Mark rolls the odometer as we hit Podcast #100 with a look at a new essay that dives into the conscious attempt to rid white people from top positions in our popular culture. Also, Hartford's Jordan Stolz is winning every speedskating race in sight as he targets a dominating Milan Olympics. And, will those Olympics be Mikaela Shiffrin's Simone Biles-like redemption after her 2022 disaster? And, the Daily Mail exposes Ilhan Omar's family's close ties with Somalian oppressors and questions whether she really ever was a "refugee."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by you Line for
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Visit you line dot com. The Markbelling Podcast is a
production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
We're going to do another Lost Generation segment, except it's
not what you think. A couple of weeks ago on
this podcast, we did a lengthy segment walking through the
plight of Generation Z, the generation after the Millennials, the
(00:53):
generation that had its life interrupted and was so badly
affected by COVID, and we went through any of the
number of other issues that are confronting it. This isn't
that there's another piece that uses this term, but it's
talking about a different group of people. It's an essay
(01:13):
that has gotten a lot of buzz in the last
couple of days since it's been released. It's in an
online magazine, and magazine is just a term that they use.
It's an online website. It's like a magazine that it
runs lengthy essays. It's called compact. I have linked the
piece up on my website, Belling dot com. We only
(01:35):
use Belling dot com for things like this, so if
you go to Belling dot com you can read it.
It's a very lengthy piece, but brilliant. I'm not going
to read the whole thing on the program here. Jason
Bond is the writer. What he's doing is drawing attention
to how over the last fifteen years there has been
(01:59):
a shock almost wipeout of white people in many prominent
cultural institutions. First of all, the majority of people in
United States of America are white, So you would think
that other than specific fields or specific areas, the majority
(02:23):
of people would be white unless it's a specific you know,
sport or you know some I don't tech, or maybe
something in classical music where people of certain ethnicities are into.
If they're generally speaking general things, you would think that
the majority, the popular percentage of people that are involved
(02:43):
in that field would be out the same as the
overall demographic of the United States.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Furthermore, the percentage percentages that have dropped, according to his piece,
are staggering. It's not like one to two to three percent.
In other words, a slow blue. It implies essentially that
they weeded out most of the white people from these fields,
white men in general.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But also white women.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'm going to quote a few paragraphs from his piece,
and again, since this thing landed, it's been talked about
on a couple of other podcasts that I follow, It's
been picked up on some of the conservative news aggregators
that I have, And again, there's just so many It's
like a podcast. There's somebody that are out there and
so many pieces. The people are right online. For something
(03:36):
to get hit this much attention, it's you know, somebody
posts it and somebody else reads it. It's just creating
a buzz. This buzz will never make its way to
the mainstream media. The issue will never be talked about.
I'm just going to quote a few paragraphs here so
I can then launch off and give my comments, he writes.
(03:57):
In twenty eleven, the year I moved to Los Angeles,
white men were forty eight percent of lower level TV writers.
What's a lower level TV writer? How would you interpret
that term? You couldn't get anything answered, Yes, and yesterday's podcast,
(04:19):
a lower level TV writer would be, you know, there's
just so many TV shows right now when you consider
streaming and everything else. A lower level TV writer would
be somebody that's you know, often say, on a show
like The Sopranos, they had writers and then they had
other writers, and the other writers would like maybe one
storyline or one set of dialogue and contributed and feed
(04:42):
it to the major writers. Or there may be a
show in which there's nine to ten writers assigned to
the show. A lower level writer might be somebody that
I say, Jimmy Fallony probably has ten writers, where I
don't know how many as Johnny Carson a rezillion. There
might be one or two. They write the occasional bit
and they're trying to get things in there. Anyway, this
is for a huge chunk of the entertainment industry. This
(05:04):
is a big there's lots of people that do this,
and it's not a glamour part of the industry, but
it's also not nonexistent. For instance, yeah, I'm Saturday in Life.
I'm sure they have the two or three or four
writers that led a lot of the six, and then
there's a zillion others that contribute or give an idea
or maybe one of their things he's used every three
or four weeks, or they'll add dialogue, or they're one
(05:25):
of the people that's around the table to kick in
ideas and so on. I watch all these podcasts about
the sopranos that David Chase would talk about. We had writers,
We had writers, and then we had story contributors and
so on. Anyway, white men were forty eight percent of
lower level TV writers. By twenty twenty four, they accounted
for just eleven point nine percent.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Think of that. I'll give you the dates again. Twenty eleven,
forty eight percent.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Just about half of the people that were lower level
TV writers are white. Twenty four it was twelve percent.
Word that other thirty eight percent. Go and how can
you have a country in which white people still what
I think the white population is in the sixties, sixty
five percent.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
How do you have on the eleven percent in this field,
which is again kind of a mass appeal thing.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
He goes on the Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
The Atlantic is a hoity twenty magazine, kind of aimed
at the left. It's like, not really a vanity fair,
which is kind of vanity fair. We'll have the celebrity pieces.
Atlantic tends to have more think piece kind of stuff
without being a scholarly journal. And again, for most of
these magazines, what they do know is mostly on the
website rather than an actual physical magazine. The Atlantic, the
(06:48):
Atlantic's editorial staff went from fifty three percent male and
eighty nine percent white in twenty thirteen to thirty six
percent male and sixty six percent white in twenty twenty four.
Again numbers, I'll break it up. White in twenty thirteen
eighty nine percent. Now it's sixty six percent just eleven
(07:09):
years later. That's a huge drop off of people whose
jobs were eliminated or whenever somebody left, you're simply not
going to hire a white person to fill that job.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
But how else can you take?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know, people work at a magazine like that, those are
lifeer jobs. Twenty thirty forty years. For the number to
shift that much in such a short period of time
means if you're a white person, they just weren't going
to hire you.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And then male.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It was in twenty thirteen fifty three percent male. In
other words, what kind of what you'd expect. Fifty three
percent male, forty seven percent female. That was in thirteen.
It is now down to thirty six percent male. How
do you have that drastic of a change in ten years. Again,
it has to be that every time a guy quit,
it was the job was filled by a woman. He continues,
(07:52):
and it's the gist of his piece. He goes on
and on and on and points this out. What's been
happening to white people in many arts of jobs that
drive the American culture. White men fell from thirty nine
percent of tenured track positions in the humanities, all right.
What's tenure track when you are professor at a university.
(08:15):
It depends on the university, but it's usually several years
before you get tenure. Tenure means almost impossible to fire you.
You have to you have to commit a sex crime
or child porn or embezzle money, and maybe then they'll
fire you prior to getting tenured, though you can be
fired at will. It's like kind of like it's not
(08:35):
the same, but kind of like being a partner at
a law firm. The humanities, What are the humanities? The
humanities would be the social sciences, the arts, etc. In
other words, anything tech and math that's not the humanities.
But literature would be a literature course in art classould
be in the humanities, all right. In twenty fourteen at Harvard,
(09:00):
thirty nine percent of the tenured track positions were white men. Now, again,
that would not be a field in which you would
expect to have a majority being male. Who's going to
aspire to be a professor at you know, there's going
to be more females. It's just a statement of fact
that are going to want to be a professor in
some of these social sciences than male. So even in
(09:21):
twenty fourteen it was thirty nine percent white males, in
twenty twenty three it was eighteen percent. That's a drop
of more than half. Only eighteen percent of the people
on tenured track to be a professor at Harvard and
the Humanities is.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
A white male.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yet the number of white males in the overall population
is obviously higher than this. In retrospect, twenty fourteen was
the hinge, the year the DEI became institutionalized across American life,
And this is one of the places that he's going
with the piece DEI kicked in right around then. It
(10:07):
was something that was talked about and theorized and generally
thought to be quackery until it was adopted across the
board American school disticcs and so on by the left.
And it was always a well, it's just you know,
and the people would defend it, would say, you're trying
to say that black history should be expined. It was
always more than that. It was always get all the
(10:28):
jobs and get rid of the whities. This is what
toxic masculinity, toxic whiteness, the whites suppressor. All of this
stuff came in and he's pointing out that this was
the hinge here, that the numbers are rather normal in
terms of the respect of the population twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen.
(10:48):
But then DEI kicked in and across the board and
our institutions that kind of define the culture, defined learning,
defind media, define celebrities, Whites and in particular white males
have been expunged. Newsrooms in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Were center left places. Now I can relate to this.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I got involved to the news media in nineteen seventy nine,
college in the nineteen seventies, but in the news media
as long as I've almost been a human being. And
then I started doing a talk show and I commented
on media bias, and I would rip on the media
in the nineties and the early zeros for how lefty
they were.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Little did we know.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Remember when I would get on the journals, say in
the nineteen nineties, and get on their editor and get
on their editors over there. It was nothing like what
you have now. At least then they had the pretext
of claiming that they were being objective. Did be the
slants in all of this stuff. There's none of that anymore.
(11:49):
They don't even make an attempt their hell holes of radicalism.
Back to his peace, newsrooms were center left places in
two thousand and five. Now they're incredibly left places. I
imagine one reason newsrooms have gotten more explicitly lefty. Again,
this piece is thirty two pages. I'm just giving you
(12:11):
a few paragraphs and interjecting. So he's got a theory.
Now why does he? As I said, and I think
you can't argue this. Paul's been following this as long
as I have. In two thousand and five, the media
was lefty. It was twenty years ago, nothing like what
it is now. So he's now trying to get after
why have newsrooms in particular gotten so explicitly lefty.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
He's got a theory.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Is that you have white guys and white women adopting
a kind of protective coloration allyship mindset to get to
the door. And what does that mean. He's saying that
the whites that are in the media they have to
go along with THEI and anything that anyone of color
(12:57):
is saying or with some muzzlimus that they have to
go along with it or they're going to be expunged.
And we've seen, for example, it's someone at a major institution,
be at Harvard or whatever, lefty as the day is long,
if they object to any of this, they're gone. The
left has demanded total adherence to their agenda on everything.
(13:21):
In some cases they went after people that they couldn't
get rid of. Joe Rogan is an example. Joe Rogan
was a Lefty. Then he came out and broke ranks
on COVID and they attacked him viscerally, and that opened
up Rogan's mind. And I think right now Rogan is,
if anything, right of Cetter. But because Joe Rogan works
for himself, you can't make people not listen to his podcast.
(13:44):
They couldn't cancel him out. But imagine you're just some
grunt who's working in the newsroom at the Chicago Tribune.
You're just some white guy that's in there. You're gonna
keep your mouth shut and keep your head down because
you don't want to become the target. His theory here
he is that even the people that don't buy into
(14:05):
the radicalism in New Zooms or other places are going.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
To get along to go along or go along to
get along.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
People have always debated you go along to get along,
get along and go along. I've done a few segments
of this. I put it the answer is both. You
do have to go along to get along, and you
have to get along to go along. If you think
through with those, I can explain it. You have to
get along with the prevailing cultural trends and the place
that you're at, or you won't go along. And likewise,
(14:36):
you have to go along and agree with this in
order to get along.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
With these people, or they'll hate you.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Continuing for a decade, it kept going faster and faster
without any actual quotas to achieve. No he uses that word,
you would think that this is be quotas. And a
lot of people on my side think the DEI has
resulted in quotas. They don't aint quotas. Quota would imply
that some of the jobs going to go to people
of color, or some of the people of this or
(15:02):
people of that. It's been just we're not gonna take
you if your wife because if you're white, or evil,
if you're male, your toxic, et cetera. For a decade,
it kept going faster and faster without any actual quotas
to achieve, only the constant exhortation to do better. Oh
the phrase of the left, do better, do better. Why
(15:25):
this white guy said this, do better? When they've tried
to get rid of me here they like they would
tell I do better. You got this mark Bella, do better,
do better. The diversity complex began became self radicalizing. You
see where this is such a good piece but a
great term. The diversity complex became self radicalizing. So the
(15:50):
diversity didn't just change the skin color or ethnicity of
the people involved. It became a movement that radicalized unto
itself because inherent in all of this was not just
the skin color, but the way you thought and what
you believed in, and you had to agree with all
of it or you'd be the next victim that was
(16:11):
thrown out the door. I'll make the case that this
also excluded many African Americans and Latinos. They who are
conservative are hated even more than whites that are conservative.
The terms that have been applied to them back to
the piece a strange confluence of top down and bottom
(16:37):
up pressure, in other words, pressure from above the dee.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I think this way.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think that anybody who's been proud of any corporation
has had to go to the training sessions and so on, and.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Then bottom up the ratting out.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
This one said this, this one did this, popped out
and bottom up pressure then nix sons. No one ever
said what the right number of white men would be.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Again, that goes back to the quota.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They never said, well, okay, we should only have like
forty two percent of white men here.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Even though white men or whatever it is, they never
said that number.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
The reason they did is that they didn't want there
to be a bottom This is me, noing, not the writer.
No one ever said what the right number of white
men would be, but it was always fewer than you
currently Hadn't that what it is? Your DII in anywhere,
No matter how many fewer white men you had, it's
(17:38):
not low enough. Is the medium more trusted now than
a decade ago? These questions, of course answer themselves. Is
Hollywood making better films and television? Let me interject, I
watched or listen to them with five or six podcasts.
(18:00):
I never listened to other talk shows, but I'm still
learning the podcast stick and it becomes pretty good sources
to every now and then pull out a chunk of audio.
Megan Kelly was making this point about Rob Reiner as
they were discussing his death and so on. Rob Rider,
as you know, was just I died in the wool hardcore.
Couldn't keep his yap shut lefty. But maybe I had
(18:26):
so many movies that're famous. Maybe his most famous movie
was When Harry Met Sally. It was a long time ago.
I'd have nineties.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Do you think nineties?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
As far as I recall, there was nothing political in it,
do you I mean not even like a side every
now and now you're just but they'll make a side
comment saying that nothing to do with the story, just
to put in your lefty bona fides. Maybe there's like something,
but it was basically entertainment. Rob Rider didn't feel as
though his need what he made. He was trying to
make a hit that everybody on the planet would want
(18:59):
to go to without regarding now's the question, is Hollywood
making better films and television? Is academia more respected again?
His questions are answering themselves. Have these institutions become stronger
since they systematically excluded an entire cohort. That cohort, of course,
(19:20):
would be whites and white guys. Or did abandoning meritocracy
accelerate their decline? Again, what a great sentence, meritocracy the
notion that you advance on the basis of how good
you are, you're not very good. You get nowhere meritocracy.
(19:45):
I mean, look at the Ivy League universities. Remember when
the president of Harvard was called before Congress. I mean,
even if you're a lefty, but you're any good at testifying,
you managed to figure out a way to say that, no,
you can't advocate killing people because they're Jewish at Harvard.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
She couldn't even say that. She was so dumb that she.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Didn't even figure out her way to be able to
weasel word through it because she wasn't chosen on the
basis of meritocracy. It's a police chief, and I forget what.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
City it might have been.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
DC didn't know what the term chain of command means
might have been. The fire chief, whoever it was, was
promoted to the position, and they were in human resources
and made it to the level of chief wherever it was,
didn't know the term chain of command. That's what those
organizations are.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Chain of command.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You got a sergeant, you got a lieutenant, you got
a captain, you got an assistant chief, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Meritocracy was shot well, but you.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Have so many of this and so many of that
without regard well, maybe this person's better than that one
over there. But meritocracy, which has been when America's premised,
one America is set up, it doesn't always work. Idiots
have always been hired for certain jobs. By and large.
You know when we hire you as million years ago.
(21:01):
So imagine you butchered this show, you would have been
got right. Fortunately, I've not been confronted with having to
meet a quote or meet a number and so on.
There are some fields, most sports, in which they're clearly meritocracy.
You're a bad quarterback, you're gonna lose your starting job,
(21:22):
you'll be a bench player, and then ultimately you'll be
cut coach. The record is losing for a number of years,
you'll get rid of you. But in so much of
the rest of life. Look what coles they do itself.
They hired a CEO who look good on redsit. We
need to have a woman here and she came out
of a left wing company and let's starbucks.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Size you know, coals.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was years that the company was a train wreck
before they finally acted and got rid of her incompetent
ass here right, what's on the outside calling it every
step of the way. Getting back to that sentence, as
I say, we've pulled out here. A news aggregator is
helping me on this, but we pull out a number
of the key sentences from this piece. And again for
(22:08):
those of you coming in, I've linked it up on
Belling dot com. It comes from Compact magazine. The title
is the Lost Generation? Or did abandoning meritocracy accelerate their declient?
