August 21, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Karol Markowicz tackle the biggest post-pandemic issues shaping America today. From the back-to-school scramble and frustrating form-filling to reflections on COVID-19’s long-term impact, they explore public safety, law enforcement, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ COVID policies. Plus, they dive into Gavin Newsom’s social media moves, the Democratic voter registration challenge, and surprising trends in alcohol consumption. Normally is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Tuesday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, guys, we are back normally in the show with
normalis takes, but when the news gets weird, I'm Mary Causingham.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Carol Markowitz and wrapping up summer over.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Here, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 4 (00:13):
The kids go back to school finally, finally.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I know, I know it sounds crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
To those of you up north of a little north,
but yes, when you get used to school starting after
Labor Day, obviously it's crazy for them to go back
in August. But they have been home for so long
that they are like, how much longer?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
How much longer? Can they just hang around the house?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And mine is excited. They're excited to be back in school.
I am not excited because this is what I like
to call form filling out season. Yeah, and I am
not good at form filling out, and I spend about
half of every day chasing down forms for the next
two weeks. But eventually we'll be done, I believe in.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I feel like you and I have the forwarding forms
to husband's kind of email. Yeah, forwarding emails to husband's
kind of husbands.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I've forward stuff to him that he then follows up
on and I'm like, what are you even talking about?
And then he tells me it's from the email, and
I'm like, I didn't read that before I forwarded it.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, And I took it off my plate as soon
as I forwarded it too. It no longer existed in
my universe once you had it.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah. The thing you're following up to gone, yeah, gone,
God bless them.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, talking about following up.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
A few years after some news, we are still mad bro,
And we normally save that we are still mad bro,
especially where COVID is concerned for the last segment. But
today we're going to lead with it because it's just
that egregious.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, and the New York Times is sort of leading
with it, right because they are just intent on being
our content provider, there.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Really are, and they're like, how can we help those
girls out?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So they put up this editorial this week from the
editorial board, not from an opinion writer, called crime keeps Falling.
Here's why. First of all, the only reason they're bringing
us up is to say that crime is falling, so
they can say, boo, Donald Trump, right, because you're doing
something about crime. But inside this editorial, in some frankly
(02:14):
shocking and enraging ways, yeah, they just say normis like
Carol and Mary Catherine were right the whole time.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Right. I feel like they should have said our names,
but they didn't. I mean so many things in this article.
I love the way that they just kind of throw
this in. During the pandemic, reckless driving deaths from car
crashes and road rage incidents increased. Alcohol and drug deaths
also rose. Even little things like people using phones and
movie theaters seem to worsen even after COVID receded. It
(02:45):
was as if many Americans took a so called moral holiday. Yeah,
we noticed, we saw that.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Did we say that might happen, right?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Did we say that people calling the police on their
neighbors having an extra person in their backyard was going
to be a problem going forward? Did we say that
societal breakdown happens when we encouraged people to turn on
each other the way they were encouraged to do.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think we may have said that once or twice.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Here's another good line. In twenty twenty, policy makers played
a direct role in accelerating anime this breakdown of standards
by shuttering services that promote social cohesion. Consider school closures.
Consider that to keep schools closed after the initial months
of pandemic was a difficult decision. I dispute that, but
(03:38):
officials at least should have put more weight on obvious
costs of closures, including learning loss, social isolation, and the
possibility that closures contribute to crime. The obvious costs, do
you say, were they obvious? I feel very much that
the New York Times did not think they were obvious
at the time, and in fact vilified anyone who suggested
(03:58):
they were.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, I remember this.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I vaguely remember the New York Times not thinking those
costs made any sense, and if you disagreed, you were
a crazy person who wanted.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Teachers to die.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah. Another quote, social cohesion is both valuable and delicate, Carol,
just to breaking news. America has much to lose when
it undermines people's connections to institutions like schools, churches, government agencies,
and community groups.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You look at that when the trust phrase Mary Catherine
and everyone for himself mentality the kind you often see
in post apocalyptic fiction, can take hold the trust.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Praying is bad, you say, but I know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You'll really love the second lesson they took from the pandemic.
The first was like public trust and cohesion are important. Okay,
that's number one. Second revelation in the year twenty twenty five.
