The CIF Must Ban Males from Women's Sports

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I went to the press conference yesterday that Diane Pierce
held out in Clovis regarding the upcoming CIF track meet
that's going to be held this weekend at Buchanan High
School in which a biological boy from southern California named

(00:21):
ab Hernandez is going to be participating, excuse me, in
a lot of different events, including like long jump and
things like that. This again biological boy has been beating
girl competitors to make it all the way to the
state championships, and the kind of lackluster response from CIF,

(00:43):
the California Interscholastic Federation. So here's where we stand CIF,
California Interscholastic Federation, which, by the way, I tried to
get a press credential to go and they were like, oh,
you're one day past the deadline. We cannot accommodate you.

(01:05):
All right, Is it really that hard? California Interscholastic Federation
has over the course of this week updated their policies.
They updated their policies basically to say, if you are
a girl who was who was beat out for qualifying

(01:26):
by a transgender athlete, then you qualify. Also, if you
lose a metal position on account of a transgender athlete,
then the transgender athlete will get whatever that metal position was,
and you will also, So everyone below gets the transgender

(01:51):
athlete gets bumped up a notch, which basically means, as
Trevor's Trevor Carrey yesterday, I popped on his show right
after the press conference to talk about it, and Trevor said, Okay,
so the transgender kid is basically in a phantom category. Yeah,
he's in a phantom league of his own, basically. And

(02:16):
the idea that the basically the big controversy is, here's
Donald Trump and the whole executive branch saying, we think
allowing biological boys to participate in girls sports is a
violation of Title nine. We think that it is an
intrusion upon the privacy and spaces of female athletes, especially

(02:36):
when it comes to things like locker room accommodations, shower accommodations,
et cetera. So we this is unfair to girls, this
is a violation of Title nine. We're going to treat
this as a violation of the law. And we don't
care what California law says. Federal law under Title nine

(02:56):
supersedes that, and we are going to cut off various
forms of funding to California unless California comes into compliance here.
So CIF their contention has been well, we have to
follow California law. And let's just note I mean the
NCIA as a whole brought itself one hundred percent into

(03:20):
compliance with the Trump executive order. CIF has not. CIF
is saying, well, we have to follow California law. So
it is now this bizarre sort of tug of war
here between the Trump administration CIF. CIF is sort of

(03:40):
doing some things to bring itself more into compliance, but
it's not completely in compliance. And this leads us to
what are the things that are really unfair here and
really unjust here? And there's a hierarchy of goods, And
I find it bizarre in all the discussions about transgenders,
how a little bit we seem to major the miners

(04:04):
and mind of the majors. All Right, The thing that
gets people most animated, I think, is actually the stuff
that is the mildest injustice. It's still an injustice, but
it's fairly mild compared to other things. For example, the

(04:27):
presidence of a transgender male athlete. And by the way,
this particular boy again. This boy named Aby hernandez Is Junior,
is a tall, lanky boy, looks pretty decently athletic, obviously

(04:49):
going to be able to jump a lot farther than
girls than, you know, the overwhelming majority of girls. My
guess is that he'd be a relatively average long jumper
if he was in the boys category, but he's dominating
the girls. So if girl athletes get blocked out of

(05:19):
qualifying for subsequent heats, qualifying for higher levels of competition,
you know, making it from the regional championships up to
the statewide championships or something like that, or even if
girls get blocked from metal positions, you know, would have
gotten the bronze medal instead, they get nothing, would have

(05:40):
gotten the silver medal instead, they get the bronze medal,
would have gotten the gold medal instead, they get the silver.
That is certainly unfair, and it's unjust, especially in the
context of a non team sport like track and field,
where you're more or less competing in the vis visually
and separately. Certainly that's wrong and unfair. But the greater

(06:11):
unfairness is the greater unfairness, the greater injustice is in
the area of accommodations, which CIF has done nothing to
address privacy and accommodations. Someone raised this question at the
press conference, and even the people at the press conference,

(06:34):
Diane Pierce, who was very much opposed to, you know,
opposed to transgender biological boys playing girls sports, that there
were two different, different Close Unified Board of Trustees members
at this event who were both opposed to the idea
of biological boys playing girls sports. No one actually had