And then what do I say when my boys ask
about my old hopes and dreams? Man, you got a kid,
(22:30):
a boy as a kid told about the American dream.
You can do this, You can do that. Got a
white kid, Now, what do you tell them unless they're
going into certain fields? You got a white kid who
wants to be a professor, what do you tell them? Well,
(22:51):
you better think a certain way, and it wouldn't hurt
to define yourself as trans certainly hate Israel. You certainly
can't tell them that the American dream is open to them.
The people that are fine with they say, well, yeah,
but when white people ran everything, they oppressed and they
kept people, and they're denying that. But what's the wisdom
(23:17):
in lacking out white people from almost all major institutions
that determine the popular culture of popular thought. Let me
go through a list in which I think that this
problem has been most pernicious, and they're all the ones
that control communication and what we think. Teaching at the
public school level, teaching at the university level, the popular culture, movies, music, authors,
(23:44):
and writing the news media, journalism at all levels. This
is where all of our thought comes from. Now, one
of the things this is not in the writer's pace.
But one of the things that has happened is all
of those people that have been shutting out all of
those other areas have gravitated to and land in the
(24:05):
couple of places where they've not been knocked out. Maybe
if you're in the news business, you're gonn apply for
a job at Fox News, or you can go to
talk radio. Why was talk radio immune from all of
this because primarily, for most of its years, Talk radio.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Was on AM radio, and AM radio.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Was almost dead. It's still other than where there's a
talk station. It is dead. And the companies in his
destinatus we have, we're gonna go dead unless we put
on something that people want. And it became a place
where white people in particular might be able to still
be hired if they had talent, where their talent was
something that was essential to save something from actual death
(24:44):
or now podcasting. Podcasting threatens the stranglehold the left has
on the media because well, I'm someone who does work
for a company. I split my revenue with iHeart and
I still work for them. Most podcasts there's work for themselves.
They put their thing out there. If there's an audience,
they keep most of the money that they generate. The
(25:06):
more listeners they have, the more money they're going to generate.
And finding listeners is simply a matter of or viewers.
If it's a video podcast, making yourself attractive and people
go out and find it. In the case I use
the case for example of Rogan, because on most of
the rankings he's still number one. There's nobody to tell
(25:28):
Joe Rogan. He can't say this because Joe Rogan owns
his own company, and he's just on a bunch of platforms.
He has deals, preferential deals, I think with Spotify and YouTube.
I'm not even sure, just as I have a preferential
deal with iHeart.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
But we're all on all of them. You can get
them all anywhere.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
And you know there are people out there, for example,
Nick Fuentes, who many conservatives think is way over the
line himself. There's no way to shut him up. He's
out there and he has this thing, and if people
are interested in gravitating to it, they're going to do it.
But in all of these other fields in which there
(26:06):
is a gatekeeper at a restraint, whites have been screwed.
And now he's focusing here mostly on positions in the
culture and so on. But throughout business, the same thing's
been happening, just not to the same level. He asked
the question again, what do I say when my boys
ask me about.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
My hopes and dreams? What do I tell them when
they ask about theirs? Again?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The last generation is the title of the piece. My
website is Belling dot com and we have that linked
up there for.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Those of you that would like to read it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I hit it at something in an earlier podcast, and
I'm not going to lay it out. One of the
things you produced my radio show for thirty five years
and my podcast for what year. Obviously there are things
that are better in the podcast world, right, zillions of them.
(27:07):
Is there one thing in which you think radio had
an advantage?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I mean a podcast you can listen to it within
moments after it's done. But most podcasts people will listen
anywhere from five minutes to five years after the fact,
where as with radio, even when people would listen to
the radio online, it tended to be more immediate. There's that,
I would say, sort of, that would be one of them.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
What else Paul said, taking calls? You can't take calls.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
In my case, I stopped taking calls many years ago,
and I didn't think it harmed the show at Also,
I would say in general for talk radio, yes, but
for my show it was a non issue because I
stopped doing it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That there you go. Virtually no podcasts can play music.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
The reason for that is radio has forever, by necessity,
had master licensing agreements with the big companies that represent songwriters,
the two biggest, and it's like virtually all are either
BMI or ascap. Bands don't get paid. If you go
(28:18):
into a bar and a recorded song is by a
band or an artist or a rappers being played, they
don't get any money, but the writer gets a little chunk.
Same thing with regard to anything on the radio. In fact,
I'm gonna tell a famous story about that. You want
to hear my famous story? Did you ever see the
(28:40):
movie not the TV show, the movie Mash You have? Okay,
none if it has, because long time ago, I would
say sixty nine to seventy seventy one. Well, it had
to you because the TV show came on in like
seventy four seventy five.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
The movie was based on the book by.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Richard Hooker, and it was very similar to the TV show,
only more like the beginning of the TV show was cynical,
the movie was way more cynical than that. It was
a Yeah, it was a dark, cynical but funny movie.
It was directed by a guy named Robert Altman who
went on and directed a lot of other kind of
movies like this. The characters were Sinning, Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould.
(29:16):
They played the Crapper and Hawkeye characters who kind of
inverted on TV in terms of their backstories.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And so on, so on. In any event, it was.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Like the TV show early on, but you know, it
was a movie, so it was. And the movie really
didn't have a plot. It was almost like four episodes
of the TV show thrown together, basically life in a
mobile Army surgical hospital in Korea during the war. And
it was kind of a dark and cynical movie. And
Robert Alton was a guy who just kind of specialized
(29:47):
in this. And the movie came to be made because
a guy who was a hang around in Hollywood, Auto
Premager's brother. Actually he bought the rights to the book
Mash was first a book novel by Richard Hooker, and
turned it into a movie. And the director that he
hired was Robert Albman. All right, back in that era
you always needed to have a song or a theme
(30:09):
in a movie. Not so much anymore. And they hired
Johnny Mandel.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Who was a face. He just he this is what
he did.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
He wrote scores from movies and music and it's just
a popular, mainstream kind of composer and he came up
with his melody and Altman, the director, remember everything in
the movie Mash was just cynical. He was taking very
serious stuff but playing it for hard laughs. And that's
(30:39):
I think, you know, the first year of Mash on
TV was like this, but it was very very serious
stuff and you got the impression of what it was,
but played it for last with just the overt cynicism.
Paul even say darkness of it. So Johnny Mendel composes
the theme for Mash. They used that same theme and
the TV show which didn't know forever and ever and ever.
(31:01):
But in the movie there were lyrics and it was
part of a scene. Do you remember the scene that
it was. There was a dentist who a dentist who
well he couldn't get it up, he couldn't have sex.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That's it was.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And his nickname, the nickname, the name for the dentist
was Painless.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It was his first movie role.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
He went on to be He went on to be
an actor and McMillan and wife and so on. His
name was John Shuck and he played and because they
had a name for everybody at all, that's you know,
fatherball Kahy. In the movie, they called him Dago Red,
which you could probably never do now.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Well, they called yes, I still can't believe that they.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Had an African American actor in there who played football
in college according to the storyline, and they called him spiritchucker.
He carried over to the first season a Mash. I
think they got rid of that role because they couldn't
justify using that term anymore. You know, Margaret was hot lips.
That carried over until they stopped saying it. Well, okay,
the dentist, his nickname was Painless. Well, they come up
(31:59):
with this idea that we're going to Painless was just
distraught that he was unable to perform sexually. So Hawkke
Guy and Trapper or whatever, they came up with this
idea that we're gonna have a fake suicide. We're gonna
give him, you know, he doesn't want to live. We're
gonna give him a dose of something that's gonna knock
him out. And while he's knocked out, this is gonna
(32:22):
get these thoughts out of his head and a woman's gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Have sex with him.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I mean, this is how absurd and stupid in the
movie as and that's what the lyric was. Suicide is
Painless is the title of this and I think it
was loud and Wainwright who did Dead Skunk. I might
be wrong about that, but I think he's the guy
who played the banjo and sang the song that was
said to this, and Robert Altman has told the story,
I want to have the most absurd, ridiculous lyrics. And
(32:50):
he sent this to all of these composers and none
of them would come up with anything because they had
all of them was trying to do this really dark
and cynical. In the meantime, though, the music theme that
was you know, the music is written by Johnny Mandel,
as we all know, was unbelievably catchy. So Altman gave up.
He couldn't find anybody, so he told his fourteen year
(33:11):
old son to do it.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Mike Altman.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Robert Altman son, who was fourteen, wrote the lyrics the
suicide is Painless. Those lyrics were never on the TV show.
It's only in the movie.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
That you hear the song.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Song and in that scene, all right, they do this,
and Altman hears the song and here's this is it?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
My god, we have something.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
This is unbelievably good. First of all, Mendel's theme was beautiful.
The theme from Mash is just unbelievably catchy. So they
indeed had the scene in the middle where suicide painless
commits suicide, which he does and he has the sex
well he's in you know, knocked out, and wakes up
the next day he's peeler just fine. But all was said,
I got to use this again. So the opening to
the movie was a two and a half minute montage
(33:54):
similar to the opening of the TV show in which
you saw the helicopters flying around and the doctors would be,
you know, performing on people as they're doing the triage.
And that was filmed in the Hollywood Hills. It was
in the same area where sadly Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed.
So that was the genesis of that song. Mike Altman
(34:15):
wrote the lyrics and Mendeli wrote the music, and the
music has been played forever and ever and ever, but
the only place you're ever gonna hear the lyrics is
really in the movie. Anyway, here's the point of the story.
For directing the movie, mash Robert Altman made seventy five
thousand dollars. That was just his salary. His son, Mike
Altman has over the years made millions of dollars in royalties.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's the only sign he ever wrote.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And the song writer, the lyric writer, there's the money
with the composer, not it's the composition of the music.
Johnny Meandil did all the work. Mike Aaltman wrote those
lyrics and made hundreds of times more money than his father,
the director for coming up with that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Which is my long.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Way of putting out that songwriters are the ones that
are compensated.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
They own the rights to the music.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So if you have a bar or a nightclub, or
say the Bucks game where they're playing recorded music in
or in radio, we have master contracts with ASCAP and
BMI to see that they are compensated. There is no
master contract in podcast, meaning you can't use the music
the song. If I use the song a songwriter, i'd
have the right to assume me because I'm taking their
(35:21):
copyrighted material and rebroadcasting it without permission. The theme music
that I have on this program i've purchased. At some point,
I'm not ready to do it yet. At some point
I'm going to tell you who composed it. But she
wrote the music and performed it for me, and I
purchased it otherwise I couldn't have a theme here, but
I own that, so it's mine. And since it's mine,
(35:43):
I can.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Use it here.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
But a song by the Beatles, we can't play out
or the Rolling Stones or Bing Crosby or whatever. And
I used to in the old radio show. It's a
long way of getting around to this say that I
love to play music, and we didn't can't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
So now to my point.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
At length, I think that that explanation was interesting, don't you.
And I think the story about Mike Altman becoming a
multi millionaire and never having to work in his life
because his dad told him to write ridiculous lyrics that
he did. People have said they're so eloquent. If you
listen to them, they're stupid, which is exactly what the
point was supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
A wise man once asked of me, what's.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
The I don't know it just you go. It's just
it's one of those things in which they sound profound,
but it's just it's just stupid anyway. Forever and ever
and ever, when I did the radio show, we would
start playing Christmas pumper music after Thanksgiving, and I was
just obsessed that we weren't going to stop playing it
on Christmas Day, and we continue to play it, I think,
(36:46):
initially through the end of the year, and then after
that I said that we were going to play the
Christmas bumper music through the Feast of the Epiphany, which
is usually twelve days after Christmas, because my point was
is that the Christmas season is not supposed to end.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
On Christmas. The Jews do it right.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Hanakah started Sunday evening. We're in now the week of
the eight days of Hanukah. Now, part of it is
it's a different Most people aren't Jewish, and it hasn't
dominated the culture. But there's like no build up for Hanukkah.
No Hanikah starts and then it continues for the period
of time when has happened with Christmas. And to me,
(37:28):
this year it just got more ridiculous than ever. The
Christmas music is being played in the stores in October.
It's so pervasive and pervasive and pervasive, and we all
know what's gonna happen. Christmas Day isn't even gonna get
to the end of the day, and it's gonna be done,
kind of like when people go to the movie. I
(37:48):
would recommend song sung Blue You're gonna go to what
I Know You're gonna go too. First of all, there's
no way you wouldn't love it because it's set in
the backdrop of local musicians kicking around. Paul said he's
seen somebody scenes. He's well, you'd still like it. And
I think some of the characters that you would know
the real life actors.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Of some of the characters that were in there.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And I wouldn't give that movie my highest recommendation, but
only a scooch below it. It's, first of all, for
a movie that could have been stupid very good, as
I would suggest that for your Christmas Day movie, except
I'm just thinking of Milwaukee that it's gonna be packed
that day, don't you.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
It's gonna do pretty well everywhere.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
It's not a blockbuster, but it's being advertised nationally all
over the place. The studio knows it's got something good here.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Anyway, my plant on.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Christmas is Christmas just ends of the thud. So if
I was still doing a radio show, which I'm not,
I'm telling you what I would have planned to do
this year to make and just to make a point,
take a guess what my plan was going to be,
I would not have played any Christmas music until Christmas Day,
(38:55):
and we would only have played it after Christmas through
the Epiphany. In fact, act, most Christian churches do not
have any Christmas music in the church.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Prior to Christmas. They will have an Advent song.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
For example, the Catholics will often do Oh Come Emmanuel,
that is asking for the.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Savior to be bored.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Now, a lot of the songs that are secular in Christmas,
you know, sleigh Ride and some of those, they don't
have anything to do with. I don't eve think the
word Christmas is in a lot of them. Maybe I'd
make an exception for that. But the point that I'm
making is this the only reason when I was a kid,
I just remember my parents they'd have when they'd have
(39:38):
like the Christmas parties and friends would come over and
all of that. It was the period after Christmas, in
between the New Year's there was there are people in
our house all the time. That's when people that weren't
working in that week. That's when you would celebrate it.
This whole notion of Christmas, the whole thing at Christmas
is December the fifth, and all of that stuff is fluid,
and we just shoved it earlier on, early on, early,
and what happens is people get so sick at Christmas
(39:58):
that by Christmas Day ends. Now. I believe there's an
agenda subconsciously behind the people who want Christmas to end
the date moment the day gets here, and that is
that is their way of completely divorcing the religious component
of Christmas from the secular I have felt forever that
they coexisted side by side.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Did everybody knew why we had Christas is a holiday?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It was commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior,
and whether you're a believer or not, that was the
point of the holiday. And it's becomes a overwhelming popular
holiday that the secularized stuff of it's Santa Claus and
playing gifts and playing doing music and all o this
stuff fit in there, and I felt as though it
existed side by side. I don't think they coexist very
well anymore. If we are to think at all about
(40:48):
the religious component of Christmas. There is no savior yet,
you know, and Jewish people believe the Savior is still coming,
but Christians believe he came.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Prior to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
There is no Savior. It's this darker period of waiting.