The second lesson involves the importance of law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I mean, who could have seen that coming?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, it's times like this that I miss living
in left this Brooklyn. Because are they putting like fund
the police signs in their windows now that The New
York Times says so because they had the defund police
signs in their windows in twenty twenty when.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You know what I think said, I think what they're
probably actually doing is that all the ones who haven't
moved to Florida are so in the bubble that they're
just canceling their New York Times subscriptions because of this.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Spiece, right, just not left enough, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It says. Among the most damaging mistakes was the belief
among Democratic officials that enforcing the law could be counterproductive
when it involved low level offenses such as public drug use, shoplifting,
and homeless and cabinets. Some Democrats believe enforcement of these
laws disproportionately hurt minority groups and did not contribute much
to public safety. But it turns out they do.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh look at that. That's a twist I did not
see coming.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And not. Also, they also are approved over all socioeconomic
and racial groups.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Funny people like police who knew you know.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It's also interesting that in that same second lesson they
name a few names of prominent Democrats, and they name
then Senator Kamala Harris of California, Representative AOC of New York,
and then Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles. What's interesting
about this is they don't say, Mom, Donnie, who's in
pole position to become the next New York City mayor?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I think because they.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Don't want to cause a rift with him in advance
of that, you.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Know, election win.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they picked two people who are not in public
office anymore, and AOC who should really be watching her
back when The New York Times is concerned.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
No, it's very interesting as usual. Yes, you don't want
to hold anyone to account who might actually have power currently, right,
just like by the way that happened. I think the
most infuriating thing about this editorial is that it notes
at least twice that these were noble facts in twenty twenty. No,
it's like, I mean, I like we kind of knew this,
(07:09):
did you? Yeah, because it acted like you did.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It right, and those of us who did know again
were treated like pariah's, like dangers to society because.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We were right a little earlier than they were.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, a lot early. Why for real?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah. Another thing I'm still mad about is the American
Academy of Pediatrics, which continues to disgrace itself. Yeah, it
has not yet made a turn like the New York
Times to say like, oh, by the way, maybe some
of the decisions we made in COVID were bad. It's
just barreling straight on through. And I think I referred
(07:48):
to it as a zombie of public trust. It just
walks around in the skin suit of this organization that
people used to trust, and there's no reason to trust
these people. In point, the American Academy Pediatrics said that
children ages six months to twenty three months should receive
a COVID nineteen vaccine, in contrast with federal health officials. Now.
(08:09):
Of course, to mainstream news like ABC, this means that
AAF is correct and the federal government is wrong. But
what they don't point out is that no other country
has a blanket recommendation for healthy infants to get a
COVID vaccine, not even like Canada, nobody Germany. Yeah, no one.
Now this is important information to tell your readers, but
(08:31):
they're not interested in telling their readers that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, they're not, and they're not worried about the kind
of blowback here, right. They think that they're the authority
and that's it. But we are, like you said, at
outlier when you look at any other country, and we
were even during the pandemic. During the pandemic when things
were still kind of you know, hot, other countries decided
not to give the vaccine to healthy children, America plowed
(08:56):
ahead with it anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Absolutely had some problems because of that.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We had myocarditis issues in teenage boys that other countries.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Did not have.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
David's wig had that great piece about myocarditis and how
they literally lied about how bad it was for boys.
The CDC at the time to release the data including girls.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So didn't seem that bad, you know, now we know
that it was so.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Look, especially with something like COVID, where the vaccine does
not stop spread, it's a question of the benefits and
the drawbacks, and the benefits to children never made sense.
Kids had a zero chance of a negative effect from COVID.
As we've always liked to say zero cannot be reduced
any further through vaccines when they were given out and
(09:41):
the idea was will stop spread with this, it didn't
stop spread.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
We have to learn some lessons.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And the fact that AAP won't be held accountable for
pushing just nonsense like this is it's.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Sort of sad.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And I hope that they don't get, you know, the
kind of prestige and press that they inevitably will get.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, I know, I hope. I mean certainly parents are
turning away from them. Yeah. And by the way, when
this inevitably leads to people having less trust for other
treatments that AAP suggests physician, heal thyself literally, because this
is you have caused the problem. And they caused the
(10:23):
problems starting way back in twenty twenty when they recommended
that schools open and then Trump says schools should schools
should open, and they were like, never mind, schools should
not open, right, and not to mention.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
They recommended that they said that masks did not harm
the speech development of children, and they had to delete
things off of their website where they literally.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Previously said that kids need to see mouths.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
For speech development.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Right, Yeah, well, no, I look forward to the New
York Times article wondering.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
What happened to the APIs seven years?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Can I point out also just how insane the experts
continue to be on my and Kelly k Ga Georgia,
she's fantastic, but she flagged in the Washington Post about
about silly story about a summer surge and how schools
would be affected by a summer surge. In that article,
a pediatric infectious disease specialist at john Hopkins says that
(11:18):
the reason that kids need not just a vaccine for
COVID but an updated booster is that they play a
key role in giving a child's body a robust immune
response so that they don't die or get severe illness. Yeah,
that that's actually insane. Yeah, to look at the data
(11:40):
on children and conclude that they need continued boosters to
prevent death or serious disease from.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
COVID, which they're not getting already.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
This is a fantasy world, yeah, that you have created.
But you're a pediatric infectious disease specialist. That's why I
won't be listening to you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, we'll be right back on normally where we're going
to talk about some other things that are happening around
the country, like Gavin Newsom has decided mean.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Tweets are the way to go.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
We'll be right back, welcome back to normally where Gavin
Newsom is having some fun on the internet and hoping
to rile up Donald Trump and his base.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And I don't know, I'm fine with that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You go ahead, you have your good time.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I actually think some of it's funny, right right,
I think it loses its luster pretty fast. But they
are correct in that, like, well, you can't really object
to this if you love Donald Trump's tweets. Right now,
Here's the question. As we've noted in the past, Trumpian
rhetoric and strategy rarely works for anyone but Trump. So
(12:50):
the question remains for Newsom and crew outside of attention,
which they are indeed getting for this. Yeah, are they
picking the right fights? Are they making progress changing the
tides for the Democratic Party? Is he just goofing enough
to make himself the at least attention economy front runner
(13:10):
for the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I like Megan McCain posted this, It's hilarious that Democrats
just lost nominating a lifelong career progressive politician from San
Francisco with a shitty governing record, and six months later
are like, wait, let's do the exact same thing next,
plus mean tweets yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Like I don't. I'm not sure it's gonna work right,
And you have other larger problems here, including in California.
