Weekly Roundup: The Science Shouldn't Get in the Way
Brad tells a story of scowling at a Supreme Court justice at the super market. Dan reveals he worked in Yellowstone National Park with Bill Clinton. They then discuss Trump's abysmal poll numbers and their causes: the anti-science approach to schools re-opening and the CDC; the anti-teacher approach to education; the deployment of secret police in Portland; the white nationalism of Tucker Carlson. All of this is discussed in the context of Christian nationalism.
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My name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor, Religious Studies, Skidmore College, and I am here with my co-host today.
I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Good to see you, Dan.
You're recovering from an injury.
I know lots going on in the world, and You know, people are dealing with very serious things, so we're not trying to make loud of that by any means.
But Dan, you've been working around the house, and you cut your finger.
What's going on?
I actually was typing so feverishly to prepare for Straight White American Jesus that I damaged my finger.
No, I was doing stuff in the yard, and I flipped a couple rocks over.
Like, they're a couple hundred pounds, these kind of little boulders.
Caught the end of my finger between a couple so I broke the end of my finger.
Most people.
I was a grown-up though and went to the emergency room like I think 20 years ago I'd have been like no I'm fine like I'd be sitting there because I go to the emergency room and they said well you know it's low risk but you could get a bone infection if you don't have antibiotics so we're going to give you those so I think 20 years ago I could be sitting around with a finger becoming gangrenous or something and You know, I'll be like, no, it's fine.
I can shake it off.
So anticipating themes for today, I believe more in science now, maybe, than I did then.
Well, I just want to note, everyone, that most of us in the backyard move rocks.
Dan Miller moves boulders, okay?
So just keep that in mind.
We have some distressing news today that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back in the hospital, so we're going to think positive thoughts for her.
I was thinking of a story, Dan, today, and I just have a short one to open.
I used to live in D.C.
Some of you know that.
And when we first moved there, we were younger than we are now, and we were kind of more, I don't know what, hip is probably the wrong word, but we were more up to live in a lively sort of neighborhood.
So we lived in Logan Circle, and if anyone knows, Logan Circle in DC is sort of a very happening place, a lot of restaurants and bars and nightlife and stuff.
Kendra and I, my wife and I, we would go to this grocery store on P Street, P and 14th.
So some of you Washingtonians may know it.
And it's always packed and it's always a mess.
And we were in there on a Sunday and the line was wrapped around the store as usual.
And so I'm already just flustered and I want to get out of there.
And we have like two or three things to grab.
And one of the things I wanted to grab was like a cantaloupe for some reason.
It was like summertime.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going on there.
And I'm trying to just get a cantaloupe so I can get in line and there's just an old man and next to him is like sort of adjacent but not totally next to him is an older woman and they're just taking up the whole melon you know exhibit Dan like the whole melon display is taken up by these two old people and I'm just like
I'm waiting and then I'm like frustrated and then I'm giving like the like explicit glaring look like get away from the melons oh my god I just need a cantaloupe so I can go home and then I start looking like in my periphery and there's just like a Dolph Lundgren looking like behemoth of a man to the right of the the old guy and he He looks like he put on clothes where in the morning he was like, oh I gotta look, I gotta fit in today clothes.
Like he, like it wasn't like he, like that's how he dressed normal.
It was like he was wearing these khaki shorts and a polo shirt in a way that looked like he never wears khaki shorts or a polo shirt.
You know, like a bodybuilder trying to look like a normal person.
And then I look at his ear and there's like an earpiece.
And then I look, like, to my other side of my peripheral vision, and there's, like, his twin brother, like, Dolph Lundgren II is over there, and he's wearing the same outfit and has the same earpiece.
And I'm like, well, this is, like, protective services here, so who is it?
And then the old couple turns around, and it was totally Justice Kennedy.
It was totally Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, who, you know, before he left abruptly and, you know, Scandal, scandal, scandal, we're not going to get into.
But I then sort of stood down, looked at my feet, and hoped that neither he nor his protective Dolph Lundgren bodyguards saw me giving him dirty looks from across the grocery aisle in front of the melon display.
So there you go, Dan.
I actually have a similar story, in a way.
So years and years and years ago, when I worked in Yellowstone National Park.
What?
That's not where you thought it was going, did you?
Yeah, I worked in Yellowstone National Park for a summer at this like gas station and we're there.
And this couple comes in to get gas and like all of a sudden out of nowhere a bunch of black SUVs like descend on the station from different directions and all these guys with like identical khaki like fishing vests, right?
It's the same thing, right?
Like Secret Service dudes never ever ever don't look like Secret Service guys.
They all have like the government issue haircut and like this the flesh tone earpiece and the same khaki vest and all of a sudden they surround these like two tourists, right?
It's just he's like Kind of middle-aged couple and have them like get on the ground and stuff and like and what it was is President Bill Clinton at the time was in the park for the day or something or driving through and somehow these people had gotten like I somehow they had gotten nearer something than the Secret Service wanted them to and then it just
Driven off and so they like to send and you know everything's fine and it got ridiculous because then the this couple is having us take pictures of them and like the Secret Service people and like whatever and then my you know my one brush with with I guess I'm talking about Bill Clinton.
I should use that language more carefully.
My one quasi-visible of Bill Clinton is later on the big presidential limo drives by and like his arm is out waving and that was about it.
It was actually the Secret Service guy that made me think of that because those guys... You like my transition?
Those guys never, ever, ever look like regular humans.
No, they don't.
Kendra used to work with somebody whose partner was in the Secret Service, and even at like functions, you know, like the company holiday party, I'd just be like, who brought Secret Service?
Oh, no, no, it's just Dana's husband.
Oh, okay, hello, what's up?
Because they're always standing on the periphery sort of awkwardly with their hands in front of them, like looking around and like, yeah, they're just, they're never at ease.
They're, you know, yeah, anyway.
Well, we're gonna have to get a more full report of the Yellowstone summer that you had there at some point, but all right, enough of that.
Let's jump into today.
I want to start just real quick, Dan.
We have the report from last night that the Reverend C.T.
Vivian died.
He was a civil rights leader, died at 95.
Probably not a house, it's definitely not a household name, not a name that I'm sure all of you will be familiar with, but I just wanted to mention it because Reverend Vivian was an early advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., was part of what you would call not only the civil rights movement, but also a key sort of religious figure in that movement, often in ways that maybe not everyone noticed, but he began Staging sit-ins in Peoria, Illinois in the 40s.
He was part of the civil rights leadership in relationship to the Montgomery bus boycott.
And he was there in the push to register black voters in Selma and was part of the famous march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
So anyway, we mourn the loss of Reverend Vivian.
And we think about all his family members and friends and all the legacy that he's left behind.
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