Then Christmas comes, the Savior is bored. That's the period
of celebration and the marking of Christmas. And I think
that the secular side of Christmas still coexisted that and
player slagh ride and jingle bells and all of that
stuff through the period of and the Epiphanty is the
(41:20):
day that's mentioned because it's within Christianity regarded as the
day in which kind of the Holy Spirit shined upon
Jesus and he went from just a nobody that nobody
knew was God to being God. And I think the
Epiphanty might coincide with the on the top of all
of this, when.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
What do they call it?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
They had there's a presentation of Jesus to at the
temple and so on, but that was it's a period
that it's generally thought of twelve days and that song
the twelve Days of Christmas. Christmas is always a twelve
day season and it started on Christmas Day and we've
just ended it so damn early anymore. That my idea
where ill doing radio would be just to make I
(42:02):
remember when I did the Wrestling Boss Show, I would
always do it between Christmas and New Years. You know
what why I would fill in between Christmas and New Years,
don't you? Well?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Brush run isn't available.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I mean the most everybody doesn't do their job between
Christmas and New Year's and that's when Phillin's show up.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I e me. You know, when Rush did.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The show, he was obsessed with man I'm Steamroll and
to the point that I mean everybody thought he over
did it, but I mean it's his show. He loved
two things in life. He loved Apple computers and he
loved Man I'm Steamroller, And that's what the Christmas music was.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Okay, I would do the show like twenty six or
twenty seven, and.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I put my foot dots. I want to hear the
Christmas proper music. Well, the staff didn't want to keep
hearing it more this man I'm Steamroller stuff, but they,
to their credit, they didn't fuck me on.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Then okay, fine, you want to do what you want
to do with And I haven't explained to the audience
this is why I'm still playing it.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
And I went to the whole spiel that I've gone
through in Milwaukee from your year after year after year
after year. But now I'm doing a podcast and I
think can't play I can't play squat whenever, so I
can't do it. But I had this idea that I
thought was brilliant, and rather than just not being able
to do it, instead, I'm just gonna tell you that
I had this idea even though I can't do anything
about it, maybe somebody will steal it. Is O'donnald paying attention? Yeah,
(43:17):
I know he's not gonna steal my ideas. He's trying
to carve off an identity unto himself, which of course
you should. Jeff Wagner was still around, he might steal
the This is the Mark Belling podcast. This is the
Mark Belling Podcast. When it comes to shipping packaging, industrial
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(43:41):
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Experience that you line different today. Visit you line dot com. Obviously,
(44:14):
the whole question of the difficulties we have had with
Somali immigrants to the United States has gotten attention because
of the scandal in Minnesota. Why Minnesota?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Will you know?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
When ethnic groups resettle in the United States, often many
of them will be in the same area as they
can have a community, And a huge percentage of the
Somalis that have moved to the United States.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Are in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
But I think there's a larger backdrop to this story,
and that's what I want to spend the segment on.
When you have a I understand, I'm generalizing, and when
you generalize, you can get involved in prejudice by your
implying that everybody thinks the same way. The left is
guilty of this, and the right when they suggest, for example,
(45:11):
all African Americans have to be liberal and so on.
So this is I grant you a generalization. There are
probably some Somali immigrants to the United States that love
being here and think the United States is the greatest
place in the world and that they are happy to
be Americans. But the reality is from the rhetoric of
(45:35):
so many of them, I mean virtually every Somali that's
gotten to Minnesota and become a prominent person is radical.
This is a different type of immigration than what created
our country. Now let's go back to the mass migration
to the United States from Mexico, and many of the
(45:58):
people who were defending and are saying, this is the
country of immigrants, it's the country of emigrants, it's the
country of immigrants. The difference was when you had so
many Mexican immigrants coming in illegally a it was the
illegal The overwhelming majority of immigrants who came to the
United States before this legally came in through the front door.
(46:18):
They get the green card or they maybe they had
a temporary visa in the days prior to that. They
were processed at Ellis Island. They were legal, they were documented,
They went through a period of naturalization. If they wanted
to be a citizen, it would take I thought a
minimum of seven years.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
When you had illegal immigration coming in, there wasn't any
control over it. But secondly, when we had this mass
migration that came in from Mexico, it didn't appear as
though you had huge percentages of people.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Who came in because they loved.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
What America stood for the migrants from Europe and from
other nations looked at the United States from Afar and said,
I want to be part of this. They have it
better than we have it. They have religious freedom, they
have economic opportunity, they have capitalism, they have a melting
(47:09):
pot in which everybody's going to work together. You had
immigrants come to the United States and the happiest moment
of their life is when the boat landed here. You
don't get the impression that many of the Somali refugees
love America and love being part of a Judaeo Christian nation.
(47:37):
John Cass, who used to be with the Chicago Tribune.
He now has a blog posted the following Little Mogadishu
the Chicago Way. I'll quote the massive one billion dollar
and growing Minnesota welfare fraud by Somali refugees and the
accompany tired accusations of racism used to silence whistleblowers led
(47:58):
me to think, of my Greek immigrants in Chicago. We're
not welfare cheaters hiding behind accusations of racism. Family ties
were critically important and our clans, but not at the
expense of the love we bore America. Our parents kissed
the ground of America and saw no shame in loving
(48:21):
the country that saved the world and saved us. But
I never hear wonder or gratitude from the lips of
ilan Omar, a Somali refugee who was given everything from America.
I watch her seething and hating America, always demanding, sneering
(48:44):
at the discovery of billion dollar fraud, and I can
envision her someday ordering the our executions. According to Somaliland Chronicle,
and by the way, Somaliland is the neighbor of Somalia.
According to Somaliland Chronicle, her father was of the brutal
Somali regime that led to the brutal Isaac genocide. And
(49:07):
when the bloodthirsty regime fell, her family fled as refugees
from the others they had ruined. By the way, I'll
get to a Daily Mail report on that in a moment.
Back to cass Why do American taxpayers keep giving the
Somali people billions of dollars because we've been manipulated by
the global left to hand ourselves to hate ourselves because
(49:30):
we're suicidal. So how is the little Mogadishu way like
the Chicago Way. Both are Democrat towns, and both have
corrupted the people. They play race to bludgeon white liberals
into coughing up the cash, and the local news media,
dominated by the left allows it. The uncomfortable truth for
(49:53):
American liberals is that all cultures are not equal. The
Democrat ship them in by the tens of millions. Biden
called them to storm the border, and the other Democrats
and legacy corporate media wanted the migrant poor to become
their dependence, requiring federal aid. The Democrats upheave our society
(50:19):
to get votes. They do not demand assimilation as all
political parties demanded. When my family came to America, Well
that's John Cass. He posted that on x He also
has a website, Johncass dot com. He's referencing so many
of the Somali so called refugees who came to America
(50:43):
and seemed to despise America. And again, it's possible that
we're overreacting to the most famous Somali of all, Ilan Omhar.
Now a piggyback to that story, he referenced the Somaliland chronicle.
Somaliland is separate from Somalia, Separate countries, they have generally
been at odds. There's been reporting in Somaliland about what
(51:09):
happened in Somalia. Somalia has had kind of an internal
civil war forever. The Daily Mail, which is a major
website based in London but does some of the best
journalism in the United States, this week, did a long piece.
You can find it on their website. It's really really long.
(51:29):
That was an in depth investigation of ilan Omar and
her family, and some of it was based on the
reporting of the Somaliland Chronicle. Aside from the widespread speculation
that ilan Omar's second husband was in fact her brother
and that she used that relationship to be able to
get permanent status in the United States, the story didn't
(51:51):
go into that. It went on to instead the rest
of her family and their relationship, and they found that
the Omar family was part of the ruling class of
Somalia and was very very tight with the long term
time dictator of Somalia, the Butcher. The story goes on
at some length, and I'm not going to get into
all of it here, but the point of the piece
(52:13):
was is that the Omar family was in Somalia. Essentially
what the people that were tight with Hitler were in Germany.
They were the oppressors. They were the people who savage,
They were the people who killed, they were the people
who tortured.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
In fairness. Much of this happened before ilan Omar was
born or when she was a young child.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
However, later on in adult life she has seen in
multiple photographs posing with the leaders of that regime. So
why did she come to the United States if she
was part of the ruling tyrants of Somalia those tyrants
were overthrown. You know, we see this throughout some countries
in Africa, this constant upheaval of people on the ones
(52:56):
hand throwing the other faction out, and often there are
no good guys, and the other people come in they
become just as barbaric as those that they replace. But
when the butchers of Somalia were overthrown, many of the
people that were supportive of that government ran because they
knew they'd be killed. And the implication of the Daily
Mail story is that's how ilan omer got to the
(53:17):
United States. In other words, she didn't come here because
she was one of these wide eyed people from overseas
looking to the great dream of the United States. She
came here to hide out because she feared that what
she and her supporters had done in Somalia would then
be done to them. So we were just as safe haven.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
We're just a hideout.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
There's been no desire on the part of so many
of these people to be American or be Westernized. And
you see this with the term refugee is applied many
people who have left Northern Africa, the Middle East and
gone into Europe. They don't want to be French. They
want France to be an outpost of the place that.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
They came from.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
They don't want to assimilate and shit the values of
the places that they went to.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
They hate those values.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
The Mexican experience here in the United States has been
more mixed. I believe that many Mexican Americans are very
very patriotic, and we know that a growing number of them,
for example, have become conservative Republicans.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
I think the greatest.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Thing that determines where you come down, and this is
whether or not they legally came to the United States
or not. Logically speaking, if you legally come here, whether
it be from wherever, Mexico or wherever, it's.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Because you want to be there.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If you come in the door illegally and you're not
part of anything, you may have disrespect for where it
is that you go to. The reason, though, that immigration
is what's created the United States is that until recently,
the people who migrated here were people who wanted to
be American and wanted American values. We can't presume that
(54:56):
everyone who is coming now. Once said it is not
bigotry to draw attention to the rampant crime that occurred
from some of the illegal immigrants who come across the
southern border and issue that Trump has pointed out, or
the over corruption that has occurred in Minnesota with the
(55:20):
full knowledge of the white leaders of that state who
were willing to tolerate mass Somalian corruption in exchange for
mass Somali votes. Tim Walls and the Minnesotans, I'm going
(55:42):
to change the subject. Josh Shaulman, one of the two
Republicans running for governor. Major Republicans running for governor. Tom
Tiffany is the other. I will give him this. He's
trying to campaign on the basis of good conservative ideas
in an attempt at an attempt to get attention to
on to his candidacy. He is in his latest release
(56:03):
calling for a decentralization of state government. The reason I'm
bringing this up is I've argued for it forever. There's
no particular reason why every agency of state government has
to be in Madison. Madison's a state capital, that's true,
but it doesn't mean that every single agency that we
run has to be in Madison. There's no reason, for example,
(56:28):
that the DNR can't be in Wsaw. You could argue
it would make more sense for the DNA to be
in Wasaw. The DNR is this agency that has so
many They deal with pollution, deal with hunting and fishing,
they got they deal with permitting. But there's no reason
why the DNR couldn't be in Wassaw. There's no reason
that the Department of Transportation couldn't be in Waukeshaw, and
you go through the list. One of the consequences of
(56:52):
state government being centralized in Madison and Madison being a
city were just about everybody who lives there as liberal
is that the government itself has become overtly liberal. Now,
it may well be that if we decentralize state government
and located some of these offices elsewhere, it would just
mean that liberals would move to those cities and wreck
(57:12):
them and turn them into the same kinds of hell
holes that Madison is, but they wouldn't be as concentrated.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
Now. There certainly would be a cost.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
In doing this, but it's less than people think, because
a lot of these office buildings that are used by
state government in Madison are not owned by the state
there least, it's like the Feds here in Milwaukee. They
own a few of these buildings, with a vast majority
of them they're renting from somebody else. And you could
shut those buildings down and move them to another city
and spread the wealth. And also the economic development that
(57:43):
occurs by putting a state agency in a community wouldn't
all be concentrated in Madison. The one type of job
that is recession proof is government, because government almost never lays.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Anyone off in any event.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
At least, Showman is raising the idea. I did a
segment on the show a few weeks ago about Jordan Stohlts.
He's like the greatest American athlete that nobody knows anything about.
He's from keyw Oscom. Jordan Stoltz is about to go
(58:15):
to Milan for the Olympics. He has the potential and
again we say the potential because you still have to
do it. And a whole lot of people that had
great potential had a hard time winning goal that took.
Dan Jansen was at his third Olympics at a very
very difficult time. Simone Biles had a great Olympics, then
she had a train wreck before coming back in the
(58:36):
third Olympics and having another great one. The fact that
you are highly thought of and maybe dominant in the
world doesn't mean you'll do well at the Olympics. The
Olympics is just one event. Most of them are concentrated
over a week. You know, sports teams go into slumps,
athletes go into slump's. But there are certainly reasons to
believe that Jordan Stohlts may go to the Olympics and
(58:56):
be the greatest American speed skater since Eric Hayden. There
is a piece on JS online about his weekend. And
we're at the point. Because the Olympics occur early in
the following year, you have two things go on. You'll
have the American Championships, the World Championships, and then also
the American Trials. They all generally go on before the
(59:17):
Olympics and Jordan Stults won everything. We had the World
Cup and again the World Clup gets overshadowed in an
Olympic year because the Olympics are bigger. But it's the
same people. He won virtually every World Cup event there was.
He won the sprint events, and he won the marathon events,
which is very rare.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
He's from Kiwa, Waskam.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Speed skating is talk about every now and then, some
of these sports that are big only in the Olympics.
People don't pay much attention to figure skating other than
an Olympic year.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Few people do.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
But I suspect that only people really into the sport
know who won the freestyle World Championship in figure skating
last year. But people will remember forever and we turn
into international superstars, those who win the gold medal every
four years. Gymnastics is another. There are other fringe sports.
I don't think anybody pays any attention. People don't pay
(01:00:13):
much attention to Bob's ledding unless the Olympics are going on, but.
Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Speed skating is at the top of that list. I
mean there are people who.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Became huge stars and house Bonny Blair, for example. I
mean that name, especially here in southeastern Wisconsin because she's
from here. Dan Jansen, go back to Eric Heyden and
some of the others. They are huge names. That it
is primarily because of the fact that they were in
the Olympics. We have the potential for Jordan Stohltz to join.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
That group.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
He is skating at the highest level right now that
that sport has ever seen. And since I'm on the
subject of the Winter Olympics, which are held in Milan
and the region. In fact they're using two cities, Milan
and Cortina because it's spread out over northern Italy for
the Swiss Alps, A and so on. Two other stories
(01:01:04):
that I see coming from the Olympics both deal with skiing.
We all remember how Simone Biles crashed and burned at
the twenty twenty Olympics. She had a great breakthrough as
the young teenager in twenty sixteen, and then in twenty
twenty it was the COVID year. In fact, I actually
think the Olympics are in twenty twenty one. She fell
apart emotionally and she botched her first routine and then
(01:01:27):
essentially quit and she said she had mental health pressures
and walked away from her team, very very controversial, and
she achieved redemption. She came back in twenty twenty four
and one damn near everything, and what happened to twenty
twenty will be a footno for her career. I think
we have the potential for the same thing happening this
(01:01:49):
time four years ago actually three twenty twenty two Olympics.
Mikayla Schiffrin, the American superstar, was at the downhill of
the slalom. What ever her first event was, I mean
she was what fifty yards out of the gate, flat
at her face, flat right in her face. I think
(01:02:10):
it was. I think she was in the slalom, and
he was a giant solemn. She did first, and then
she had an opportunity for redemption later in the week
in the slalom, and what happened down right there again,
it was just a disaster.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
She was so.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Dominant and she couldn't help it fall down, and she
had a night marriish Olympics. And I think just what
happened after she felt the first time it was in
her head, and anybody who's done anything, when what's in
your head is failure, you're going to fail. You still golf.
You're standing over a five foot putting you think you're
(01:02:43):
going to miss it. What happens you're gonna miss it
is probably you are going to miss it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Guy who's not any good.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
At free throws, he's in a precious situation and he
lacks confidence. He's going to miss the free throw if
and I just think that that's what happened to Mikayla Schiffrin.
Kayla Schiffern had a monster weekend at the Skiing World Cup.
I think it's possible that she's gonna go to the
Olympics in twenty twenty six and have a redemption and
(01:03:11):
maybe win multiple golds in the same way that Simone
Biles did in gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
And one other Do you know who's back? Lindsay van
Is back.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
She was off for eight years, and Lindsay vot is
in her forties. This is what this reminds me of.
George Foreman was a heavyweight champion of the world in
the nineteen seventies and then Muhammad Ali beat him, and
then he dubbed around a little bit and he just
walked away from the sport for like fifteen or eighteen years.
And George Foreman came back in his late thirties and
he was a big, fat guy. He had done these
(01:03:42):
stupid TV commercials that he decided that he was gonna
get a boxing and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Everybody thought that it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
At his first ten to fifteen fights, he was fighting
against nobody, so so who cares that he's that he
was knocking them out. George Foreman regained the heavyweight championship
of the world, and I think at the time he woned,
he was the oldest person win. Now we have like
nineteen different titles right now, but the linear title in
which you traced from this guy beat this guy to
this guy beat that guy. He beat Michael Moore and
(01:04:10):
knocked him out flat on his ground. He's forty six
years old, and I don't think anybody thought that he
was going to make it all the way back and
get back to the top.
Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Lindsay Van did.
Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Get a couple of first places over the last couple
of weeks. She's in the downhill. If she could win,
I would say just meddling. They still call that hit
the podium. She could hit the podium after having retired
for eight years and be in her forties. She would
cement her legacy as being one of.
Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
The greatest skiers of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Say my Olympics coverage, I try to keep people ahead
of the curve of this. And the reason all of
this stuff is happening is the Trials are coming up
and the World Championships and these sports are being held now,
and they have to hold them before the Olympics. And
they do hold the World Championships even an Olympic year,
even though obviously the Olympics of her shadow in sports
(01:04:59):
like this, all of the World Championships Football preview next.
This is the Mark Belling Podcast. This is the Mark
Belling Podcast, and it's time for our weekly weekend football
preview and some points thread picks. I'm joined by Mike
Murlette of American Sports Analysts in Madison. Big weekend in
college football as the playoffs finally begin after an entire
(01:05:23):
year of people wonder who's going to be in who's
going to be out there actually going to start playing games.
Let's talk to Mike for just a second here. Anything
special that's going to be going on this weekend. I
know it's a little bit early to kneel everything down
at ASA that you'd like to share with the audience.
Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
Sure, they can go to our website ASA wins dot com.
We've got a bowlpackage up for one nine. That's all
of our bowlpicks for the season. You probably ten to
fifteen bullpicks in that range, and if they sign up
before this weekend, we'll throw in the NFL free for
this weekend. And we're on a nice run. We've won
five straight college games. We won our first bowl game
(01:05:57):
last night with Jacksonville State. We went five and on
the l last weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
So wow.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
And that Jacksonville State pick was the pick that you
used in our segment on the radio, rather on the
I'm not on the radio anymore, the segment on the
podcast last week. Let's talk first of all about college football.
As I mentioned, in addition to the lesser bull games,
there are four college football playoff games. Four teams have buys,
so the other eight played this weekend, and we don't
(01:06:24):
have time to talk about all four of them. So
I pulled out the two games that I thought were
the most interesting, and the first oneing is the one,
and I think it's interesting because it's got a huge
point spread on it and its face features a very
intriguing team. James Madison. James Madison comes from the group
of five, the so called lesser conferences, and had a
(01:06:47):
spectacular season, but a lot of people question whether or
not they're one of the twelve best teams in college football.
They're in because the rule state that five conference champions
have to be to be in, and some of the
conference champions in larger conference just didn't deserve to be in,
so James Madison got plucked in out of the Sun Belt.
They play Oregon from the Big Ten. Oregon is a
(01:07:12):
big favorite. People perceive that Oregon's a lot better team.
It's really hard to tell how good James Madison is though,
because they haven't played a really strong team all year.
What do you make of this game? I think it's
I think it's either going to be an indictment of
allowing you know, Conference USA, Sunbelt American Association in the
(01:07:35):
postseason at all, or it's going to vindicate those teams
being in. Given what happens with James Madison and the
team that they draw, Oregon, it's not there not the
best team in college football.
Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
But they're very good.
Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent with you, Mark, at
these these games are really hard to handicap. You talked
about the strength of schedule. Oregon strengths of schedule is
seventeenth in the country. Madison is one hundred and fifths.
So it's hard to look at the stats that we
like to look at and make a comparison on how
good or how bad a team is because of the
(01:08:11):
strength of schedule. For example, James Madison's defense is fantastic.
Their rush defense is number three in the country and
yards per carrying number two in overall rush yards, but
the average rush offense they faced is fifty fourth. This year,
James Madison offense averages thirty six points per game, but
(01:08:32):
the average defense they faced is eighty third and they
played five defenses ranked outside the top one hundred in
total defense.
Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Yeah, they're twelve, they're twelve and one. But even in
their non conference schedule, they played Cupcakes, they played Weaver Say,
which is an FCS team. They played Liberty. I think
Liberty is in USA, They're not in their league. Yeah,
that's a weak team. The one team that they played
of NODE was Louisville, which was pretty good at the time,
but Louisville's only in the ACC. They didn't win it,
(01:09:02):
and they lost to them twenty eight to fourteen. So
I don't think James Madison should be in. But I
understand that they created these rules that state that you've
got to put five conference champions in and they didn't
want to put in the champion from the ACC because
they had a zillion losses.
Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
That was Duke, and you end up with this team
in there. In defense though.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Of James Madison, you only can beat the teams that
you play, and this is what their schedule is. And
also it's pretty extraordinary that this is the second year
that their coach, Kurt Signetti has been going off to Indiana,
and if anything, they're better without him than they were
before you got there. So they deserve a fair amount
of credit. But there is this big, fat point spread
(01:09:42):
that's out there, and you know, I think some people
will clearly bet on the game. I would think it's,
as you said, one of the toughest ones. I mean,
if if James Madison lost by thirty five points, no
one would be surprised. It's possible, however, that they could
play him tough and keep it into single digits. Just
really don't know, do you have a lean on the
game at all or just because of all these variables.
Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
Is it one that you don't want to make it?
Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
I don't. I don't think we're going to use the game.
And I think it's too hard to handicap this game.
I think you hit it on the head again. They
could lose by thirty five, they could lose by ten.
Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
These are hard teams to pair up and look and
figure out where each stands. So I think it's a
game we'll stay away from.
Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Ye Usually when a team like James Madison beats a
top team, it's early in the season where the team
from the more prestigious league gets caught flat footed.
Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
And so on.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Oregon's not going to be flat footed. They have a
chance to advance and the college football playoffs, They're going
to be ready for the game. The other game that
I want to talk about is just the opposite. Two
extremely high profile teams, interestingly from the same conference, and
two teams that I think had very similar seasons, both
very good, a cut below however, being the best team
(01:10:54):
in their league. And that's Oklahoma playing Alabama, two of
the biggest name programs. They're seeded kind of in the
middle of the playoffs. They both had very very good seasons.
The SEC has a zillion teams. Alabama lost the title game,
but they may have been the second best team in
the league. Oklahoma had a very very good season. They
(01:11:15):
had an excellent defense. Size up Oklahoma and Alabama.
Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
Yeah, we have We have a point of reference here
because these two teams played this year and not that
long ago. November November fifteenth, Alabama hosted Oklahoma. Alabama was
a six and a half point home favorite and lost
twenty three to twenty one. But if you dig a
little deeper, Oklahoma or Alabama outgained Oklahoma four h six
(01:11:41):
to two twelve.
Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
In that game.
Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Wow, so they must. They had turnovers three.
Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
Turnovers to zero. And if you look at the two
touchdowns in the game that Oklahoma had, one came on
an eighty seven yard interception return and one came on
a thirty yard drive after Alabama fumbled the punt. So
Alabama play better in that game. Neither team could run
the ball both. I think one had eighty yards and
one had seventy five yeards rushing. So this might come
(01:12:07):
down to a quarterback situation. Who can move the ball
better that way? And I think Alabama has the edge here.
I mean, they've got Simpson, He's a first round NFL
draft pick. They had better numbers across the board passing
and in that first game since then through for three
hundred and twenty eight yards and Oklahoma's Ma Tier through
for one hundred and thirty eight yards. I think there's
a reason Bama's favored here. It's the first time a
(01:12:29):
college football playoffs started the last year, first time we
get a home underdog.
Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
The games are not.
Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Bowl games later on they are, but these are games
played on a team's home field. This game is at Alabama.
They're in their home stadium, with Oklahoma being no. I like,
take that back, I've got that home game is at Oklahoma.
They had the better seed here, so it's a home
game for Oklahoma with Alabama on the road. So you're right,
Alabama's favored despite the fact that they're on the road.
Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
Yeah. And I think i'd lean in Alabama in this game.
I think they're the better team. They all played him
the first game at home and loss. Another thing about
Alabama here, they've been hearing for two weeks how they
shouldn't even be here because they have three losses. That's
a motivating factor. I think Alabama probably wins this.
Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
Game, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Turning our attention to the NFL, I want to spend
all of our time discussing the Packers' overall situation and
the game against the Bears. Right now, Green Bay is
favored by one or one and a half points in
the Saturday night game against Chicago, which just strikes me
as odd. When the Packers and the Bears played in
(01:13:37):
Green Bay, I believe the Packers are about a six
and a half point favorite. So if you say home
field is worth two and a half points, that would
be two and a half plus two and a half
because the games in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
That would explain where we are.
Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
But that means the point spread is completely discouting the
absence of Micah Parsons and the potential absence of Christian Watson.
Zach Toms listed as questionable for the game. Packers have
several guys that are questionable in addition to the fact
that their bench defensive player is out of the game.
I'm surprised the Bears aren't favored given the fact that
(01:14:11):
Green Bay just in a short period of time got
decimated by injuries. Now it's not the quarterback and maybe
the lines just don't move if it's not the quarterback.
But do you think that this line is reflecting at
all the absence of Parsons and maybe several other key players.
Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
Yeah, I do think it is, and I'll give you
a reason. Last week. They have a look ahead lines
on these games. So last week Green Bay was faired
by three in this game, you could have wagered on
Green Bear Chicago at three. Last week. Now it's down
to one. So it's moved two points. And I think
the reason it didn't move from the first game as
(01:14:47):
much as it should have based on the look ahead
line is green Bay won that game by seven, but
they dominated that game. They all gained the Bears by
two yards per play and really dominated that game. So
I think that's probably why the look ahead line was three.
But it's moved two points just based on the injuries.
It's not a great spot for green Bay. I'll be honest.
(01:15:07):
Back to back road games, and if you look at
teams coming off of playing in Denver don't do well.
I mean the last three seasons, those teams are six
and seventeen against the spread. This year, teams that play
at Denver the next week are zero and six against
the spread. I think it's a tough spot for them,
all right, man, I think this game is really hard, Mark,
(01:15:27):
I think it's really hard. Packers got a lot of injuries.
Bears got some wide receiver injury issues here. And we've
talked about this all season. If the Bears win the
turnover battle, they're gonna win. If they don't, they're not.
They have one win this year out of ten where
they had an even or negative turnover margin, and it's
gonna come down to that. In the first game it
(01:15:48):
was one turnover a piece. Green Bay dominated the stats
and won the game. I think it's gonna come down
to that again. Green Bay is hoping to get some
guys back. Obviously Parsons is out. They hope to get
Watson back. They got some offensive linemen and dB banged up.
Not sure if those guys are coming back or not.
And if they don't, Green Bay is probably going to
be in trouble in this game.
Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
The chances of the Packers going on and being a
Super Bowl contender, how big of a hit did they take?
I look at the now, every team in the NFL
has injuries, and as the season goes on, I'll get worse.
Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
The season is too long. It's the same thing as
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Where guys are going down with acls right and left
in the playoffs and so on. But if you take
a look at the overall picture for Green Bay, they
had this year two players they probably were first team
All Pro the tight end and Micah Parsons. Craft the
tight end was on his way I think probably to
(01:16:43):
being first or second team All Pro, and Parsons is
clearly first team All Pro. How do you lose two
of your best three players? Jordan loved being the third
most third best player, but he's not the best quarterback
in the NFL. How do you lose those two teams
without it have a devastating.
Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Impact on you.
Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Imagine if you argue that having those players are a value,
not having them has to be a significant negative.
Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
How much will.
Speaker 4 (01:17:12):
Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
How much do they miss Parsons and then cumulatively having
lost Craft earlier in the season.
Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Yeah, I think green Bay we tracked this. I think
Green Bay has the worst injury luck this season of
all the NFL teams. You could argue Watson as their
third most important offensive player, second most offensive player and
he's been hurt.
Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
No, he's hurt again, but that's the norm. He's always hurt.
Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
He is. But when he came back, he made a
big different. They're a different offense with him in there.
They just are. They look much better they average, they
look better in the passing game. They're a better team
with him in there. I think it's I think Parsons,
you know, for defensive players. You talked about it earlier.
Quarterbacks move the spread if they go out, defensive players
usually don't look like Parsons might be worth a point.
(01:18:01):
I'd argue he's probably worth more than that. Third in
the NFL and pressures this year at seventy nine. Here's
a good stat for He had seventy nine quarterback pressures
this year, third in the NFL. The next best on
Green Bay is Rashaan Gary with twenty eight. That's fifty
one fewer pressures on the quarterback.
Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
And Parsons is being double team than Gary wasn't. Let's
add all of that in. I just think that these
losses are more compelling than people think, and I think
most Packer fans agree with me. I think most Packer
fans think the team's chances of winning a championship which
looked really bright two weeks ago, our dog one near shot.
I mean, am I being too negative? No?
Speaker 4 (01:18:43):
I think it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough now.
The loss of Parsons is huge, And you mentioned Kraft.
You know, teams don't have to game plan for Parsons now,
they don't have to double team. That's a huge, huge,
huge loss. I think their chances have dwindled drastically since
the injuries last week.
Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Well, and let's also mention that they lost Devonte Wyatt,
so the Packers are now without their best run stopper
and probably the first or second best pass rusher. I
don't know that anybody's better than Miles Garrett of Cleveland,
but Parsons is a unique and extraordinary player who's affected things.
The other thing, of course, is there's still multiple weeks
left in the regular season, and there's lots of injuries
(01:19:19):
to come, not only for Green Bay but for everybody else.
And you know, at the end of the season, the
team that wins the Super Bowl is off and the
team that was less impacted by injuries. All right, that's
our preview. It's time to get some point spread picks.
I do want to mention our schedule here. Our next
football segment will be We've got a unique schedule next week,
Christmas Week. Because of Christmas, we're not going to be
(01:19:41):
releasing the podcast on Thursday, which is Christmas Day.
Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Instead, the final podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Of the week is going to be released on Friday,
So when you're looking for the football segment next week,
that podcast is going to come out on Friday. So
for the purposes of our picks here, any game between
Thursday night of this week, and I don't think there
are any games on Christmas. Maybe the NFL is a
Christmas Day game, but we don't have a line on
that anyway. But for the next week, those are the
(01:20:08):
games that are available for us. Paul, you get by
the way, we should recap how everybody did last week, Yeah,
Paul said.
Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Please do. I lost.
Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I thought that Dallas would beat the Vikings by six,
or Dallas is favorite again this week. I'm done with Dallas.
Dallas is just like Kansas City. Kansas City was favorite
all the time and they just never won. Dallas couldn't
beat the Vikings. They lost their game. Paul took the
Steelers to beat the Dolphins, by more than three. It
(01:20:37):
was a thirteen point game, but it was really a wipeout.
Miami quit in fact, breaking news today to at taga
Oola's time, and Miami's probably done. They benched him and
I don't think he's going to come back for the
regular season. And Mike took a game that was played
this week. Jacksonville State was a three point underdog against
Troy and they beat them seventeen to thirteen.
Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
So we're all underwater.
Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
But Mike's making a late season run and I'm still
floundering and Paul and I are.
Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Duking it out for we actually duke get it out
for the lead.
Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
But see what happens, all right, Paul, we get to
get a pick from you.
Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
He wants to know the over under in the rams
Seahawks game. All right.
Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
If we talked about a second game this weekend, I
didn't want to because I wanted to spend so much
time on the Packers. That would have been clearly the game.
It's probably the marquee game of the week. Let's find
it here. Oh that's right, it's the Thursday night game.
It's the Thursday night game. Than today, we're releasing the
podcast on Thursday. So what's tonight. The over under in
that game is forty three and a half. Eagles and
(01:21:45):
the Commanders. Oh that's a Saturday. You're right, these games
are all early. There's two Saturday games this week in
addition to the Thursday game, the Eagles and the Commanders.
They play actually Saturday afternoon. The Eagles are favored on
(01:22:05):
the road by six and a half. You're going to
take the Eagles. Boy, Washington just looks toast, don't they.
They have nothing to play for, Paul says, and the
Eagles do. They are a better team, As I said,
I think I said it last week. I don't recall
(01:22:26):
a team ever dropping off more from one season to
the next than Washington. And a lot of people thought
that this was the year. You know, Washington went to
the NFC Championship Game last year, and a lot of
people thought this was the year that they were going
to go to.
Speaker 3 (01:22:36):
The Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
And instead they have one of the worst records in
the entire NFL.
Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
The Eagles are weird.
Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
I mean, they have just dominant some weeks and not
very good others. But Washington just seems right now to
be consistently terrible. The quarterbacks always banged up, and the
coach seems to have lost control of the operation. I
don't disagree with Paul. What do you think, Mike?
Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Yeah, no, I wouldn't take Philly neck. Ye, I don't.
I don't like Philly Philly. You gotta remember I had
lost three straight games going into last week and they
beat the Raiders. Raiders have quit. Raiders had seventy five
totally yards in the game last week. They're done for
the season. I'm not sold on Philly. Washington's still playing hard.
They beat the Giants last week on the road as
an underdog, and the Giants were coming off by week.