Someone I can't remember who it was, someone joked the
other day like, isn't there I think it might have
been Frank J said in the argument against Newsom, just
a point at the state of governance. And in fact,
(13:49):
that is a good point because just today Marcus Lamonis,
who heads Bed Bath and Beyond, put out a statement
saying that they will not open retail stores in California.
This isn't about politics, It's about reality. California's system makes
it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won't
put our company, at our employees or our customers in
that position.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Doesn't sound like a win for California. Although you know,
Newsome tweeted out a meme that calls it the Free
State of California, and all the comments were predictably like.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Bro, going back to our first story of the day,
you surveiled people who went to church.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
You arrested a man in a kayak.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Unbelievable stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's interesting because Democrats are super excited about this,
and they're mostly super excited about Republicans getting mad at it.
But I honestly don't see people getting mad. I see
people kind of laughing at it and saying like, all right,
if this makes you feel better, you go ahead and
do that, you crazy kids.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, and I think like we've been in this position
before where much of the party and the party base
was like, I just want you to fight. I want
you to fight. Whether it was like Obamacare repeal, show
isn't going to happen at the time, but you wanted.
People wanted to see life from these people, and they
wanted to see them. I get it. We've been in
that position. But fight, fight, fight doesn't always win battles.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Sure doesn't, and so sure doesn't. So how are the
numbers looking for the Democrats?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Well, this is this is the problem, right, Like, you
got a deeper issue here than memes are going to solve.
Although I hesitate to say that because Trump is really
a meme heavy operation and it won the presidency. So okay,
just like stipulated, but they have a deeper problem here.
The New York Times reported on new data, the Democratic
Party faces a voter registration crisis, and it's pretty devastating.
(15:42):
This piece is in depth. The basics are of the
thirty states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats
lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the
twenty twenty and twenty twenty four elections, and often by
a lot. The New York Times terms it a stampede
away from the Democratic Party. Now, Democrats still lead overall,
(16:05):
largely because some big blue states like California to party
specific registration. In Texas, for instance, doesn't, so they still
technically got an edge here. The trajectory in every state
where you can track this is terrible. As Charles Barkley
would say.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I love that word.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, terrible is a great word to describe this.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Pennsylvania, the Democrats had a five hundred and seventeen thousand
advantage in twenty twenty, only a fifty three thousand dem
advantage now, and of course, obviously Trump won Pennsylvania, so
I don't even know what that fifty three thousand advantage
necessarily means for them.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, and there's one thing they noted in here, which
is the Bucks County switch, which is one of those
color counties outside Philadelphia. This is really important for winning Pennsylvania.
It's the kind of county that had swung blue during
the Obama years pretty hard. And remember thanks partly to
Pressler who was out there doing the hard work of
registering people. I remember seeing that stat last summer that
(17:07):
Bucks County, of competitive Philadelphia summer tilted Republican registration for
the first time since two thousands. And that's when I
saw that stat. That was the moment that I was like,
I think he's gonna this is a big deal. He's
on track here.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
The question becomes Democrats must be looking around and thinking,
you know, we need some energy. And Gavin Newsom has
some kids in his office tweeting out as him and
being Brett as as the kids said last summer, and
I think that that that's why they're so excited about this.
(17:40):
But then when you actually hear from Newsom on it,
he doesn't quite kind of align with what his online
personality is saying.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Let's roll this.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Clip of news from talking.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
With those books on acts that are clearly president Well,
you just talking about that. Is that like a strategy.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I hope it's a wake up call the president.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
I states, I'm sort of following his example. If you've
got issues with what I'm putting out, you sure as
hell should have concerns about what he's putting out as president.
So to the extent it's gotten some attention, I'm pleased.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But I think the deeper.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets,
true social posts over the course of the last many
years to go without similar scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And notice, yeah, there's been no scrutiny of Trump's mean
tweets at all.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Haven't got a single article about it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
What is this even all about?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I loved it. Also, it's always like this is so
bad that we've got to do the bad thing to
show you how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Right, Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's like, are you saying it's bad and you're doing
it to just show him? Or are you saying it's
bad and you're going to be like him? Because you
know Charlotte Mane and the God, for example, was like, yeah,
I think that you know, when they go low, we
go to hell.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
That's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
As like, oh, I want to teach Trump a lesson
to be better. That's not the same thing at all.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Also, do sort of prefer them owning that they're going
to go low instead of the fake Michelle Obama thing,
which is when they go low, we go high. It's like, no, ma'am,
y'all are not.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
So I kind of appreciate the honesty on that front.
But will it work for any of these new and
young voters who are moving away from Democrats? That's the question, right,
they have all this ground to make up. They note
in this New York Times piece, in twenty eighteen, Democrats
accounted for thirty four percent of new voter registrations nationwide,
while Republicans were only twenty. Yet by twenty twenty four,
(19:41):
Republicans had overtaken Democrats. There's so many great quotes in here. Quote,
you can't register a young Latino or young black voter
and assume that they're going to know it's Democrats that
have the best policies. They go on to bemoane that
Democrats have this huge infrastructure of nonprofits that register voters. Now,
(20:01):
those are considered left leaning nonprofits because they were in
the business of targeting young, first time new voters, minority
voters in cities, and it turns out now those aren't Democrats.