(06:56):
a clear answer to a question someone put which was, Hey,
what locker room accommodations will this boy, Abe Hernandez be using?
And I didn't pipe up because I was there to
cover it, but I know the answer. I mean, by
California law, unless Cloves Unified is going to violate that,

(07:21):
if this boy wants to be in the girl's locker room,
he's going to be in the girl's locker room. I mean,
plain and simple, changing, et cetera. The fact that a
biological boy is going to be allowed into a locker
room with girls where this boy might be changing, might

(07:42):
be showering, et cetera. That is a bigger injustice. Then
you know whether or not someone makes a metal, whether
someone makes a heat and maybe I'm being a little
too picky un about what is worse and what is greater.
Certainly there is stuff like for high school athletes. I

(08:02):
mean that those are big accomplishments that could be taken away.
Being a silver medalist versus being a gold medalist. It's
a big difference, maybe even college scholarship opportunities, you know,
being a silver medalist versus being a gold medalist. Although
I think if you're a college you'd be smart enough,
especially now that the NCAA is saying no more of
this transgender athlete stuff. I think a college would be

(08:23):
smart enough to say, Okay, well she was a silver medallist.
She did this long of a jump. Yeah, that's good
enough for our team. She was a silver medallist because
she was only beaten out by a boy. Yeah she's
still good enough for our team. But I do think

(08:43):
the intrusion of a biological male into women's spaces for showering,
for changing, to say to girls, no, you have to
you have to be exposed to that in the locker room,
in privacy, that is a serious affront to women's privacy,

(09:04):
women's safety, and it's actually, I think far worse than
anything that's happening on the field also less talked about,
and this isn't as much a factor in track and
field sports, although I suppose it could be if you're
talking about you know, track sports where maybe like you know,

(09:29):
the fifteen hundred meters or something, where people are sort
of running in groups and there's the possibility of falling
and tripping and stuff like that. For the most part,
in track, though, it's more or less it's individual sports
where it's not too much competing against other people. You're
just trying to run as fast as you can without
really much reference to other people. You know, everyone's in

(09:53):
their own lane. In the hundred meter dash, everyone's in
their own lane. In the two hundred meter dash, everyone's
in their own lane. In the four hundred meters. Everyone's
doing their own jumps individually with the pole vault and
the long jump and the high jump, et cetera. You're
not you know, there's not a much risk of injury.
But risk of injury is a really significant thing. If

(10:15):
you've got a biological boy playing basketball against biological girls,
I mean high school girls. College age girls are notorious
for tearing their acls when they play basketball. There's huge
risks of that. Now throw into the mix a boy
who might be you know, six inches taller, fifty pounds heavier,

(10:36):
falling on your knee. You know you're upping that risk significantly.
You know, getting a volleyball spiked your face from a
girl is one thing. Getting a volleyball spiked in your
face from a super strong, tall, athletic, sixteen year old
boy versus a tall, strong, athletic sixteen year old girl,

(10:57):
that's a different thing. So safety concerns, I think are
even you know, as important as competition is, safety is
higher now the safety concern isn't maybe quite as isn't
really there when you're talking about track and field competition,
but certainly for other sports. And I guess it's to

(11:21):
California's benefit that this controversy is only coming to a
head in May, where we don't have too many other
sports going on. But guess what basketball season is going
to come up? I know there are California high schools
where we've got biological boys playing biological girls basketball. This

(11:42):
is going to come up during the basketball season. It's
going to come up during the volleyball season. It's going
to come up a lot of other sports, we're going
to have this debate, and so this is the CIF.
This track and field competition is maybe like the last
thing where CIF is going to have some kind of

(12:03):
opportunity to address something. And the thing is with track
and field, it's so stark because again, it's an individual competition,
and you rank it with measurables. Who ran the hundred
meters the fastest, who ran the two hundred meters, the fastest,
who ran the four hundred, the fastest? Who jumped? How

(12:24):
far did you jump in the long jump? How high
did you jump in the high jump? How far did
you throw the discus? How far did you throw the
shot put? How far did you throw the hammer? Throw? Like,
it's all measurables, and you measure this is what the
boy did, this is what the girls did. And it's
so the ridiculousness of it all that obviously this isn't

(12:47):
like some extraordinary female. This is an ordinary boy kicking
the butts of all these girls. And it's just demonstrating
this is why sports were traditionally sex segregated, because what
are we even doing? It just makes it unfair on