(01:23:22):
Their last home game they lost to Denver by one point.
I would not lay close to a touchdown of Philadelphia
in this game. I just don't trust Philadelphia at all.
Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Yeah, I don't either. But I think that Washington is
just fading away and banged up. But the quarterback is
still is still playing. Daniels is still there and so on. Okay,
time to get a pick from Mike. Where are we going?
Let's go?
Speaker 4 (01:23:46):
Well, I had a Tuesday game in the Bulls. I
don't want to look that far ahead this weegaon. I'm
gonna I'm gonna look at the NFL.
Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
How about the.
Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
Let's look at Pittsburgh Detroit on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
That's a good game, Aaron Rodgers playing the Lions.
Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
Let's see you here.
Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
That game is in Detroit. The Lions are favored by seven.
I got to admit, Pittsburgh has exceeded my expectations. They're
not really good, but they're better than I thought they
were going to be. And Rodgers is playing very very well.
And Detroit is what they are, not as good as
last year, but still very good. Not so much on defense,
but they still have an elite offense. Lions are favored
(01:24:23):
by seven at home.
Speaker 4 (01:24:27):
I'm gonna take Detroit in that game.
Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
You are okay? Tell us why?
Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Yeah? First of all, I liked that they're coming off
a loss last week at the Rams, which was expected.
Their Rams were almost a touchdown favorite in that game.
Detroit coming off a loss the last fifteen times they've
lost the game the next week fifteen in all straight out,
fourteen and one against the spread. That goes back to
back a couple of years. They're just really good off
(01:24:51):
a loss. You're getting Pittsburgh on short rest on Monday night.
They played Monday night in the last since the start
of last season. They're all four against the spread and
straight up on a short week, and they're on the road.
I like the fact that Detroit Detroit led by ten
last week at the Rams, who are arguably the best
team in the NFL, and they blew it. So the
(01:25:14):
last fourteen times under Dan Campbell where they blew a
seven point or more lead and lost, they're eleven to
three against the spread, so they bounce back well the
next week. Steelers have a negative yards per game, negative
yards per play differential. They've got some injuries. I'm guessing
what won't play again won't play this week. And I
like the fact Detroit has five home wins this year.
(01:25:35):
They've all been by seven or more, and they've been
by an average of eighteen points per game. I think
Detroit wins by at least ten in this game.
Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
Well, you persuaded me. I love the lesser balls.
Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
I just think there's always one or maybe two games
per year in which you can find a real opportunity,
and I've done really well over the last few years
on them. Two years ago, I really like South Florida
game they played. I think they play Syracuse and when
forty five to nothing, I'm pretty good at them. My
problem is the two that I found are both within
(01:26:08):
the next week on Christmas Eve. Let's see California place Hawaii,
and it's the ball game in Hawaii, and Hawaii's in it.
It's a home game for them. This is not the
pick that I'm going to use, but I really wrestled
with it. California fired their coach and the transfer portal
(01:26:28):
is going to be overwhelmed with cal players leaving as
a new regime comes into place over there. In the meantime,
Hawaii had its best season in a long long time,
and it's the first Bowl game in a number of years.
They're actually a dog. And I wish I could make
next week's pick be that Paul. Could I put in
two weeks and just a sign whatever I have in
(01:26:48):
the next week's thing. But I just fought through this
and there's just a game that I like a little
bit better.
Speaker 3 (01:26:53):
And that game is.
Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
On Thursday night tonight as we do the podcast. It's
a game, really obscure ballgame. Missouri State plays Arkansas State,
and I want to get the line that we have
on that right now. Should have had that ready since
I knew I was going to pick it. It's out
of sync in the rotation for some reason. I think
it's one. Yeah, Arkansas State is favored by one point
(01:27:21):
in the game, and I'm going to take Arkansas State.
Missouri State's coach quit. He got a job at Coastal Carolina,
which to show you where Missouri State lands in the
pecking go to have things. Coastal Carolina's apparently an upgrade,
and the Missouri State coach has left. They haven't even
named a replacement yet. It appears as though the coach
(01:27:42):
who left, Beard is going to take several of the
staffers at Missouri State with him, including the guy who's
the interim coach in tonight's game. It's Bobby Petrino's son,
Nick Petrino, is going to be the interim coach. So
Missouri State's kind of a mess. I suspect that anybody
on Missouri State's team that was pretty good is pondering
the transfer portal to move to a bigger program, and
(01:28:04):
the head coach who had been there was gone. In
the meantime, Arkansas State, obscure as the team is, actually
has stability.
Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
Their coach is a.
Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Big name coach who got canned in a couple of
jobs and he's been down there for several years. Butch Jones,
who you may remember from Tennessee, Cincinnati, and I think
Central Michigan. He's coached there and they've played very well
down the stretch. Now they're one of these teams that
when they win, it's always a close win, but they've
played rather gritty. This game is in Frisco, Texas. Probably
(01:28:36):
doesn't mean much for either team. There's probably going to
be almost nobody there the end of the season six
and six, but the quarterback is going to be playing.
I haven't read anything about players leaving for the transfer portal.
And in addition to that, Butch Jones's ball game record
over this multiple schools is very very good. So I'm
going to lay one point with Arkansas State because of
(01:28:59):
the stability and the program. I also think the two leagues,
the Sun Belt was the better of the two leagues.
Missouri State was in a Conference USA, and I think
that they played a better schedule, And I think that
there's the potential here for an Arkansas State team that
is a pretty good offense. Neither team is good defense
to just go over in steamroll Missouri State team, that's
(01:29:22):
all screwed up. You know, Missouri State had a better
season everybody expected, but now the coach quit, the players
are looking for the portal. Weirdly, Missouri State was not
going to be eligible for a ball because it's their
first year in full Division one FBS. But there were
so few teams that were ball eligible, and then teams
like Notre Dame that opted out. They created an exemption
(01:29:45):
so Missouri State can get in. They shouldn't be in here,
and I'm going to take Arkansas State.
Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
We know that Mike got to win last week with
Jacksonville State, so I know he looks at these lesser balls.
Do you have any Do you think I'm right about
this or would you be on the other team?
Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
Well, first off, my second pick, if I had to pick,
was going to be Hawaii for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Oh so.
Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
Hawaii. By the way, One other thing I should mention
on the Hawaii team. Way back in the day when
there were nowhere near as many cable channels and they
weren't as many games on TV. The Hawaii game was off,
which often would start at like eleven at night or midnight.
I would stay up and I'd watch that game. Their
quarterback was a guy named way back this June Jones,
the former NFL coach, was the coach, and Timmy Chang
(01:30:27):
was their quarterback and he just set all the passing records.
His backup was Nick Rolovich. Nick Rolovich is the interim
coach for California in this game, and Timmy Chang coaches Hawaii.
So there they come full circle, all this needless information,
So you would have steered me to Hawaii instead.
Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
But well, yeah, I mean because we used Missouri State,
we used opposite of what you just said.
Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
Oh you think I'm wrong about this, tell me why.
Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
We didn't use it as a big play, but we
used as small play. Tomorrow night, you had a lot
of good points about the coaching. That was our one
downside in this game. But all all these instance that
everyone stayed. I know they still have some distractions going on.
Everyone stayed, and from everything we've heard, they are absolutely
thrilled to be in this game. They've never been in
a bowl game, and I know they shouldn't be in
(01:31:12):
the bowl game because they had to make an exemption.
But they were seven and five. They weren't a bad team.
It's not like they were had a losing record and
didn't deserve to be in a bowl. They just couldn't
be in a bawl. They weren't supposed to be in it.
Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
I still have an image of earlier in this season.
I took USC against them, and USC scoring. I think
east them.
Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
Yeah, I know. Arkansas State I think is decent. They
had to win five of their last seven just to
get into a ball, and three of those five wins
were by one point. Like you said, they win, they
win games close.
Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
I just I like but they were pretty good teams
and the Sun Belt was was a stronger league than
normal this year.
Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
Yeah, I think Missouri State's the better team. We haven't
power rated better. I think if both teams play their game,
I think Missouri State wins. But the coaching stuff does
make well.
Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
Can I change I've picked out of Hawaii since Mike
agrees with me, I can tell you this, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Both of those are going to be losers. One of
them is going to win.
Speaker 2 (01:32:08):
I still Mike's nay saying me on Arkansas State, but
I'm going to I'm gonna stick with it. I think
that their quarterback is better Mike talks about the power
ratings being better. I think that the better team and
I just like to go against teams that have instability,
and you're right, all the assistants are there and players
are excited about playing the game and so on. I
think Arkansas State's a better team. Okay, recapping everybody's picks,
(01:32:32):
I take Arkansas State to beat Missouri State by two
or more. Paul says, take the Eagles to beat Washington
by seven or more, and Mike's taking the Lions to
beat the Steelers by more than seven points.
Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
And again.
Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
The football segment will be on a podcast that will
be released on Friday of next week. And my next
podcast overall will be Christmas Week next week and that'll
come out on Monday.
Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
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(01:33:24):
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Speaker 2 (00:29):
We're going to do another Lost Generation segment, except it's
not what you think. A couple of weeks ago on
this podcast, we did a lengthy segment walking through the
plight of Generation Z, the generation after the Millennials, the
(00:53):
generation that had its life interrupted and was so badly
affected by COVID, and we went through any of the
number of other issues that are confronting it. This isn't
that there's another piece that uses this term, but it's
talking about a different group of people. It's an essay
(01:13):
that has gotten a lot of buzz in the last
couple of days since it's been released. It's in an
online magazine, and magazine is just a term that they use.
It's an online website. It's like a magazine that it
runs lengthy essays. It's called compact. I have linked the
piece up on my website, Belling dot com. We only
(01:35):
use Belling dot com for things like this, so if
you go to Belling dot com you can read it.
It's a very lengthy piece, but brilliant. I'm not going
to read the whole thing on the program here. Jason
Bond is the writer. What he's doing is drawing attention
to how over the last fifteen years there has been
(01:59):
a shock almost wipeout of white people in many prominent
cultural institutions. First of all, the majority of people in
United States of America are white, So you would think
that other than specific fields or specific areas, the majority
(02:23):
of people would be white unless it's a specific you know,
sport or you know some I don't tech, or maybe
something in classical music where people of certain ethnicities are into.
If they're generally speaking general things, you would think that
the majority, the popular percentage of people that are involved
(02:43):
in that field would be out the same as the
overall demographic of the United States.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
But it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Furthermore, the percentage percentages that have dropped, according to his piece,
are staggering. It's not like one to two to three percent.
In other words, a slow blue. It implies essentially that
they weeded out most of the white people from these fields,
white men in general.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
But also white women.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
I'm going to quote a few paragraphs from his piece,
and again, since this thing landed, it's been talked about
on a couple of other podcasts that I follow, It's
been picked up on some of the conservative news aggregators
that I have, And again, there's just so many It's
like a podcast. There's somebody that are out there and
so many pieces. The people are right online. For something
(03:36):
to get hit this much attention, it's you know, somebody
posts it and somebody else reads it. It's just creating
a buzz. This buzz will never make its way to
the mainstream media. The issue will never be talked about.
I'm just going to quote a few paragraphs here so
I can then launch off and give my comments, he writes.
(03:57):
In twenty eleven, the year I moved to Los Angeles,
white men were forty eight percent of lower level TV writers.
What's a lower level TV writer? How would you interpret
that term? You couldn't get anything answered, Yes, and yesterday's podcast,
(04:19):
a lower level TV writer would be, you know, there's
just so many TV shows right now when you consider
streaming and everything else. A lower level TV writer would
be somebody that's you know, often say, on a show
like The Sopranos, they had writers and then they had
other writers, and the other writers would like maybe one
storyline or one set of dialogue and contributed and feed
(04:42):
it to the major writers. Or there may be a
show in which there's nine to ten writers assigned to
the show. A lower level writer might be somebody that
I say, Jimmy Fallony probably has ten writers, where I
don't know how many as Johnny Carson a rezillion. There
might be one or two. They write the occasional bit
and they're trying to get things in there. Anyway, this
is for a huge chunk of the entertainment industry. This
(05:04):
is a big there's lots of people that do this,
and it's not a glamour part of the industry, but
it's also not nonexistent. For instance, yeah, I'm Saturday in Life.
I'm sure they have the two or three or four
writers that led a lot of the six, and then
there's a zillion others that contribute or give an idea
or maybe one of their things he's used every three
or four weeks, or they'll add dialogue, or they're one
(05:25):
of the people that's around the table to kick in
ideas and so on. I watch all these podcasts about
the sopranos that David Chase would talk about. We had writers,
We had writers, and then we had story contributors and
so on. Anyway, white men were forty eight percent of
lower level TV writers. By twenty twenty four, they accounted
for just eleven point nine percent.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Think of that. I'll give you the dates again. Twenty eleven,
forty eight percent.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Just about half of the people that were lower level
TV writers are white. Twenty four it was twelve percent.
Word that other thirty eight percent. Go and how can
you have a country in which white people still what
I think the white population is in the sixties, sixty
five percent.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
How do you have on the eleven percent in this field,
which is again kind of a mass appeal thing.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
He goes on the Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
The Atlantic is a hoity twenty magazine, kind of aimed
at the left. It's like, not really a vanity fair,
which is kind of vanity fair. We'll have the celebrity pieces.
Atlantic tends to have more think piece kind of stuff
without being a scholarly journal. And again, for most of
these magazines, what they do know is mostly on the
website rather than an actual physical magazine. The Atlantic, the
(06:48):
Atlantic's editorial staff went from fifty three percent male and
eighty nine percent white in twenty thirteen to thirty six
percent male and sixty six percent white in twenty twenty four.
Again numbers, I'll break it up. White in twenty thirteen
eighty nine percent. Now it's sixty six percent just eleven
(07:09):
years later. That's a huge drop off of people whose
jobs were eliminated or whenever somebody left, you're simply not
going to hire a white person to fill that job.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
But how else can you take?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
You know, people work at a magazine like that, those are
lifeer jobs. Twenty thirty forty years. For the number to
shift that much in such a short period of time
means if you're a white person, they just weren't going
to hire you.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
And then male.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It was in twenty thirteen fifty three percent male. In
other words, what kind of what you'd expect. Fifty three
percent male, forty seven percent female. That was in thirteen.
It is now down to thirty six percent male. How
do you have that drastic of a change in ten years. Again,
it has to be that every time a guy quit,
it was the job was filled by a woman. He continues,
(07:52):
and it's the gist of his piece. He goes on
and on and on and points this out. What's been
happening to white people in many arts of jobs that
drive the American culture. White men fell from thirty nine
percent of tenured track positions in the humanities, all right.
What's tenure track when you are professor at a university.
(08:15):
It depends on the university, but it's usually several years
before you get tenure. Tenure means almost impossible to fire you.
You have to you have to commit a sex crime
or child porn or embezzle money, and maybe then they'll
fire you prior to getting tenured, though you can be
fired at will. It's like kind of like it's not
(08:35):
the same, but kind of like being a partner at
a law firm. The humanities, What are the humanities? The
humanities would be the social sciences, the arts, etc. In
other words, anything tech and math that's not the humanities.
But literature would be a literature course in art classould
be in the humanities, all right. In twenty fourteen at Harvard,
(09:00):
thirty nine percent of the tenured track positions were white men. Now, again,
that would not be a field in which you would
expect to have a majority being male. Who's going to
aspire to be a professor at you know, there's going
to be more females. It's just a statement of fact
that are going to want to be a professor in
some of these social sciences than male. So even in
(09:21):
twenty fourteen it was thirty nine percent white males, in
twenty twenty three it was eighteen percent. That's a drop
of more than half. Only eighteen percent of the people
on tenured track to be a professor at Harvard and
the Humanities is.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
A white male.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yet the number of white males in the overall population
is obviously higher than this. In retrospect, twenty fourteen was
the hinge, the year the DEI became institutionalized across American life,
And this is one of the places that he's going
with the piece DEI kicked in right around then. It
(10:07):
was something that was talked about and theorized and generally
thought to be quackery until it was adopted across the
board American school disticcs and so on by the left.
And it was always a well, it's just you know,
and the people would defend it, would say, you're trying
to say that black history should be expined. It was
always more than that. It was always get all the
(10:28):
jobs and get rid of the whities. This is what
toxic masculinity, toxic whiteness, the whites suppressor. All of this
stuff came in and he's pointing out that this was
the hinge here, that the numbers are rather normal in
terms of the respect of the population twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen.