They're registering too many Republicans when they go to the
people that they've been going to for all this time. Oops.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, whoop, see on that one. I think that the idea.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That they can't rely on young voters anymore. I mean,
obviously that should be the all alarm bell. And I
just don't think that Gavin Newsom's imitating Trump is going
to move the needle with those young people.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
They are concerned about things.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And they don't see either party kind of speaking of
those interests.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I think that they're going to.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Be malleable in a way that they haven't been in
the past.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I wish Gavin Newsom the best with making people laugh
with his tweets.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Hey, you know what, we're not mad at entertainment usually,
So can I end with one more quote from this piece?
This is the last two paragraphs. Any hope that the
drift away from the Democratic Party would end organically with
mister Trump's election has been dashed by the limited data
so far in twenty twenty five, there are now roughly
one hundred and sixty thousand fewer registered Democrats than on
election day twenty twenty four, and two hundred thousand more Republicans. Quote,
(21:22):
it's going back. It's going to get worse before it
gets better. Yeah, clock's digging.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, it's gonna get worse before going better.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
All this comes from the topics in our first segment. Ye, right,
like you are reaping what you sew. That's what's happened.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You really are, and enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
We'll be right back on normally to talk booze and
why people.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Aren't drinking more of it.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Be right back, Welcome back to normally where alcohol.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Use maybe is down. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
We're gonna have to look at this chart and see
what it actually says. It's from a Gallup poll that
everybody's talking about, and it's called American's Use of Alcoholic
Beverages nineteen thirty nine to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
The question is this, and.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I kind of dare you to ask this question to
the average person on the street and see if they
know what the hell you are talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Do you have occasion to use.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer or are
you a total abstainer, do you have occasion?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I don't know that I do have occasion, but I
do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That is a strange wording, right, So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I feel like they should change the wording.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
But I think they've been asking the same question since
nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Okay, now they don't want to change it, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
They haven't talk like this. They haven't adjusted for literacy
levels of the American public. SERI.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But so look, when they first started asking this question
in nineteen thirty nine, that number was fifty eight percent,
and now it's fifty four So has there been a
collapse in drinking? I don't know necessarily that that's true.
In twenty twenty two, once again going back to the
COVID years and maybe some bad things that happened during
that time, that number was sixty seven percent. I think
(23:15):
I've mentioned the story on the show before. But I
remember my currently she's fifteen year old daughter, and then
she was ten and twenty twenty walking into my husband
and I having online drinks FaceTime drinks with our friends
and being like, hmm, is alcohol use up around really?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Our girl?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Why do you ask so yes, it was up and
now it's back down. Really don't see a dramatic change.
I don't know why all the headlines are like gen
Z doesn't drink.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Maybe not yet.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Maybe let them have a couple of kids and see
what they do after that.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I feel like my drinking bell curve is on
its downslope, you know, or like the amount that I
pay for each drink is so much higher at this point,
so I'm certainly down on the curve from twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I think one of the things that's part of this
discussion is a lot of people saying arguing, well, moderate
drinking is in fact good for you, right, it has
many social benefits it has even if you're talking about
heart health, I think with wine and like, I'm not
going to get into the statistics on this, but like,
you know, this can sha an non evil thing, right,
And then there are other people who are like contrare,
(24:23):
even moderate drinking is terrible for you. And I think
one of the things that during COVID we lost is
that we ended up having to do drinks on zoom
instead of drinks in person, and drinks in person is
very important to society.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Right, right, exactly. Face to face interactions are important. Friendships
are important. Sometimes alcohol is the lubrican for that. I
don't drink nearly as much as i'd like to, is
what I always say about it.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But in my old age.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I can really only have a maximum to drinks when
I go out, and two drinks is like really on
the border, like one.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
And a half.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I like to say, like my second drink with my husband,
I'll be like we split it.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yes, old age, and it's tough.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Funny you youngsters listening out there. You don't know you
don't sleep after two drinks.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
No. I want to shout out a piece from twenty
twenty two that I just loved. It was one of
my favorite pieces reckoning with pandemic era policies. It was
by Peter Suderman in Reason magazine, and it's called what
Old Time Saloons tell Us about the Pandemics Damage, And
he basically said, look like saloons are where the ideas
that would define America were first hashed out. There's this
you know, back and forth, there's this freewheeling debate that
(25:37):
you can have in these kinds of places. And when
you take that away you lose something. And he actually
if you found research from an economist at the University
of Maryland that showed that in places where that where
prohibition had been very harshly enforced versus those that had
remained a little bit wet, Yeah, patents went down increasingly
(25:59):
in places that were dry versus those that it was
not as impactful, right, not as impacted. Basically the idea
that these loose social connections that you get in a bar,
that you get over drinks lead to innovation, to ideas
to hashing things out. And I just love the idea
that somebody actually tried to reckon with what you lose
(26:20):
when we do that.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
So I'm just cautionedly he's a great writer if.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You're sticking to two drinks, like the society doesn't have
to lose it all together, right, Like there's real good there.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, try to have them out with your friends and
talking to people instead of like talking to your AI
at home.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Best kids.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Get in touch with us at.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening and when
things get weird at normally
Hey, guys, we are back normally in the show with
normalis takes, but when the news gets weird, I'm Mary Causingham.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Carol Markowitz and wrapping up summer over.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Here, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 4 (00:13):
The kids go back to school finally, finally.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I know, I know it sounds crazy.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
To those of you up north of a little north,
but yes, when you get used to school starting after
Labor Day, obviously it's crazy for them to go back
in August. But they have been home for so long
that they are like, how much longer?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
How much longer? Can they just hang around the house?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
And mine is excited. They're excited to be back in school.