(13:11):
the whole. Boys are bigger, taller, faster, stronger than girls.
Their muscular their muscular systems, their skeletal systems are different.
It's more advantageous for things like athletics. And it's insulting

(13:32):
and that that was one of the things that it's
not really resolved at all by the CIF changes to
their policy. It's insulting to these girls. Why should they
be forced to stand there with ab Hernandez and on
the what are they I'm going to be fascinated to

(13:54):
see when I go to this track meet. What are
they going to do? Are they going to have a
podium stand? Is ab Hernandez going to be standing at
the first place thing and a girl is gonna be
standing next to him? But also on the first place stand?
How are we gonna do this? Why should she stand
there with him? He shouldn't be in there. He shouldn't
be there distracting from her accomplishment because he's not a girl.

(14:20):
Like the whole idea that we're going to give him
awards when he's not competing against like competition. I mean,
it's like the you know, bringing in the seventeen year
old to play twelve and under baseball. You know, like
there were a couple of scandals like that with the

(14:40):
Little League World Series where there was this pitcher who
was completely dominating everyone in the Little League World Series,
and then it was like, well, yeah, because he's from
the Dominican Republic and they fudged around with his birth certificate,
he's actually fourteen years old. Of course he's dominating all
these twelve year olds. Of Course we recognize and we

(15:03):
put limits on this within the context of youth sports
that yeah, we don't let seventeen year olds play with
ten year olds. You try to gather kids of like age.
And this is even Actually I had a good conversation
about this with a mom, a mom who has had
several recent high school athletes or kids are in college now,

(15:26):
but saying, like, you know, it was so ridiculous the
way that people do these reclassifications within sports of like saying, oh, my,
basically they hold a kid back a year, and so
then the kid is a nineteen year old high school
senior dominating against you know, fifteen and sixteen year old juniors. Well, yeah,

(15:48):
if the kids, if you've got a nineteen year old
girl or a nineteen year old boy playing against fifteen
and sixteen year old fifteen sixteen year old juniors. That's
a lot of physical development and experience that they can
lord over these younger competitors, And at a certain point
it's like, well, what the heck are we doing? This
isn't fair. It's the same thing when you're having a

(16:13):
biological boy compete against biological girls. This is not someone
who should be in the competition anymore so than the
fifteen year old baseball players shouldn't be playing against in
the Little League World Series against twelve anunders. And that's
not being addressed by this. The insulting nature of placing

(16:35):
people who just shouldn't be in competition with each other
with each other, that's the rub, and CI haves to
do nothing to address that when we return. How there's
so little middle ground on the transgender thing? Next on
the John Girardi Show, you know, I was looking at

(16:57):
some conversation about transgenderism on Twitter, and I've realiz, this
is kind of one of the core problems about this.
There's no middle ground, and I don't really think it's
possible for there to be middle ground because what the
two sides are saying, especially transgenderism as we're talking about

(17:19):
it with regards to kids. You're not dealing with anything
with science here, and by that I mean the physical sciences, biology, medicine.
It's a difference of a it's a difference regarding philosophy

(17:41):
and human nature. One side views biological sex as being
something that is constitutive to human nature. This is part
of what human nature is. Part of what human nature
is is that you have a body, and that your

(18:02):
body is a certain way. That biological sex is not
an accidental feature subject to alteration and change, like your
hairstyle or something like that. Look, if you want to
have your hair short, you have your hair short. If
you want to have your hair long, have your hair long.
You know this is a legitimate area for self expression.

(18:29):
But your biological sex is not an accidental feature. There
is something essentially there that helps constitute who you are.
The other side does not think of human nature that way.