(10:48):
But then DEI kicked in and across the board and
our institutions that kind of define the culture, defined learning,
defind media, define celebrities, Whites and in particular white males
have been expunged. Newsrooms in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Were center left places. Now I can relate to this.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I got involved to the news media in nineteen seventy nine,
college in the nineteen seventies, but in the news media
as long as I've almost been a human being. And
then I started doing a talk show and I commented
on media bias, and I would rip on the media
in the nineties and the early zeros for how lefty
they were.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Little did we know.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Remember when I would get on the journals, say in
the nineteen nineties, and get on their editor and get
on their editors over there. It was nothing like what
you have now. At least then they had the pretext
of claiming that they were being objective. Did be the
slants in all of this stuff. There's none of that anymore.
(11:49):
They don't even make an attempt their hell holes of radicalism.
Back to his peace, newsrooms were center left places in
two thousand and five. Now they're incredibly left places. I
imagine one reason newsrooms have gotten more explicitly lefty. Again,
this piece is thirty two pages. I'm just giving you
(12:11):
a few paragraphs and interjecting. So he's got a theory.
Now why does he? As I said, and I think
you can't argue this. Paul's been following this as long
as I have. In two thousand and five, the media
was lefty. It was twenty years ago, nothing like what
it is now. So he's now trying to get after
why have newsrooms in particular gotten so explicitly lefty.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
He's got a theory.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Is that you have white guys and white women adopting
a kind of protective coloration allyship mindset to get to
the door. And what does that mean. He's saying that
the whites that are in the media they have to
go along with THEI and anything that anyone of color
(12:57):
is saying or with some muzzlimus that they have to
go along with it or they're going to be expunged.
And we've seen, for example, it's someone at a major institution,
be at Harvard or whatever, lefty as the day is long,
if they object to any of this, they're gone. The
left has demanded total adherence to their agenda on everything.
(13:21):
In some cases they went after people that they couldn't
get rid of. Joe Rogan is an example. Joe Rogan
was a Lefty. Then he came out and broke ranks
on COVID and they attacked him viscerally, and that opened
up Rogan's mind. And I think right now Rogan is,
if anything, right of Cetter. But because Joe Rogan works
for himself, you can't make people not listen to his podcast.
(13:44):
They couldn't cancel him out. But imagine you're just some
grunt who's working in the newsroom at the Chicago Tribune.
You're just some white guy that's in there. You're gonna
keep your mouth shut and keep your head down because
you don't want to become the target. His theory here
he is that even the people that don't buy into
(14:05):
the radicalism in New Zooms or other places are going.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
To get along to go along or go along to
get along.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
People have always debated you go along to get along,
get along and go along. I've done a few segments
of this. I put it the answer is both. You
do have to go along to get along, and you
have to get along to go along. If you think
through with those, I can explain it. You have to
get along with the prevailing cultural trends and the place
that you're at, or you won't go along. And likewise,
(14:36):
you have to go along and agree with this in
order to get along.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
With these people, or they'll hate you.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Continuing for a decade, it kept going faster and faster
without any actual quotas to achieve. No he uses that word,
you would think that this is be quotas. And a
lot of people on my side think the DEI has
resulted in quotas. They don't aint quotas. Quota would imply
that some of the jobs going to go to people
of color, or some of the people of this or
(15:02):
people of that. It's been just we're not gonna take
you if your wife because if you're white, or evil,
if you're male, your toxic, et cetera. For a decade,
it kept going faster and faster without any actual quotas
to achieve, only the constant exhortation to do better. Oh
the phrase of the left, do better, do better. Why
(15:25):
this white guy said this, do better? When they've tried
to get rid of me here they like they would
tell I do better. You got this mark Bella, do better,
do better. The diversity complex began became self radicalizing. You
see where this is such a good piece but a
great term. The diversity complex became self radicalizing. So the
(15:50):
diversity didn't just change the skin color or ethnicity of
the people involved. It became a movement that radicalized unto
itself because inherent in all of this was not just
the skin color, but the way you thought and what
you believed in, and you had to agree with all
of it or you'd be the next victim that was
(16:11):
thrown out the door. I'll make the case that this
also excluded many African Americans and Latinos. They who are
conservative are hated even more than whites that are conservative.
The terms that have been applied to them back to
the piece a strange confluence of top down and bottom
(16:37):
up pressure, in other words, pressure from above the dee.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
I think this way.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I think that anybody who's been proud of any corporation
has had to go to the training sessions and so on, and.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Then bottom up the ratting out.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
This one said this, this one did this, popped out
and bottom up pressure then nix sons. No one ever
said what the right number of white men would be.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Again, that goes back to the quota.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They never said, well, okay, we should only have like
forty two percent of white men here.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Even though white men or whatever it is, they never
said that number.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
The reason they did is that they didn't want there
to be a bottom This is me, noing, not the writer.
No one ever said what the right number of white
men would be, but it was always fewer than you
currently Hadn't that what it is? Your DII in anywhere,
No matter how many fewer white men you had, it's
(17:38):
not low enough. Is the medium more trusted now than
a decade ago? These questions, of course answer themselves. Is
Hollywood making better films and television? Let me interject, I
watched or listen to them with five or six podcasts.
(18:00):
I never listened to other talk shows, but I'm still
learning the podcast stick and it becomes pretty good sources
to every now and then pull out a chunk of audio.
Megan Kelly was making this point about Rob Reiner as
they were discussing his death and so on. Rob Rider,
as you know, was just I died in the wool hardcore.
Couldn't keep his yap shut lefty. But maybe I had
(18:26):
so many movies that're famous. Maybe his most famous movie
was When Harry Met Sally. It was a long time ago.
I'd have nineties.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Do you think nineties?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
As far as I recall, there was nothing political in it,
do you I mean not even like a side every
now and now you're just but they'll make a side
comment saying that nothing to do with the story, just
to put in your lefty bona fides. Maybe there's like something,
but it was basically entertainment. Rob Rider didn't feel as
though his need what he made. He was trying to
make a hit that everybody on the planet would want
(18:59):
to go to without regarding now's the question, is Hollywood
making better films and television? Is academia more respected again?
His questions are answering themselves. Have these institutions become stronger
since they systematically excluded an entire cohort. That cohort, of course,
(19:20):
would be whites and white guys. Or did abandoning meritocracy
accelerate their decline? Again, what a great sentence, meritocracy the
notion that you advance on the basis of how good
you are, you're not very good. You get nowhere meritocracy.
(19:45):
I mean, look at the Ivy League universities. Remember when
the president of Harvard was called before Congress. I mean,
even if you're a lefty, but you're any good at testifying,
you managed to figure out a way to say that, no,
you can't advocate killing people because they're Jewish at Harvard.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
She couldn't even say that. She was so dumb that she.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Didn't even figure out her way to be able to
weasel word through it because she wasn't chosen on the
basis of meritocracy. It's a police chief, and I forget what.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
City it might have been.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
DC didn't know what the term chain of command means
might have been. The fire chief, whoever it was, was
promoted to the position, and they were in human resources
and made it to the level of chief wherever it was,
didn't know the term chain of command. That's what those
organizations are.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Chain of command.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You got a sergeant, you got a lieutenant, you got
a captain, you got an assistant chief, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Meritocracy was shot well, but you.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Have so many of this and so many of that
without regard well, maybe this person's better than that one
over there. But meritocracy, which has been when America's premised,
one America is set up, it doesn't always work. Idiots
have always been hired for certain jobs. By and large.
You know when we hire you as million years ago.
(21:01):
So imagine you butchered this show, you would have been
got right. Fortunately, I've not been confronted with having to
meet a quote or meet a number and so on.
There are some fields, most sports, in which they're clearly meritocracy.
You're a bad quarterback, you're gonna lose your starting job,
(21:22):
you'll be a bench player, and then ultimately you'll be
cut coach. The record is losing for a number of years,
you'll get rid of you. But in so much of
the rest of life. Look what coles they do itself.
They hired a CEO who look good on redsit. We
need to have a woman here and she came out
of a left wing company and let's starbucks.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Size you know, coals.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was years that the company was a train wreck
before they finally acted and got rid of her incompetent
ass here right, what's on the outside calling it every
step of the way. Getting back to that sentence, as
I say, we've pulled out here. A news aggregator is
helping me on this, but we pull out a number
of the key sentences from this piece. And again for
(22:08):
those of you coming in, I've linked it up on
Belling dot com. It comes from Compact magazine. The title
is the Lost Generation? Or did abandoning meritocracy accelerate their declient?
And then what do I say when my boys ask
about my old hopes and dreams? Man, you got a kid,
(22:30):
a boy as a kid told about the American dream.
You can do this, You can do that. Got a
white kid, Now, what do you tell them unless they're
going into certain fields? You got a white kid who
wants to be a professor, what do you tell them? Well,
(22:51):
you better think a certain way, and it wouldn't hurt
to define yourself as trans certainly hate Israel. You certainly
can't tell them that the American dream is open to them.
The people that are fine with they say, well, yeah,
but when white people ran everything, they oppressed and they
kept people, and they're denying that. But what's the wisdom
(23:17):
in lacking out white people from almost all major institutions
that determine the popular culture of popular thought. Let me
go through a list in which I think that this
problem has been most pernicious, and they're all the ones
that control communication and what we think. Teaching at the
public school level, teaching at the university level, the popular culture, movies, music, authors,
(23:44):
and writing the news media, journalism at all levels. This
is where all of our thought comes from. Now, one
of the things this is not in the writer's pace.
But one of the things that has happened is all
of those people that have been shutting out all of
those other areas have gravitated to and land in the
(24:05):
couple of places where they've not been knocked out. Maybe
if you're in the news business, you're gonn apply for
a job at Fox News, or you can go to
talk radio. Why was talk radio immune from all of
this because primarily, for most of its years, Talk radio.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Was on AM radio, and AM radio.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Was almost dead. It's still other than where there's a
talk station. It is dead. And the companies in his
destinatus we have, we're gonna go dead unless we put
on something that people want. And it became a place
where white people in particular might be able to still
be hired if they had talent, where their talent was
something that was essential to save something from actual death
(24:44):
or now podcasting. Podcasting threatens the stranglehold the left has
on the media because well, I'm someone who does work
for a company. I split my revenue with iHeart and
I still work for them. Most podcasts there's work for themselves.
They put their thing out there. If there's an audience,
they keep most of the money that they generate. The
(25:06):
more listeners they have, the more money they're going to generate.
And finding listeners is simply a matter of or viewers.
If it's a video podcast, making yourself attractive and people
go out and find it. In the case I use
the case for example of Rogan, because on most of
the rankings he's still number one. There's nobody to tell
(25:28):
Joe Rogan. He can't say this because Joe Rogan owns
his own company, and he's just on a bunch of platforms.
He has deals, preferential deals, I think with Spotify and YouTube.
I'm not even sure, just as I have a preferential
deal with iHeart.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
But we're all on all of them. You can get
them all anywhere.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
And you know there are people out there, for example,
Nick Fuentes, who many conservatives think is way over the
line himself. There's no way to shut him up. He's
out there and he has this thing, and if people
are interested in gravitating to it, they're going to do it.
But in all of these other fields in which there
(26:06):
is a gatekeeper at a restraint, whites have been screwed.
And now he's focusing here mostly on positions in the
culture and so on. But throughout business, the same thing's
been happening, just not to the same level. He asked
the question again, what do I say when my boys
ask me about.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
My hopes and dreams? What do I tell them when
they ask about theirs? Again?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
The last generation is the title of the piece. My
website is Belling dot com and we have that linked
up there for.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Those of you that would like to read it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I hit it at something in an earlier podcast, and
I'm not going to lay it out. One of the
things you produced my radio show for thirty five years
and my podcast for what year. Obviously there are things
that are better in the podcast world, right, zillions of them.
(27:07):
Is there one thing in which you think radio had
an advantage?
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I mean a podcast you can listen to it within
moments after it's done. But most podcasts people will listen
anywhere from five minutes to five years after the fact,
where as with radio, even when people would listen to
the radio online, it tended to be more immediate. There's that,
I would say, sort of, that would be one of them.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
What else Paul said, taking calls? You can't take calls.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
In my case, I stopped taking calls many years ago,
and I didn't think it harmed the show at Also,
I would say in general for talk radio, yes, but
for my show it was a non issue because I
stopped doing it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
That there you go. Virtually no podcasts can play music.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
The reason for that is radio has forever, by necessity,
had master licensing agreements with the big companies that represent songwriters,
the two biggest, and it's like virtually all are either
BMI or ascap. Bands don't get paid. If you go
(28:18):
into a bar and a recorded song is by a
band or an artist or a rappers being played, they
don't get any money, but the writer gets a little chunk.
Same thing with regard to anything on the radio. In fact,
I'm gonna tell a famous story about that. You want
to hear my famous story? Did you ever see the
(28:40):
movie not the TV show, the movie Mash You have? Okay,
none if it has, because long time ago, I would
say sixty nine to seventy seventy one. Well, it had
to you because the TV show came on in like
seventy four seventy five.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
The movie was based on the book by.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Richard Hooker, and it was very similar to the TV show,
only more like the beginning of the TV show was cynical,
the movie was way more cynical than that. It was
a Yeah, it was a dark, cynical but funny movie.
It was directed by a guy named Robert Altman who
went on and directed a lot of other kind of
movies like this. The characters were Sinning, Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould.
(29:16):
They played the Crapper and Hawkeye characters who kind of
inverted on TV in terms of their backstories.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
And so on, so on. In any event, it was.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Like the TV show early on, but you know, it
was a movie, so it was. And the movie really
didn't have a plot. It was almost like four episodes
of the TV show thrown together, basically life in a
mobile Army surgical hospital in Korea during the war. And
it was kind of a dark and cynical movie. And
Robert Alton was a guy who just kind of specialized
(29:47):
in this. And the movie came to be made because
a guy who was a hang around in Hollywood, Auto
Premager's brother. Actually he bought the rights to the book
Mash was first a book novel by Richard Hooker, and
turned it into a movie. And the director that he
hired was Robert Albman. All right, back in that era
you always needed to have a song or a theme
(30:09):
in a movie. Not so much anymore. And they hired
Johnny Mandel.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Who was a face. He just he this is what
he did.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
He wrote scores from movies and music and it's just
a popular, mainstream kind of composer and he came up
with his melody and Altman, the director, remember everything in
the movie Mash was just cynical. He was taking very
serious stuff but playing it for hard laughs. And that's
(30:39):
I think, you know, the first year of Mash on
TV was like this, but it was very very serious
stuff and you got the impression of what it was,
but played it for last with just the overt cynicism.
Paul even say darkness of it. So Johnny Mendel composes
the theme for Mash. They used that same theme and
the TV show which didn't know forever and ever and ever.
(31:01):
But in the movie there were lyrics and it was
part of a scene. Do you remember the scene that
it was. There was a dentist who a dentist who
well he couldn't get it up, he couldn't have sex.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
That's it was.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And his nickname, the nickname, the name for the dentist
was Painless.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It was his first movie role.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
He went on to be He went on to be
an actor and McMillan and wife and so on. His
name was John Shuck and he played and because they
had a name for everybody at all, that's you know,
fatherball Kahy. In the movie, they called him Dago Red,
which you could probably never do now.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Well, they called yes, I still can't believe that they.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Had an African American actor in there who played football
in college according to the storyline, and they called him spiritchucker.
He carried over to the first season a Mash. I
think they got rid of that role because they couldn't
justify using that term anymore. You know, Margaret was hot lips.
That carried over until they stopped saying it. Well, okay,
the dentist, his nickname was Painless. Well, they come up
(31:59):
with this idea that we're going to Painless was just
distraught that he was unable to perform sexually. So Hawkke
Guy and Trapper or whatever, they came up with this
idea that we're gonna have a fake suicide. We're gonna
give him, you know, he doesn't want to live. We're
gonna give him a dose of something that's gonna knock
him out. And while he's knocked out, this is gonna
(32:22):
get these thoughts out of his head and a woman's gonna.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Have sex with him.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I mean, this is how absurd and stupid in the
movie as and that's what the lyric was. Suicide is
Painless is the title of this and I think it
was loud and Wainwright who did Dead Skunk. I might
be wrong about that, but I think he's the guy
who played the banjo and sang the song that was
said to this, and Robert Altman has told the story,
I want to have the most absurd, ridiculous lyrics. And
(32:50):
he sent this to all of these composers and none
of them would come up with anything because they had
all of them was trying to do this really dark
and cynical. In the meantime, though, the music theme that
was you know, the music is written by Johnny Mandel,
as we all know, was unbelievably catchy. So Altman gave up.