I am not excited because this is what I like
to call form filling out season. Yeah, and I am
not good at form filling out, and I spend about
half of every day chasing down forms for the next
two weeks. But eventually we'll be done, I believe in.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I feel like you and I have the forwarding forms
to husband's kind of email. Yeah, forwarding emails to husband's
kind of husbands.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
I've forward stuff to him that he then follows up
on and I'm like, what are you even talking about?
And then he tells me it's from the email, and
I'm like, I didn't read that before I forwarded it.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, And I took it off my plate as soon
as I forwarded it too. It no longer existed in
my universe once you had it.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah. The thing you're following up to gone, yeah, gone,
God bless them.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah. Well, talking about following up.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
A few years after some news, we are still mad bro,
And we normally save that we are still mad bro,
especially where COVID is concerned for the last segment. But
today we're going to lead with it because it's just
that egregious.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, and the New York Times is sort of leading
with it, right because they are just intent on being
our content provider, there.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Really are, and they're like, how can we help those
girls out?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So they put up this editorial this week from the
editorial board, not from an opinion writer, called crime keeps Falling.
Here's why. First of all, the only reason they're bringing
us up is to say that crime is falling, so
they can say, boo, Donald Trump, right, because you're doing
something about crime. But inside this editorial, in some frankly
(02:14):
shocking and enraging ways, yeah, they just say normis like
Carol and Mary Catherine were right the whole time.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Right. I feel like they should have said our names,
but they didn't. I mean so many things in this article.
I love the way that they just kind of throw
this in. During the pandemic, reckless driving deaths from car
crashes and road rage incidents increased. Alcohol and drug deaths
also rose. Even little things like people using phones and
movie theaters seem to worsen even after COVID receded. It
(02:45):
was as if many Americans took a so called moral holiday. Yeah,
we noticed, we saw that.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Did we say that might happen, right?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Did we say that people calling the police on their
neighbors having an extra person in their backyard was going
to be a problem going forward? Did we say that
societal breakdown happens when we encouraged people to turn on
each other the way they were encouraged to do.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think we may have said that once or twice.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Here's another good line. In twenty twenty, policy makers played
a direct role in accelerating anime this breakdown of standards
by shuttering services that promote social cohesion. Consider school closures.
Consider that to keep schools closed after the initial months
of pandemic was a difficult decision. I dispute that, but
(03:38):
officials at least should have put more weight on obvious
costs of closures, including learning loss, social isolation, and the
possibility that closures contribute to crime. The obvious costs, do
you say, were they obvious? I feel very much that
the New York Times did not think they were obvious
at the time, and in fact vilified anyone who suggested
(03:58):
they were.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, I remember this.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I vaguely remember the New York Times not thinking those
costs made any sense, and if you disagreed, you were
a crazy person who wanted.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Teachers to die.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah. Another quote, social cohesion is both valuable and delicate, Carol,
just to breaking news. America has much to lose when
it undermines people's connections to institutions like schools, churches, government agencies,
and community groups.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You look at that when the trust phrase Mary Catherine
and everyone for himself mentality the kind you often see
in post apocalyptic fiction, can take hold the trust.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Praying is bad, you say, but I know.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
You'll really love the second lesson they took from the pandemic.
The first was like public trust and cohesion are important. Okay,
that's number one. Second revelation in the year twenty twenty five.
The second lesson involves the importance of law enforcement.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I mean, who could have seen that coming?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
You know, it's times like this that I miss living
in left this Brooklyn. Because are they putting like fund
the police signs in their windows now that The New
York Times says so because they had the defund police
signs in their windows in twenty twenty when.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
You know what I think said, I think what they're
probably actually doing is that all the ones who haven't
moved to Florida are so in the bubble that they're
just canceling their New York Times subscriptions because of this.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Spiece, right, just not left enough, yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
It says. Among the most damaging mistakes was the belief
among Democratic officials that enforcing the law could be counterproductive
when it involved low level offenses such as public drug use, shoplifting,
and homeless and cabinets. Some Democrats believe enforcement of these
laws disproportionately hurt minority groups and did not contribute much
to public safety. But it turns out they do.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh look at that. That's a twist I did not
see coming.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
And not. Also, they also are approved over all socioeconomic
and racial groups.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Funny people like police who knew you know.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
It's also interesting that in that same second lesson they
name a few names of prominent Democrats, and they name
then Senator Kamala Harris of California, Representative AOC of New York,
and then Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles. What's interesting
about this is they don't say, Mom, Donnie, who's in
pole position to become the next New York City mayor?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
I think because they.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Don't want to cause a rift with him in advance
of that, you.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Know, election win.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they picked two people who are not in public
office anymore, and AOC who should really be watching her
back when The New York Times is concerned.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
No, it's very interesting as usual. Yes, you don't want
to hold anyone to account who might actually have power currently, right,
just like by the way that happened. I think the
most infuriating thing about this editorial is that it notes
at least twice that these were noble facts in twenty twenty. No,
it's like, I mean, I like we kind of knew this,
(07:09):
did you? Yeah, because it acted like you did.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It right, and those of us who did know again
were treated like pariah's, like dangers to society because.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We were right a little earlier than they were.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Yeah, a lot early. Why for real?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah. Another thing I'm still mad about is the American
Academy of Pediatrics, which continues to disgrace itself. Yeah, it
has not yet made a turn like the New York
Times to say like, oh, by the way, maybe some
of the decisions we made in COVID were bad. It's
just barreling straight on through. And I think I referred
(07:48):
to it as a zombie of public trust. It just
walks around in the skin suit of this organization that
people used to trust, and there's no reason to trust
these people. In point, the American Academy Pediatrics said that
children ages six months to twenty three months should receive
a COVID nineteen vaccine, in contrast with federal health officials. Now.