(18:50):
The other side thinks of human nature. It's sort of
the insane end results of so many trends in modern philosophy,
starting with Descartes, carried on by content so many others,
where the central focus of human nature and identity begins
with the mind, begins and ends with the mind, and

(19:12):
it looks at the body as this accidental appendage more
or less who you are is only something that's rattling
between your ears. That's it, I mean. Descartes's whole project
was basically not being able to trust that anything is real,
that anything exists, that God is real, even that the
world is real. That the only way you can start

(19:35):
to begin to think that anything actually exists or that
anything is actually real is to say, well, I know
that I am thinking. I know concretely that I am thinking.
Kojito ergo sum I think therefore I am, and he
re establishes his belief in the existence of anything starting

(19:56):
from that, Whereas the more traditional, if you will, or
Statilian view of the world is no, that we have
our sense. No, we are not part of a grand hallucination.
This is not a grand hallucination that's been superimposed onto
our consciousness by a wicked you know, puppet master God

(20:18):
who's just trying to trick us. No, we can trust
till within limits. We can trust the ordinary experiences of
our senses to know that things exist and that we
can understand reality through sense perception, and sense perception implies

(20:39):
means a body. Our bodies are part of us and
the ultimate expression of disdain for the body. One of
the ultimate expressions is taking your biological sex and rejecting it,

(21:02):
rejecting it either socially or more extreme, rejecting it physically
with hormonal treatments and surgeries. To do that to a
child who can't consent meaningfully, and this is something we
believe in America. We believe that children can't really consent

(21:25):
to medical treatment. We don't allow kids to consent to
medical treatment. We insist that the parents consent. You know,
school nurse is going to give you a call before
they give your kid a title and all or an advil.
Why because the kid can't consent to that, you have
to for them. We don't trust kids to consent to
serious things that have a long term impact on their

(21:47):
health and well being. We don't let kids vote. We
don't let kids drive cars. We don't let kids drink.
We don't let kids join the military unless their parents
say so when they're about seventeen. There's all kinds of
restrictions on what kids can do. Kids can't go to
tanning salons in California. Kids can't sign contracts, We don't

(22:07):
allow kids to kids cannot have sex, they cannot consent
to sex. That's what statutory rape means. That kid's ability
to consent is so inept because they're too young, because
they don't have experience, that they can't meaningfully consent to sex,
and that's what statutory rape means. So, in short, one

(22:35):
side views transgender interventions as pretty much genuinely child abuse,
taking this child's body and mutilating it, rejecting who this
child is. But the other side, that views human identity
as purely mental, that views human nature as purely you

(22:57):
fulfilling your internal conception of yourself, would see someone preventing
a child from expressing themselves as the opposite sex, however
that's defined, and say that that person is themselves engaged

(23:17):
in child abuse. Both sides think the other is engaged
in child abuse. There's no middle ground there. There just isn't.
And that's why this issue is going to continue to rage,
although it seems like my side of this issue, which

(23:38):
I believe to be fundamentally correct, is winning. When we
return why term limits are a terrible idea. Next on
the John Girardi Show, all right, I want to give
a contrarian take, a contrarian argument it's only contrarian, I
think within the context of political conservative leaning talk radio,

(24:03):
because I think if you get a group of conservative
folks together and you throw out there, you know what
if these guys didn't have term if these guys had
some term limits and weren't in office forever, maybe things
would be better. May term limits, that's what we need.
And then you'll get people yeah, yeah, term yeah. And
it's understandable. There are a few creatures more revolting than

(24:28):
for example, Chuck Schumer, who's been lolling around Congress for
god knows how many decades. You see, Mitch McConnell I remembered,
actually I pulled up YouTube once. I pulled up on
YouTube the Senate confirmation hearings for Antonin Scalia when Scalia

(24:54):
was you know, nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.
And for such a world of difference between then and now.
For one thing, here's antonin Scalia smoking a pipe while
he's sitting at sort of the witness desk during his
own confirmation hearing. He was literally smoking a pipe and

(25:15):
everyone's like, oh, yeah, he's smoking pipe whatever, Like as
as unremarked on as if he you know, had a
glass of water next to him that he was drinking
out of during during the hearings. Yeah, he's just casually
smoking a pipe. But there on the dais is young
Senator Chuck younger anyway, Senator Chuck Grassley, who's still in

(25:37):
the Senate today. I think he's in his nineties. And
then young Senator Mitch McConnell, who looked so weird. It's
so weird. See, I mean, I've I don't know, my
only interactions with Mitch McConnell have been since I was,
you know, either an adult or a young adult anyway,
and I've only known Mitch McConnell as an elderly man

(25:57):
with you know, white hair. Here's a young, red haired,
rosy cheeked Mitch McConnell. And you see all these members
of Congress, all these members of Congress who've been around
for decades and who've somehow managed to become multi gazillionaires
over their time in Congress. Nancy Pelosi, you know, Nancy Pelosi,
the world's greatest you know, stock investor. And you think, well,