He couldn't find anybody, so he told his fourteen year
(33:11):
old son to do it.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Mike Altman.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Robert Altman son, who was fourteen, wrote the lyrics the
suicide is Painless. Those lyrics were never on the TV show.
It's only in the movie.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
That you hear the song.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Song and in that scene, all right, they do this,
and Altman hears the song and here's this is it?
Speaker 3 (33:29):
My god, we have something.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
This is unbelievably good. First of all, Mendel's theme was beautiful.
The theme from Mash is just unbelievably catchy. So they
indeed had the scene in the middle where suicide painless
commits suicide, which he does and he has the sex
well he's in you know, knocked out, and wakes up
the next day he's peeler just fine. But all was said,
I got to use this again. So the opening to
the movie was a two and a half minute montage
(33:54):
similar to the opening of the TV show in which
you saw the helicopters flying around and the doctors would be,
you know, performing on people as they're doing the triage.
And that was filmed in the Hollywood Hills. It was
in the same area where sadly Kobe Bryant's helicopter crashed.
So that was the genesis of that song. Mike Altman
(34:15):
wrote the lyrics and Mendeli wrote the music, and the
music has been played forever and ever and ever, but
the only place you're ever gonna hear the lyrics is
really in the movie. Anyway, here's the point of the story.
For directing the movie, mash Robert Altman made seventy five
thousand dollars. That was just his salary. His son, Mike
Altman has over the years made millions of dollars in royalties.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's the only sign he ever wrote.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
And the song writer, the lyric writer, there's the money
with the composer, not it's the composition of the music.
Johnny Meandil did all the work. Mike Aaltman wrote those
lyrics and made hundreds of times more money than his father,
the director for coming up with that.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Which is my long.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Way of putting out that songwriters are the ones that
are compensated.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
They own the rights to the music.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So if you have a bar or a nightclub, or
say the Bucks game where they're playing recorded music in
or in radio, we have master contracts with ASCAP and
BMI to see that they are compensated. There is no
master contract in podcast, meaning you can't use the music
the song. If I use the song a songwriter, i'd
have the right to assume me because I'm taking their
(35:21):
copyrighted material and rebroadcasting it without permission. The theme music
that I have on this program i've purchased. At some point,
I'm not ready to do it yet. At some point
I'm going to tell you who composed it. But she
wrote the music and performed it for me, and I
purchased it otherwise I couldn't have a theme here, but
I own that, so it's mine. And since it's mine,
(35:43):
I can.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Use it here.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
But a song by the Beatles, we can't play out
or the Rolling Stones or Bing Crosby or whatever. And
I used to in the old radio show. It's a
long way of getting around to this say that I
love to play music, and we didn't can't do it anymore.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
So now to my point.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
At length, I think that that explanation was interesting, don't you.
And I think the story about Mike Altman becoming a
multi millionaire and never having to work in his life
because his dad told him to write ridiculous lyrics that
he did. People have said they're so eloquent. If you
listen to them, they're stupid, which is exactly what the
point was supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
A wise man once asked of me, what's.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
The I don't know it just you go. It's just
it's one of those things in which they sound profound,
but it's just it's just stupid anyway. Forever and ever
and ever, when I did the radio show, we would
start playing Christmas pumper music after Thanksgiving, and I was
just obsessed that we weren't going to stop playing it
on Christmas Day, and we continue to play it, I think,
(36:46):
initially through the end of the year, and then after
that I said that we were going to play the
Christmas bumper music through the Feast of the Epiphany, which
is usually twelve days after Christmas, because my point was
is that the Christmas season is not supposed to end.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
On Christmas. The Jews do it right.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Hanakah started Sunday evening. We're in now the week of
the eight days of Hanukah. Now, part of it is
it's a different Most people aren't Jewish, and it hasn't
dominated the culture. But there's like no build up for Hanukkah.
No Hanikah starts and then it continues for the period
of time when has happened with Christmas. And to me,
(37:28):
this year it just got more ridiculous than ever. The
Christmas music is being played in the stores in October.
It's so pervasive and pervasive and pervasive, and we all
know what's gonna happen. Christmas Day isn't even gonna get
to the end of the day, and it's gonna be done,
kind of like when people go to the movie. I
(37:48):
would recommend song sung Blue You're gonna go to what
I Know You're gonna go too. First of all, there's
no way you wouldn't love it because it's set in
the backdrop of local musicians kicking around. Paul said he's
seen somebody scenes. He's well, you'd still like it. And
I think some of the characters that you would know
the real life actors.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Of some of the characters that were in there.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
And I wouldn't give that movie my highest recommendation, but
only a scooch below it. It's, first of all, for
a movie that could have been stupid very good, as
I would suggest that for your Christmas Day movie, except
I'm just thinking of Milwaukee that it's gonna be packed
that day, don't you.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
It's gonna do pretty well everywhere.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
It's not a blockbuster, but it's being advertised nationally all
over the place. The studio knows it's got something good here.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
Anyway, my plant on.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Christmas is Christmas just ends of the thud. So if
I was still doing a radio show, which I'm not,
I'm telling you what I would have planned to do
this year to make and just to make a point,
take a guess what my plan was going to be,
I would not have played any Christmas music until Christmas Day,
(38:55):
and we would only have played it after Christmas through
the Epiphany. In fact, act, most Christian churches do not
have any Christmas music in the church.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Prior to Christmas. They will have an Advent song.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
For example, the Catholics will often do Oh Come Emmanuel,
that is asking for the.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Savior to be bored.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Now, a lot of the songs that are secular in Christmas,
you know, sleigh Ride and some of those, they don't
have anything to do with. I don't eve think the
word Christmas is in a lot of them. Maybe I'd
make an exception for that. But the point that I'm
making is this the only reason when I was a kid,
I just remember my parents they'd have when they'd have
(39:38):
like the Christmas parties and friends would come over and
all of that. It was the period after Christmas, in
between the New Year's there was there are people in
our house all the time. That's when people that weren't
working in that week. That's when you would celebrate it.
This whole notion of Christmas, the whole thing at Christmas
is December the fifth, and all of that stuff is fluid,
and we just shoved it earlier on, early on, early,
and what happens is people get so sick at Christmas
(39:58):
that by Christmas Day ends. Now. I believe there's an
agenda subconsciously behind the people who want Christmas to end
the date moment the day gets here, and that is
that is their way of completely divorcing the religious component
of Christmas from the secular I have felt forever that
they coexisted side by side.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Did everybody knew why we had Christas is a holiday?
Speaker 2 (40:21):
It was commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior,
and whether you're a believer or not, that was the
point of the holiday. And it's becomes a overwhelming popular
holiday that the secularized stuff of it's Santa Claus and
playing gifts and playing doing music and all o this
stuff fit in there, and I felt as though it
existed side by side. I don't think they coexist very
well anymore. If we are to think at all about
(40:48):
the religious component of Christmas. There is no savior yet,
you know, and Jewish people believe the Savior is still coming,
but Christians believe he came.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Prior to Christmas.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
There is no Savior. It's this darker period of waiting.
Then Christmas comes, the Savior is bored. That's the period
of celebration and the marking of Christmas. And I think
that the secular side of Christmas still coexisted that and
player slagh ride and jingle bells and all of that
stuff through the period of and the Epiphanty is the
(41:20):
day that's mentioned because it's within Christianity regarded as the
day in which kind of the Holy Spirit shined upon
Jesus and he went from just a nobody that nobody
knew was God to being God. And I think the
Epiphanty might coincide with the on the top of all
of this, when.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
What do they call it?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
They had there's a presentation of Jesus to at the
temple and so on, but that was it's a period
that it's generally thought of twelve days and that song
the twelve Days of Christmas. Christmas is always a twelve
day season and it started on Christmas Day and we've
just ended it so damn early anymore. That my idea
where ill doing radio would be just to make I
(42:02):
remember when I did the Wrestling Boss Show, I would
always do it between Christmas and New Years. You know
what why I would fill in between Christmas and New Years,
don't you? Well?
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Brush run isn't available.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
I mean the most everybody doesn't do their job between
Christmas and New Year's and that's when Phillin's show up.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
I e me. You know, when Rush did.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
The show, he was obsessed with man I'm Steamroll and
to the point that I mean everybody thought he over
did it, but I mean it's his show. He loved
two things in life. He loved Apple computers and he
loved Man I'm Steamroller, And that's what the Christmas music was.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Okay, I would do the show like twenty six or
twenty seven, and.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I put my foot dots. I want to hear the
Christmas proper music. Well, the staff didn't want to keep
hearing it more this man I'm Steamroller stuff, but they,
to their credit, they didn't fuck me on.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
Then okay, fine, you want to do what you want
to do with And I haven't explained to the audience
this is why I'm still playing it.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
And I went to the whole spiel that I've gone
through in Milwaukee from your year after year after year
after year. But now I'm doing a podcast and I
think can't play I can't play squat whenever, so I
can't do it. But I had this idea that I
thought was brilliant, and rather than just not being able
to do it, instead, I'm just gonna tell you that
I had this idea even though I can't do anything
about it, maybe somebody will steal it. Is O'donnald paying attention? Yeah,
(43:17):
I know he's not gonna steal my ideas. He's trying
to carve off an identity unto himself, which of course
you should. Jeff Wagner was still around, he might steal
the This is the Mark Belling podcast. This is the
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Experience that you line different today. Visit you line dot com. Obviously,
(44:14):
the whole question of the difficulties we have had with
Somali immigrants to the United States has gotten attention because
of the scandal in Minnesota. Why Minnesota?
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Will you know?
Speaker 2 (44:30):
When ethnic groups resettle in the United States, often many
of them will be in the same area as they
can have a community, And a huge percentage of the
Somalis that have moved to the United States.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Are in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
But I think there's a larger backdrop to this story,
and that's what I want to spend the segment on.
When you have a I understand, I'm generalizing, and when
you generalize, you can get involved in prejudice by your
implying that everybody thinks the same way. The left is
guilty of this, and the right when they suggest, for example,
(45:11):
all African Americans have to be liberal and so on.
So this is I grant you a generalization. There are
probably some Somali immigrants to the United States that love
being here and think the United States is the greatest
place in the world and that they are happy to
be Americans. But the reality is from the rhetoric of
(45:35):
so many of them, I mean virtually every Somali that's
gotten to Minnesota and become a prominent person is radical.
This is a different type of immigration than what created
our country. Now let's go back to the mass migration
to the United States from Mexico, and many of the
(45:58):
people who were defending and are saying, this is the
country of immigrants, it's the country of emigrants, it's the
country of immigrants. The difference was when you had so
many Mexican immigrants coming in illegally a it was the
illegal The overwhelming majority of immigrants who came to the
United States before this legally came in through the front door.
(46:18):
They get the green card or they maybe they had
a temporary visa in the days prior to that. They
were processed at Ellis Island. They were legal, they were documented,
They went through a period of naturalization. If they wanted
to be a citizen, it would take I thought a
minimum of seven years.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
When you had illegal immigration coming in, there wasn't any
control over it. But secondly, when we had this mass
migration that came in from Mexico, it didn't appear as
though you had huge percentages of people.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
Who came in because they loved.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
What America stood for the migrants from Europe and from
other nations looked at the United States from Afar and said,
I want to be part of this. They have it
better than we have it. They have religious freedom, they
have economic opportunity, they have capitalism, they have a melting
(47:09):
pot in which everybody's going to work together. You had
immigrants come to the United States and the happiest moment
of their life is when the boat landed here. You
don't get the impression that many of the Somali refugees
love America and love being part of a Judaeo Christian nation.
(47:37):
John Cass, who used to be with the Chicago Tribune.
He now has a blog posted the following Little Mogadishu
the Chicago Way. I'll quote the massive one billion dollar
and growing Minnesota welfare fraud by Somali refugees and the
accompany tired accusations of racism used to silence whistleblowers led
(47:58):
me to think, of my Greek immigrants in Chicago. We're
not welfare cheaters hiding behind accusations of racism. Family ties
were critically important and our clans, but not at the
expense of the love we bore America. Our parents kissed
the ground of America and saw no shame in loving
(48:21):
the country that saved the world and saved us. But
I never hear wonder or gratitude from the lips of
ilan Omar, a Somali refugee who was given everything from America.
I watch her seething and hating America, always demanding, sneering
(48:44):
at the discovery of billion dollar fraud, and I can
envision her someday ordering the our executions. According to Somaliland Chronicle,
and by the way, Somaliland is the neighbor of Somalia.
According to Somaliland Chronicle, her father was of the brutal
Somali regime that led to the brutal Isaac genocide. And
(49:07):
when the bloodthirsty regime fell, her family fled as refugees
from the others they had ruined. By the way, I'll
get to a Daily Mail report on that in a moment.
Back to cass Why do American taxpayers keep giving the
Somali people billions of dollars because we've been manipulated by
the global left to hand ourselves to hate ourselves because
(49:30):
we're suicidal. So how is the little Mogadishu way like
the Chicago Way. Both are Democrat towns, and both have
corrupted the people. They play race to bludgeon white liberals
into coughing up the cash, and the local news media,
dominated by the left allows it. The uncomfortable truth for
(49:53):
American liberals is that all cultures are not equal. The
Democrat ship them in by the tens of millions. Biden
called them to storm the border, and the other Democrats
and legacy corporate media wanted the migrant poor to become
their dependence, requiring federal aid. The Democrats upheave our society
(50:19):
to get votes. They do not demand assimilation as all
political parties demanded. When my family came to America, Well
that's John Cass. He posted that on x He also
has a website, Johncass dot com. He's referencing so many
of the Somali so called refugees who came to America
(50:43):
and seemed to despise America. And again, it's possible that
we're overreacting to the most famous Somali of all, Ilan Omhar.
Now a piggyback to that story, he referenced the Somaliland chronicle.
Somaliland is separate from Somalia, Separate countries, they have generally
been at odds. There's been reporting in Somaliland about what
(51:09):
happened in Somalia. Somalia has had kind of an internal
civil war forever. The Daily Mail, which is a major
website based in London but does some of the best
journalism in the United States, this week, did a long piece.
You can find it on their website. It's really really long.
(51:29):
That was an in depth investigation of ilan Omar and
her family, and some of it was based on the
reporting of the Somaliland Chronicle. Aside from the widespread speculation
that ilan Omar's second husband was in fact her brother
and that she used that relationship to be able to
get permanent status in the United States, the story didn't
(51:51):
go into that. It went on to instead the rest
of her family and their relationship, and they found that
the Omar family was part of the ruling class of
Somalia and was very very tight with the long term
time dictator of Somalia, the Butcher. The story goes on
at some length, and I'm not going to get into
all of it here, but the point of the piece
(52:13):
was is that the Omar family was in Somalia. Essentially
what the people that were tight with Hitler were in Germany.