(08:09):
Of course, to mainstream news like ABC, this means that
AAF is correct and the federal government is wrong. But
what they don't point out is that no other country
has a blanket recommendation for healthy infants to get a
COVID vaccine, not even like Canada, nobody Germany. Yeah, no one.
Now this is important information to tell your readers, but
(08:31):
they're not interested in telling their readers that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, they're not, and they're not worried about the kind
of blowback here, right. They think that they're the authority
and that's it. But we are, like you said, at
outlier when you look at any other country, and we
were even during the pandemic. During the pandemic when things
were still kind of you know, hot, other countries decided
not to give the vaccine to healthy children, America plowed
(08:56):
ahead with it anyway.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Absolutely had some problems because of that.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
We had myocarditis issues in teenage boys that other countries.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Did not have.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
David's wig had that great piece about myocarditis and how
they literally lied about how bad it was for boys.
The CDC at the time to release the data including girls.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So didn't seem that bad, you know, now we know
that it was so.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Look, especially with something like COVID, where the vaccine does
not stop spread, it's a question of the benefits and
the drawbacks, and the benefits to children never made sense.
Kids had a zero chance of a negative effect from COVID.
As we've always liked to say zero cannot be reduced
any further through vaccines when they were given out and
(09:41):
the idea was will stop spread with this, it didn't
stop spread.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
We have to learn some lessons.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And the fact that AAP won't be held accountable for
pushing just nonsense like this is it's.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Sort of sad.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And I hope that they don't get, you know, the
kind of prestige and press that they inevitably will get.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Yeah, I know, I hope. I mean certainly parents are
turning away from them. Yeah. And by the way, when
this inevitably leads to people having less trust for other
treatments that AAP suggests physician, heal thyself literally, because this
is you have caused the problem. And they caused the
(10:23):
problems starting way back in twenty twenty when they recommended
that schools open and then Trump says schools should schools
should open, and they were like, never mind, schools should
not open, right, and not to mention.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
They recommended that they said that masks did not harm
the speech development of children, and they had to delete
things off of their website where they literally.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Previously said that kids need to see mouths.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
For speech development.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Right, Yeah, well, no, I look forward to the New
York Times article wondering.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
What happened to the APIs seven years?
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Can I point out also just how insane the experts
continue to be on my and Kelly k Ga Georgia,
she's fantastic, but she flagged in the Washington Post about
about silly story about a summer surge and how schools
would be affected by a summer surge. In that article,
a pediatric infectious disease specialist at john Hopkins says that
(11:18):
the reason that kids need not just a vaccine for
COVID but an updated booster is that they play a
key role in giving a child's body a robust immune
response so that they don't die or get severe illness. Yeah,
that that's actually insane. Yeah, to look at the data
(11:40):
on children and conclude that they need continued boosters to
prevent death or serious disease from.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
COVID, which they're not getting already.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
This is a fantasy world, yeah, that you have created.
But you're a pediatric infectious disease specialist. That's why I
won't be listening to you.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, we'll be right back on normally where we're going
to talk about some other things that are happening around
the country, like Gavin Newsom has decided mean.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Tweets are the way to go.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
We'll be right back, welcome back to normally where Gavin
Newsom is having some fun on the internet and hoping
to rile up Donald Trump and his base.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And I don't know, I'm fine with that.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
You go ahead, you have your good time.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah, I actually think some of it's funny, right right,
I think it loses its luster pretty fast. But they
are correct in that, like, well, you can't really object
to this if you love Donald Trump's tweets. Right now,
Here's the question. As we've noted in the past, Trumpian
rhetoric and strategy rarely works for anyone but Trump. So
(12:50):
the question remains for Newsom and crew outside of attention,
which they are indeed getting for this. Yeah, are they
picking the right fights? Are they making progress changing the
tides for the Democratic Party? Is he just goofing enough
to make himself the at least attention economy front runner
(13:10):
for the Democratic nomination in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I like Megan McCain posted this, It's hilarious that Democrats
just lost nominating a lifelong career progressive politician from San
Francisco with a shitty governing record, and six months later
are like, wait, let's do the exact same thing next,
plus mean tweets yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Like I don't. I'm not sure it's gonna work right,
And you have other larger problems here, including in California.