(26:25):
this is disgusting, this is slimy. These people get in power,
they stay in power forever and they really entrench themselves,
and maybe it leads to a distortion of their interests
where they're more interested in maintaining their position than they
are and actually representing the people or in passing good

(26:45):
policy blah blah blah blah blah. So people naturally think,
you know, here's this fat cat career politician. Why should
they make a career out of this? And that's a
fair sentiment, I mean, the noble Roman sentiment that inspired
a lot of the founding fathers was the story of

(27:06):
quin Kinatus as he was called in Latin if you
actually pronounce it the way they pronounced it then, or Cincinnatus,
who was a possibly legendary Roman senator in the early
Roman Republic who was called upon to serve as the

(27:27):
temporary dictator. One of the things in the Roman Republican
system was they had an actual constitutional mechanism for instead
of the normal Roman system, where that the two top
magistrates were the consuls who could veto each other, and
they had both of them had military authority above them,
certain kinds of other judicial and other authorities, but they
could always veto each other. Well, if the barbarian hordes

(27:50):
are coming over the hill, you know, to try to
sack the city of Rome, you might want one person
in charge rather than two consuls fighting with each other.
So the Roman Republican system, I'm at this mechanism for
what's called the dictator. So famously, the possibly apocryphal legendary
story is that they go to King Kannato Cincinnatus's farm

(28:11):
and he's out there, you know, the gentleman, farmer, scholar, soldier, statesman.
He's out on his farm, he's plowing. They say, hey, Cincinnatus,
the Senate just convened. We got invading guys coming to
invade attack Rome. We got a military emergency here. We
need you, buddy, We just named you the Dictator. Cincinnatus
puts down his plow, he goes out, He leads the

(28:34):
Roman armies to victory, beats the beats the attacking invaders,
settles all those affairs, puts down the office of dictator,
goes back to his farm, picks up his plow, gets
back to work. That was the idea, That was the ideal,
and that example of Cincinnatus was a really important one

(28:58):
for the founding generation. And George Washington was like possibly
consciously inspired by that specific story washing you know, when
the original Constitution was drafted, there weren't any term limits
for the president, and Washington did serve for two terms

(29:24):
and put down power to such an extent that people said,
you know, this was one of the greatest men of
his age to have voluntarily not sought power again and
again and again, and importantly to have only sought the
limited constitutional power of the presidency rather than trying to

(29:45):
expand it beyond the parameters of what the Constitution allowed
to something akin to, you know, kingship or dictatorship or
something like that. So there is this constitutional sort of
impulse from the founding generation of you know, people should
be willing to put their power aside. However, on the

(30:08):
flip side, it's also important to note that the founding
generation did not actually mandate that. Like, it was noble
and inspiring that George Washington at least didn't exceed the
bounds of his constitutional prerogatives, and it was kind of,
in a way, very noble of him to stop after

(30:29):
two terms, which was an example that every subsequent president
followed after him except FDR. And then it was only
after FDR that a new constitutional amendment was adopted that
limited presidents to only two terms, but it wasn't actually
mandated in the constitution originally. Why well, there is actually

(30:58):
some benefit to people serving in office a long time.
And as much as the Roman model glorified Cincinnatus, it
also glorified other people who served in the Roman Senate
for decades. In fact, within the Roman model, the oldest
and longest serving senator the Prince kept Sonatus, the prince
of the Senate, the leader of the Senate, if you will.

(31:21):
He was always the guy who got to talk first.
So the Romans did actually respect wisdom, understanding, and knowledge
in service. And I came across this tweet by Clint Brown,
who is a staffer for Senator Mike Lee from Utah,

(31:43):
and he wrote out a bunch of reasons why he
thought term limits were a bad idea, and I want
to share some of them with you because I thought
it was dead on one. It will allow staff, bureaucrats
and lobbyists to have far too much power. They'll be
the only ones who know what's going on, which is
already a problem this and term limits would make it worse.

