's true, but also the way in which a small population was able to dominate large parts of the globe for more than 200 years, 300 years, against populations much larger and much richer than theirs, and coming from a really inhospitable environment.
Scandinavia, it's cold a lot of the time.
It's not an environment that leads to a kind of a prosperous, affluent lifestyle in and of itself.
That that cultural skill set of the kind of almost tribal loyalty, loyalty to family, clan, and community, but at the same time, of recognizing the importance of intrepid individuals who are willing to set out on their own and go and find and bring back the resources that the community needs in order to survive and prosper,
that cultural skill set remained, remained in place in Scandinavia in the centuries after the Vikings came.
It changed.
It was altered.
And one of the important themes of my book is the way in which the coming of Christianity really did alter, I think everyone would agree for the better, that Viking spirit, making it less bloodthirsty, making it more able to accommodate the feelings of compassion, the feelings of a sense of conscience.
I mean, one of the great things about being a Viking in the pagan era was never having to say you're sorry, right?
You know, you kill people, you engage in burning down villages, attacking towns, pillaging monasteries.
This is what you did, right?
The whole, the coming of Christianity brings a sense of conscience.
What am I doing?
Well, what's the moral calculus behind what I'm doing or the pain or the suffering that I might be inflicting on others, which is unnecessary and needless?
I like to think of a Christian Viking now.
That's a fun that he still loots and pillages villages, but then he gives an altar call at the end.
He says sorry.
He asks for forgiveness after.
Says, I'm really sorry about all the things that I do.
How can I make it up to you?
It's weird because you said the Vikings who never said sorry.
They first landed in Newfoundland, I think, and now Canadians say sorry all the time.
That's right.
Somewhere that changed.
Somehow, exactly.
Well, the Canadians is a whole other set of issues of problems I've got to deal with.
I don't want to get distracted on that.
And it's interesting.
It's very interesting too, gents, because if you look at the pattern of Scandinavian immigration, which really, really comes underway in the 19th century, especially the second half of the 19th century, that's when my father's great-grandfather came over from Norway.
As I say, my mother's family, right, both of her parents came from Norway in the early 20th century.
His great-grandfather came over in an earlier wave of Scandinavian immigration just before the Civil War, which was how my great-great-grandfather got involved in that conflict, served in the 15th Wisconsin Regiment and got badly wounded during the Civil War.
But what's interesting is that the pattern of immigration is one that leads almost exclusively to the United States.
In other words, there's lots of other places you could go to get away from really bad weather and poor natural resources if you wanted to.
I mean, look at the Italian, right?
Look what happens with the Italian diaspora.
They go everywhere.
A lot of them go to the United States, but many of them go to South America.
Large numbers of them go to North Africa, for example, and settled in Algeria, become part of the early Algerian Pied Noir community there.
But in the case of Scandinavians coming across Danes, Norwegian Swedes coming across the Atlantic, where do they settle?
Some of them end up in Canada, it's true, but a very small number.
Those who do land and disembark in Canada, for example, because a lot of the passenger lines, especially from England, made landfall in Canada.
But what they do, and this is what my grandfather did, my mother's father did, his family, is they headed south through the St. Lawrence Seaway down to the Great Lakes and then to America.
They were drawn to America for an important reason.
And that was that they recognized there was something about what Americans had created as a republic, as a society of free human beings that they saw as important to fulfill their own vision of what it meant to be happy, what it meant to be a free person, and to build a strong family and community.
Well, I wish we could find a topic we could really get you going on.
Something that you're passionate about.
That you're passionate about.
Yeah.
I'm just kidding.
I know you've got to, I apologize.
Do you talk about Vikings a lot, like at parties and stuff?
I thought you were going to ask me if I party like a Viking, and I was going to sort of say no.
No, that was no, at a certain point, and you reach a certain point in your lives, gentlemen, and just wait a couple of decades where you come to realize that that doesn't really sort of sort of pay off anymore.
No, but I have to say that writing this book, you know, this is my 10th book, and I've written on a lot of different subjects.
Mobilization during World War II, my book, Freedom's Forge, which I loved working on, and I had enormous difficulty stopping work on.
My book on how the Scots Invented the Modern World, which was the New York Times bestseller.
That was a really enjoyable book.
And that was what a ride I took when that book came out and became a bestseller, both in the U.S. and also in Britain.
You know, I wound up on this being appointed to the Scottish Arts Council and commuting back and forth between Charlottesville, Virginia, and Edinburgh during that period of time.
As my wife will tell you, my last book is always my favorite.
That's why that's my feeling about each one of them.
Each one of them are definitely very, I cherish each one.
But there was something special about this book, I got to tell you.
Maybe it's because of the personal connection, the family connection that went with it.
Maybe it was also because of the way in which I was trying to construct in the book bridging between the world of the Vikings, right?
Dark Age Europe and that context and bridging to the Scandinavian American experience in the United States and what it says about not just about Scandinavian Americans, but about the virtues of American society and the American values that drew them in the first place and they contributed to.
There's something special about this book.
That's all I could say.
No, it's very cool how you draw that parallel between the Viking heritage and American culture.
All right.
Well, that was a cool, fun time with Arthur Herman, Viking expert.
If you want to hear the rest of that, subscribe to the Babylon B and you can join us in the subscriber lounge where we're going to do that and some more fun stuff.
Let's do some hate mail.
I really miss Adam Ford.
So here's a message from House Loki.
And he's responding to a post that we put up from Not the Bee.
And he says, How does it feel knowing that your entire organization, all of you who work there and the religion you fake to support, are terrorists?
You think Jesus was walking about talking about people he disagreed with?
You will destroy everything you hold valuable and you still won't accept your own actions.
Maybe each one of your should have your mothers brought eye to this.
I can make that happen if you'd like.
Every day you think it's a game.
Meanwhile, I never forget and I'm taking names.
Wait, this is like a threat.
This is like...
It sounds like a threat, except it's almost incomprehensible.
He says, I have...
He called us terrorists.
He calls us terrorists.
To support, we support terrorists.
He suggests he has the resources to bring our mothers into this somehow.
So he's calling us fake Christians, but then threatening to do something about it?
No.
Yeah.
Most of the people that do that, and they write, you guys are hypocritical Christians.
You know, you're making us Christians look bad.
Then they're like, F you, man.
You're like, okay, well.
And then he says he can bring our mothers into this.
I can make it happen if you'd like.
And it's Loki, the Viking god.
Maybe he's just jealous.
Maybe he's just jealous that we're worshiping the other gods.
Sorry, Loki.
Taking names.
All right.
Well, maybe we shouldn't have read this earlier because we're going to get dragged into it.
All right, let's move on to our subscriber lounge where you can hear the rest of our cool interview with Arthur Herman.
We also have a Babylon B classic article of the week, some love mail, some bonus hate mail, subscriber headlines of the week, and more fun stuff.
Let's do it.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
And some memorabilia because our dad was a huge Carmen fan.
He would blast his music to wake us up for church and while we were cleaning the house.
It is very, yeah.
Is the top one or the bottom one the pedophile?
That is...
That is.
What do the celebrity look alike?
I do have more knives than I need.
And I understand the urge to, the manly, the manly urge to have more knives.
Yeah, the groundhog, being from Pennsylvania, is punk's punk.
New Jersey has their own crappy rip-off groundhog.
I learned most of what I know about Vikings from Gary Larson's Farside cartoons.
This has been another edition of the Be Weekly from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust here at the Babylon Bee, reminding you that AOC is definitely the worst.
But we would totally date her if we could.
The Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals are going to the Super Bowl, marking the first time that anyone has the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bagels.