Someone I can't remember who it was, someone joked the
other day like, isn't there I think it might have
been Frank J said in the argument against Newsom, just
a point at the state of governance. And in fact,
(13:49):
that is a good point because just today Marcus Lamonis,
who heads Bed Bath and Beyond, put out a statement
saying that they will not open retail stores in California.
This isn't about politics, It's about reality. California's system makes
it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won't
put our company, at our employees or our customers in
that position.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Doesn't sound like a win for California. Although you know,
Newsome tweeted out a meme that calls it the Free
State of California, and all the comments were predictably like.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Bro, going back to our first story of the day,
you surveiled people who went to church.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
You arrested a man in a kayak.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Unbelievable stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, it's interesting because Democrats are super excited about this,
and they're mostly super excited about Republicans getting mad at it.
But I honestly don't see people getting mad. I see
people kind of laughing at it and saying like, all right,
if this makes you feel better, you go ahead and
do that, you crazy kids.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, and I think like we've been in this position
before where much of the party and the party base
was like, I just want you to fight. I want
you to fight. Whether it was like Obamacare repeal, show
isn't going to happen at the time, but you wanted.
People wanted to see life from these people, and they
wanted to see them. I get it. We've been in
that position. But fight, fight, fight doesn't always win battles.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Sure doesn't, and so sure doesn't. So how are the
numbers looking for the Democrats?
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Well, this is this is the problem, right, Like, you
got a deeper issue here than memes are going to solve.
Although I hesitate to say that because Trump is really
a meme heavy operation and it won the presidency. So okay,
just like stipulated, but they have a deeper problem here.
The New York Times reported on new data, the Democratic
Party faces a voter registration crisis, and it's pretty devastating.
(15:42):
This piece is in depth. The basics are of the
thirty states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats
lost ground to Republicans in every single one between the
twenty twenty and twenty twenty four elections, and often by
a lot. The New York Times terms it a stampede
away from the Democratic Party. Now, Democrats still lead overall,
(16:05):
largely because some big blue states like California to party
specific registration. In Texas, for instance, doesn't, so they still
technically got an edge here. The trajectory in every state
where you can track this is terrible. As Charles Barkley
would say.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I love that word.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, terrible is a great word to describe this.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Pennsylvania, the Democrats had a five hundred and seventeen thousand
advantage in twenty twenty, only a fifty three thousand dem
advantage now, and of course, obviously Trump won Pennsylvania, so
I don't even know what that fifty three thousand advantage
necessarily means for them.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, and there's one thing they noted in here, which
is the Bucks County switch, which is one of those
color counties outside Philadelphia. This is really important for winning Pennsylvania.
It's the kind of county that had swung blue during
the Obama years pretty hard. And remember thanks partly to
Pressler who was out there doing the hard work of
registering people. I remember seeing that stat last summer that
(17:07):
Bucks County, of competitive Philadelphia summer tilted Republican registration for
the first time since two thousands. And that's when I
saw that stat. That was the moment that I was like,
I think he's gonna this is a big deal. He's
on track here.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
The question becomes Democrats must be looking around and thinking,
you know, we need some energy. And Gavin Newsom has
some kids in his office tweeting out as him and
being Brett as as the kids said last summer, and
I think that that that's why they're so excited about this.
(17:40):
But then when you actually hear from Newsom on it,
he doesn't quite kind of align with what his online
personality is saying.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Let's roll this.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Clip of news from talking.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
With those books on acts that are clearly president Well,
you just talking about that. Is that like a strategy.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I hope it's a wake up call the president.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
I states, I'm sort of following his example. If you've
got issues with what I'm putting out, you sure as
hell should have concerns about what he's putting out as president.
So to the extent it's gotten some attention, I'm pleased.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
But I think the deeper.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Question is how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets,
true social posts over the course of the last many
years to go without similar scrutiny.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And notice, yeah, there's been no scrutiny of Trump's mean
tweets at all.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Haven't got a single article about it.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
What is this even all about?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I loved it. Also, it's always like this is so
bad that we've got to do the bad thing to
show you how bad it is.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Right, Well, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
It's like, are you saying it's bad and you're doing
it to just show him? Or are you saying it's
bad and you're going to be like him? Because you
know Charlotte Mane and the God, for example, was like, yeah,
I think that you know, when they go low, we
go to hell.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
That's not the same thing.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
As like, oh, I want to teach Trump a lesson
to be better. That's not the same thing at all.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Also, do sort of prefer them owning that they're going
to go low instead of the fake Michelle Obama thing,
which is when they go low, we go high. It's like, no, ma'am,
y'all are not.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
So I kind of appreciate the honesty on that front.
But will it work for any of these new and
young voters who are moving away from Democrats? That's the question, right,
they have all this ground to make up. They note
in this New York Times piece, in twenty eighteen, Democrats
accounted for thirty four percent of new voter registrations nationwide,
while Republicans were only twenty. Yet by twenty twenty four,
(19:41):
Republicans had overtaken Democrats. There's so many great quotes in here. Quote,
you can't register a young Latino or young black voter
and assume that they're going to know it's Democrats that
have the best policies. They go on to bemoane that
Democrats have this huge infrastructure of nonprofits that register voters. Now,
(20:01):
those are considered left leaning nonprofits because they were in
the business of targeting young, first time new voters, minority
voters in cities, and it turns out now those aren't Democrats.