(32:06):
Totally agree, And by the way, let me give you
my reason for why I agree. There is a legislative
body in America that has term limits that we're able
to compare and contrast against Congress. It's called the California Legislature. Yes, folks,

(32:28):
this is true. You may not know it, but the
California Legislature, members of the Assembly and members of the
state Senate have term limits. They have a twelve year
term limit. So basically, you can only serve in the
legislature for twelve years in one office or the other,
or some combination. So if you serve eight years in

(32:49):
the Assembly, you can then serve four years in the
Senate and you're done. Or you know, you can serve
all twelve years in the Senate or all twelve years
in the Assembly, whatever. But it's basically you mix and
match between the two and you're you're done after twelve years.
So the California Legislature has term limits. This thing that
conservatives always gripe, Oh, we need term letters, that'll solve

(33:10):
the problem. There is. There are few places on planet
Earth more dysfunctional than Sacramento. So if you think that
term limits are some magic bullet to good governance, if
let me give you exhibit A for why it's not Sacramento.
This first point that staff, bureaucrats, lobbyists have too much power.

(33:34):
That is one hundred percent true in Sacramento. I've seen
lawmakers introduce legislation why well, because their staff, who's been
around forever, likes this legislation wanted introduce it. Two. Primaries,
whether electorally successful or not, push members of Congress to
be in closer alignment with their voting bases. You want

(33:55):
them to be closer to the swamp or to their voters.
If there are term limits, potential primary opponents will just
wait until the term is up. Instead, primaries are expensive
and always a long shot. Inserting term limits changes the
calculus on primaries. You want Congress to be less conservative.
Also a good point. Three, If there's a term limit,

(34:18):
members of Congress will be looking for their next job
starting on day one. This is one hundred percent true
of the California legislature. These guys get into the legislature
and they are immediately looking for their next job. And
that job now this again, Clinton Brown is writing this
as Stepford. Mike Lee writes, if there's a term limit,

(34:41):
members of Congress will be looking for their next job
starting on day one, and that job will be on
K Street. K Street in Washington is famous for being
the home of lobbying firms. That is exactly what happens
with state lawmakers in Sacramento. They get their job, and
then they're immediately looking for their next job, which which
is inevitably invariably in lobbying. Why because if you're a

(35:04):
state lawmaker and you get to know all these lawmakers,
you become a very valuable asset potentially to lobbying firms.
You've got all the relationships, you know, all the players,
you know, staffers, you know members. Four, lobbying firms will
gain significantly more influence in revenue because they will be

(35:25):
the only ones who know what's going on. Ding ding
Ding True In Sacramento five, Congress will be far outmatched
by bureaucracies. Employees of federal agencies often work there for
twenty or thirty years. They'll know far more about what's
going on than the legislative branch. Ding ding Ding Also
true in Sacramento six. The people should be able to
elect whatever citizen best represents their interests. What if you

(35:47):
have an absolute warrior, your favorite member of Congress who
absolutely stands in the gap but gets pushed out by
term limits not good ding ding ding. Also true, there
are some really good people who are going to be
the term limiting out of the Assembly in the State
Senate on the Republican side. So in short, I know,

(36:09):
we like to we're always looking for that magic silver
bullet term limits, ain't it. It's a bad idea when
we return other things in the transgender argument that are
more unfair than boys playing girls sports and beating girls
out of competition. That's next on the John Growardy Show.

(36:30):
There are a lot of things in the transgender argument.
I know, this whole weekend we're going to be consumed
locally by debates over the CIF State Track and Field Championships,
where there's a biological boy ab Hernandez competing against and
possibly going to be taking victories away from biological girls.
Let's not forget this. There are other things that are

(36:52):
far more unjust within the context of transgender debates. One
the shameful way in which pro transgender folks treat so
called d transitioners, people who regret their gender transition, as
if their viewpoints are completely invalid, illegitimate, people whose lives
have been ruined by basically irreversible surgeries that have left

(37:18):
them maybe sterilized or horrifically physically scarred. Two as bad
as boys playing girl sports is, and it is bad.
It's unfair that victories are taken away from girls, opportunities
are taken away from girls. As unsafe as it can be.

(37:39):
Far more grievously dangerous and unjust to women is housing
biological men in women's prisons, which I've talked about a
lot on this show. There's a whole case of Madera
County where a biological male was assigned to the Chaouchilla
Women's prison and rape is being charged with raping three
women that he got one of his cell mats pregnant.

(38:02):
That is worse, and it needs to be more of
a focus of public policy. That'll do it, John Jarlady Show.
See you next time on Power Talk