They're registering too many Republicans when they go to the
people that they've been going to for all this time. Oops.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
Yeah, whoop, see on that one. I think that the idea.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
That they can't rely on young voters anymore. I mean,
obviously that should be the all alarm bell. And I
just don't think that Gavin Newsom's imitating Trump is going
to move the needle with those young people.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
They are concerned about things.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
And they don't see either party kind of speaking of
those interests.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I think that they're going to.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
Be malleable in a way that they haven't been in
the past.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
We'll see.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I wish Gavin Newsom the best with making people laugh
with his tweets.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Hey, you know what, we're not mad at entertainment usually,
So can I end with one more quote from this piece?
This is the last two paragraphs. Any hope that the
drift away from the Democratic Party would end organically with
mister Trump's election has been dashed by the limited data
so far in twenty twenty five, there are now roughly
one hundred and sixty thousand fewer registered Democrats than on
election day twenty twenty four, and two hundred thousand more Republicans. Quote,
(21:22):
it's going back. It's going to get worse before it
gets better. Yeah, clock's digging.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, it's gonna get worse before going better.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
All this comes from the topics in our first segment. Ye, right,
like you are reaping what you sew. That's what's happened.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You really are, and enjoy that.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
We'll be right back on normally to talk booze and
why people.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Aren't drinking more of it.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Be right back, Welcome back to normally where alcohol.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Use maybe is down. Maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
We're gonna have to look at this chart and see
what it actually says. It's from a Gallup poll that
everybody's talking about, and it's called American's Use of Alcoholic
Beverages nineteen thirty nine to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
The question is this, and.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I kind of dare you to ask this question to
the average person on the street and see if they
know what the hell you are talking about.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Do you have occasion to use.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer or are
you a total abstainer, do you have occasion?
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I don't know that I do have occasion, but I
do it anyway.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
That is a strange wording, right, So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I feel like they should change the wording.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
But I think they've been asking the same question since
nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Okay, now they don't want to change it, but I don't.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
They haven't talk like this. They haven't adjusted for literacy
levels of the American public. SERI.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But so look, when they first started asking this question
in nineteen thirty nine, that number was fifty eight percent,
and now it's fifty four So has there been a
collapse in drinking? I don't know necessarily that that's true.
In twenty twenty two, once again going back to the
COVID years and maybe some bad things that happened during
that time, that number was sixty seven percent. I think
(23:15):
I've mentioned the story on the show before. But I
remember my currently she's fifteen year old daughter, and then
she was ten and twenty twenty walking into my husband
and I having online drinks FaceTime drinks with our friends
and being like, hmm, is alcohol use up around really?
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Our girl?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
Why do you ask so yes, it was up and
now it's back down. Really don't see a dramatic change.
I don't know why all the headlines are like gen
Z doesn't drink.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Maybe not yet.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Maybe let them have a couple of kids and see
what they do after that.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I feel like my drinking bell curve is on
its downslope, you know, or like the amount that I
pay for each drink is so much higher at this point,
so I'm certainly down on the curve from twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
I think one of the things that's part of this
discussion is a lot of people saying arguing, well, moderate
drinking is in fact good for you, right, it has
many social benefits it has even if you're talking about
heart health, I think with wine and like, I'm not
going to get into the statistics on this, but like,
you know, this can sha an non evil thing, right,
And then there are other people who are like contrare,
(24:23):
even moderate drinking is terrible for you. And I think
one of the things that during COVID we lost is
that we ended up having to do drinks on zoom
instead of drinks in person, and drinks in person is
very important to society.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Right, right, exactly. Face to face interactions are important. Friendships
are important. Sometimes alcohol is the lubrican for that. I
don't drink nearly as much as i'd like to, is
what I always say about it.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But in my old age.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I can really only have a maximum to drinks when
I go out, and two drinks is like really on
the border, like one.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
And a half.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I like to say, like my second drink with my husband,
I'll be like we split it.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yes, old age, and it's tough.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Funny you youngsters listening out there. You don't know you
don't sleep after two drinks.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
No. I want to shout out a piece from twenty
twenty two that I just loved. It was one of
my favorite pieces reckoning with pandemic era policies. It was
by Peter Suderman in Reason magazine, and it's called what
Old Time Saloons tell Us about the Pandemics Damage, And
he basically said, look like saloons are where the ideas
that would define America were first hashed out. There's this
you know, back and forth, there's this freewheeling debate that
(25:37):
you can have in these kinds of places. And when
you take that away you lose something. And he actually
if you found research from an economist at the University
of Maryland that showed that in places where that where
prohibition had been very harshly enforced versus those that had
remained a little bit wet, Yeah, patents went down increasingly
(25:59):
in places that were dry versus those that it was
not as impactful, right, not as impacted. Basically the idea
that these loose social connections that you get in a bar,
that you get over drinks lead to innovation, to ideas
to hashing things out. And I just love the idea
that somebody actually tried to reckon with what you lose
(26:20):
when we do that.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
So I'm just cautionedly he's a great writer if.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
You're sticking to two drinks, like the society doesn't have
to lose it all together, right, Like there's real good there.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Yeah, try to have them out with your friends and
talking to people instead of like talking to your AI
at home.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Best kids.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Thanks for joining us on Normally Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays,
and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Get in touch with us at.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening and when
things get weird at normally
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