They were the oppressors. They were the people who savage,
They were the people who killed, they were the people
who tortured.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
In fairness. Much of this happened before ilan Omar was
born or when she was a young child.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
However, later on in adult life she has seen in
multiple photographs posing with the leaders of that regime. So
why did she come to the United States if she
was part of the ruling tyrants of Somalia those tyrants
were overthrown. You know, we see this throughout some countries
in Africa, this constant upheaval of people on the ones
(52:56):
hand throwing the other faction out, and often there are
no good guys, and the other people come in they
become just as barbaric as those that they replace. But
when the butchers of Somalia were overthrown, many of the
people that were supportive of that government ran because they
knew they'd be killed. And the implication of the Daily
Mail story is that's how ilan omer got to the
(53:17):
United States. In other words, she didn't come here because
she was one of these wide eyed people from overseas
looking to the great dream of the United States. She
came here to hide out because she feared that what
she and her supporters had done in Somalia would then
be done to them. So we were just as safe haven.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
We're just a hideout.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
There's been no desire on the part of so many
of these people to be American or be Westernized. And
you see this with the term refugee is applied many
people who have left Northern Africa, the Middle East and
gone into Europe. They don't want to be French. They
want France to be an outpost of the place that.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
They came from.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
They don't want to assimilate and shit the values of
the places that they went to.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
They hate those values.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
The Mexican experience here in the United States has been
more mixed. I believe that many Mexican Americans are very
very patriotic, and we know that a growing number of them,
for example, have become conservative Republicans.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
I think the greatest.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
Thing that determines where you come down, and this is
whether or not they legally came to the United States
or not. Logically speaking, if you legally come here, whether
it be from wherever, Mexico or wherever, it's.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Because you want to be there.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If you come in the door illegally and you're not
part of anything, you may have disrespect for where it
is that you go to. The reason, though, that immigration
is what's created the United States is that until recently,
the people who migrated here were people who wanted to
be American and wanted American values. We can't presume that
(54:56):
everyone who is coming now. Once said it is not
bigotry to draw attention to the rampant crime that occurred
from some of the illegal immigrants who come across the
southern border and issue that Trump has pointed out, or
the over corruption that has occurred in Minnesota with the
(55:20):
full knowledge of the white leaders of that state who
were willing to tolerate mass Somalian corruption in exchange for
mass Somali votes. Tim Walls and the Minnesotans, I'm going
(55:42):
to change the subject. Josh Shaulman, one of the two
Republicans running for governor. Major Republicans running for governor. Tom
Tiffany is the other. I will give him this. He's
trying to campaign on the basis of good conservative ideas
in an attempt at an attempt to get attention to
on to his candidacy. He is in his latest release
(56:03):
calling for a decentralization of state government. The reason I'm
bringing this up is I've argued for it forever. There's
no particular reason why every agency of state government has
to be in Madison. Madison's a state capital, that's true,
but it doesn't mean that every single agency that we
run has to be in Madison. There's no reason, for example,
(56:28):
that the DNR can't be in Wsaw. You could argue
it would make more sense for the DNA to be
in Wasaw. The DNR is this agency that has so
many They deal with pollution, deal with hunting and fishing,
they got they deal with permitting. But there's no reason
why the DNR couldn't be in Wassaw. There's no reason
that the Department of Transportation couldn't be in Waukeshaw, and
you go through the list. One of the consequences of
(56:52):
state government being centralized in Madison and Madison being a
city were just about everybody who lives there as liberal
is that the government itself has become overtly liberal. Now,
it may well be that if we decentralize state government
and located some of these offices elsewhere, it would just
mean that liberals would move to those cities and wreck
(57:12):
them and turn them into the same kinds of hell
holes that Madison is, but they wouldn't be as concentrated.
Speaker 3 (57:20):
Now. There certainly would be a cost.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
In doing this, but it's less than people think, because
a lot of these office buildings that are used by
state government in Madison are not owned by the state
there least, it's like the Feds here in Milwaukee. They
own a few of these buildings, with a vast majority
of them they're renting from somebody else. And you could
shut those buildings down and move them to another city
and spread the wealth. And also the economic development that
(57:43):
occurs by putting a state agency in a community wouldn't
all be concentrated in Madison. The one type of job
that is recession proof is government, because government almost never lays.
Speaker 3 (57:52):
Anyone off in any event.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
At least, Showman is raising the idea. I did a
segment on the show a few weeks ago about Jordan Stohlts.
He's like the greatest American athlete that nobody knows anything about.
He's from keyw Oscom. Jordan Stoltz is about to go
(58:15):
to Milan for the Olympics. He has the potential and
again we say the potential because you still have to
do it. And a whole lot of people that had
great potential had a hard time winning goal that took.
Dan Jansen was at his third Olympics at a very
very difficult time. Simone Biles had a great Olympics, then
she had a train wreck before coming back in the
(58:36):
third Olympics and having another great one. The fact that
you are highly thought of and maybe dominant in the
world doesn't mean you'll do well at the Olympics. The
Olympics is just one event. Most of them are concentrated
over a week. You know, sports teams go into slumps,
athletes go into slump's. But there are certainly reasons to
believe that Jordan Stohlts may go to the Olympics and
(58:56):
be the greatest American speed skater since Eric Hayden. There
is a piece on JS online about his weekend. And
we're at the point. Because the Olympics occur early in
the following year, you have two things go on. You'll
have the American Championships, the World Championships, and then also
the American Trials. They all generally go on before the
(59:17):
Olympics and Jordan Stults won everything. We had the World
Cup and again the World Clup gets overshadowed in an
Olympic year because the Olympics are bigger. But it's the
same people. He won virtually every World Cup event there was.
He won the sprint events, and he won the marathon events,
which is very rare.
Speaker 3 (59:37):
He's from Kiwa, Waskam.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Speed skating is talk about every now and then, some
of these sports that are big only in the Olympics.
People don't pay much attention to figure skating other than
an Olympic year.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
Few people do.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
But I suspect that only people really into the sport
know who won the freestyle World Championship in figure skating
last year. But people will remember forever and we turn
into international superstars, those who win the gold medal every
four years. Gymnastics is another. There are other fringe sports.
I don't think anybody pays any attention. People don't pay
(01:00:13):
much attention to Bob's ledding unless the Olympics are going on, but.
Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Speed skating is at the top of that list. I
mean there are people who.
Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Became huge stars and house Bonny Blair, for example. I
mean that name, especially here in southeastern Wisconsin because she's
from here. Dan Jansen, go back to Eric Heyden and
some of the others. They are huge names. That it
is primarily because of the fact that they were in
the Olympics. We have the potential for Jordan Stohltz to join.
Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
That group.
Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
He is skating at the highest level right now that
that sport has ever seen. And since I'm on the
subject of the Winter Olympics, which are held in Milan
and the region. In fact they're using two cities, Milan
and Cortina because it's spread out over northern Italy for
the Swiss Alps, A and so on. Two other stories
(01:01:04):
that I see coming from the Olympics both deal with skiing.
We all remember how Simone Biles crashed and burned at
the twenty twenty Olympics. She had a great breakthrough as
the young teenager in twenty sixteen, and then in twenty
twenty it was the COVID year. In fact, I actually
think the Olympics are in twenty twenty one. She fell
apart emotionally and she botched her first routine and then
(01:01:27):
essentially quit and she said she had mental health pressures
and walked away from her team, very very controversial, and
she achieved redemption. She came back in twenty twenty four
and one damn near everything, and what happened to twenty
twenty will be a footno for her career. I think
we have the potential for the same thing happening this
(01:01:49):
time four years ago actually three twenty twenty two Olympics.
Mikayla Schiffrin, the American superstar, was at the downhill of
the slalom. What ever her first event was, I mean
she was what fifty yards out of the gate, flat
at her face, flat right in her face. I think
(01:02:10):
it was. I think she was in the slalom, and
he was a giant solemn. She did first, and then
she had an opportunity for redemption later in the week
in the slalom, and what happened down right there again,
it was just a disaster.
Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
She was so.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Dominant and she couldn't help it fall down, and she
had a night marriish Olympics. And I think just what
happened after she felt the first time it was in
her head, and anybody who's done anything, when what's in
your head is failure, you're going to fail. You still golf.
You're standing over a five foot putting you think you're
(01:02:43):
going to miss it. What happens you're gonna miss it
is probably you are going to miss it.
Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Guy who's not any good.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
At free throws, he's in a precious situation and he
lacks confidence. He's going to miss the free throw if
and I just think that that's what happened to Mikayla Schiffrin.
Kayla Schiffern had a monster weekend at the Skiing World Cup.
I think it's possible that she's gonna go to the
Olympics in twenty twenty six and have a redemption and
(01:03:11):
maybe win multiple golds in the same way that Simone
Biles did in gymnastics.
Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
And one other Do you know who's back? Lindsay van
Is back.
Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
She was off for eight years, and Lindsay vot is
in her forties. This is what this reminds me of.
George Foreman was a heavyweight champion of the world in
the nineteen seventies and then Muhammad Ali beat him, and
then he dubbed around a little bit and he just
walked away from the sport for like fifteen or eighteen years.
And George Foreman came back in his late thirties and
he was a big, fat guy. He had done these
(01:03:42):
stupid TV commercials that he decided that he was gonna
get a boxing and.
Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Everybody thought that it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
At his first ten to fifteen fights, he was fighting
against nobody, so so who cares that he's that he
was knocking them out. George Foreman regained the heavyweight championship
of the world, and I think at the time he woned,
he was the oldest person win. Now we have like
nineteen different titles right now, but the linear title in
which you traced from this guy beat this guy to
this guy beat that guy. He beat Michael Moore and
(01:04:10):
knocked him out flat on his ground. He's forty six
years old, and I don't think anybody thought that he
was going to make it all the way back and
get back to the top.
Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Lindsay Van did.
Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Get a couple of first places over the last couple
of weeks. She's in the downhill. If she could win,
I would say just meddling. They still call that hit
the podium. She could hit the podium after having retired
for eight years and be in her forties. She would
cement her legacy as being one of.
Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
The greatest skiers of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
Say my Olympics coverage, I try to keep people ahead
of the curve of this. And the reason all of
this stuff is happening is the Trials are coming up
and the World Championships and these sports are being held now,
and they have to hold them before the Olympics. And
they do hold the World Championships even an Olympic year,
even though obviously the Olympics of her shadow in sports
(01:04:59):
like this, all of the World Championships Football preview next.
This is the Mark Belling Podcast. This is the Mark
Belling Podcast, and it's time for our weekly weekend football
preview and some points thread picks. I'm joined by Mike
Murlette of American Sports Analysts in Madison. Big weekend in
college football as the playoffs finally begin after an entire
(01:05:23):
year of people wonder who's going to be in who's
going to be out there actually going to start playing games.
Let's talk to Mike for just a second here. Anything
special that's going to be going on this weekend. I
know it's a little bit early to kneel everything down
at ASA that you'd like to share with the audience.
Speaker 4 (01:05:37):
Sure, they can go to our website ASA wins dot com.
We've got a bowlpackage up for one nine. That's all
of our bowlpicks for the season. You probably ten to
fifteen bullpicks in that range, and if they sign up
before this weekend, we'll throw in the NFL free for
this weekend. And we're on a nice run. We've won
five straight college games. We won our first bowl game
(01:05:57):
last night with Jacksonville State. We went five and on
the l last weekend.
Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
So wow.
Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
And that Jacksonville State pick was the pick that you
used in our segment on the radio, rather on the
I'm not on the radio anymore, the segment on the
podcast last week. Let's talk first of all about college football.
As I mentioned, in addition to the lesser bull games,
there are four college football playoff games. Four teams have buys,
so the other eight played this weekend, and we don't
(01:06:24):
have time to talk about all four of them. So
I pulled out the two games that I thought were
the most interesting, and the first oneing is the one,
and I think it's interesting because it's got a huge
point spread on it and its face features a very
intriguing team. James Madison. James Madison comes from the group
of five, the so called lesser conferences, and had a
(01:06:47):
spectacular season, but a lot of people question whether or
not they're one of the twelve best teams in college football.
They're in because the rule state that five conference champions
have to be to be in, and some of the
conference champions in larger conference just didn't deserve to be in,
so James Madison got plucked in out of the Sun Belt.
They play Oregon from the Big Ten. Oregon is a
(01:07:12):
big favorite. People perceive that Oregon's a lot better team.
It's really hard to tell how good James Madison is though,
because they haven't played a really strong team all year.
What do you make of this game? I think it's
I think it's either going to be an indictment of
allowing you know, Conference USA, Sunbelt American Association in the
(01:07:35):
postseason at all, or it's going to vindicate those teams
being in. Given what happens with James Madison and the
team that they draw, Oregon, it's not there not the
best team in college football.
Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
But they're very good.
Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
Yeah, I agree one hundred percent with you, Mark, at
these these games are really hard to handicap. You talked
about the strength of schedule. Oregon strengths of schedule is
seventeenth in the country. Madison is one hundred and fifths.
So it's hard to look at the stats that we
like to look at and make a comparison on how
good or how bad a team is because of the
(01:08:11):
strength of schedule. For example, James Madison's defense is fantastic.
Their rush defense is number three in the country and
yards per carrying number two in overall rush yards, but
the average rush offense they faced is fifty fourth. This year,
James Madison offense averages thirty six points per game, but
(01:08:32):
the average defense they faced is eighty third and they
played five defenses ranked outside the top one hundred in
total defense.
Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
Yeah, they're twelve, they're twelve and one. But even in
their non conference schedule, they played Cupcakes, they played Weaver Say,
which is an FCS team. They played Liberty. I think
Liberty is in USA, They're not in their league. Yeah,
that's a weak team. The one team that they played
of NODE was Louisville, which was pretty good at the time,
but Louisville's only in the ACC. They didn't win it,
(01:09:02):
and they lost to them twenty eight to fourteen. So
I don't think James Madison should be in. But I
understand that they created these rules that state that you've
got to put five conference champions in and they didn't
want to put in the champion from the ACC because
they had a zillion losses.
Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
That was Duke, and you end up with this team
in there. In defense though.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Of James Madison, you only can beat the teams that
you play, and this is what their schedule is. And
also it's pretty extraordinary that this is the second year
that their coach, Kurt Signetti has been going off to Indiana,
and if anything, they're better without him than they were
before you got there. So they deserve a fair amount
of credit. But there is this big, fat point spread
(01:09:42):
that's out there, and you know, I think some people
will clearly bet on the game. I would think it's,
as you said, one of the toughest ones. I mean,
if if James Madison lost by thirty five points, no
one would be surprised. It's possible, however, that they could
play him tough and keep it into single digits. Just
really don't know, do you have a lean on the
game at all or just because of all these variables.
Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
Is it one that you don't want to make it?
Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
I don't. I don't think we're going to use the game.
And I think it's too hard to handicap this game.
I think you hit it on the head again. They
could lose by thirty five, they could lose by ten.
Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
I don't.
Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
These are hard teams to pair up and look and
figure out where each stands. So I think it's a
game we'll stay away from.
Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Ye Usually when a team like James Madison beats a
top team, it's early in the season where the team
from the more prestigious league gets caught flat footed.
Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
And so on.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Oregon's not going to be flat footed. They have a
chance to advance and the college football playoffs, They're going
to be ready for the game. The other game that
I want to talk about is just the opposite. Two
extremely high profile teams, interestingly from the same conference, and
two teams that I think had very similar seasons, both
very good, a cut below however, being the best team
(01:10:54):
in their league. And that's Oklahoma playing Alabama, two of
the biggest name programs. They're seeded kind of in the
middle of the playoffs. They both had very very good seasons.
The SEC has a zillion teams. Alabama lost the title game,
but they may have been the second best team in
the league. Oklahoma had a very very good season. They
(01:11:15):
had an excellent defense. Size up Oklahoma and Alabama.
Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
Yeah, we have We have a point of reference here
because these two teams played this year and not that
long ago. November November fifteenth, Alabama hosted Oklahoma. Alabama was
a six and a half point home favorite and lost
twenty three to twenty one. But if you dig a
little deeper, Oklahoma or Alabama outgained Oklahoma four h six
(01:11:41):
to two twelve.
Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
In that game.
Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Wow, so they must. They had turnovers three.
Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
Turnovers to zero. And if you look at the two
touchdowns in the game that Oklahoma had, one came on
an eighty seven yard interception return and one came on
a thirty yard drive after Alabama fumbled the punt. So
Alabama play better in that game. Neither team could run
the ball both. I think one had eighty yards and
one had seventy five yeards rushing. So this might come
(01:12:07):
down to a quarterback situation. Who can move the ball
better that way? And I think Alabama has the edge here.
I mean, they've got Simpson, He's a first round NFL
draft pick. They had better numbers across the board passing
and in that first game since then through for three
hundred and twenty eight yards and Oklahoma's Ma Tier through
for one hundred and thirty eight yards. I think there's
a reason Bama's favored here. It's the first time a
(01:12:29):
college football playoffs started the last year, first time we
get a home underdog.
Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
The games are not.
Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Bowl games later on they are, but these are games
played on a team's home field. This game is at Alabama.
They're in their home stadium, with Oklahoma being no. I like,
take that back, I've got that home game is at Oklahoma.
They had the better seed here, so it's a home
game for Oklahoma with Alabama on the road. So you're right,
Alabama's favored despite the fact that they're on the road.
Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
Yeah. And I think i'd lean in Alabama in this game.
I think they're the better team. They all played him
the first game at home and loss. Another thing about
Alabama here, they've been hearing for two weeks how they
shouldn't even be here because they have three losses. That's
a motivating factor. I think Alabama probably wins this.
Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
Game, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Turning our attention to the NFL, I want to spend
all of our time discussing the Packers' overall situation and
the game against the Bears. Right now, Green Bay is
favored by one or one and a half points in
the Saturday night game against Chicago, which just strikes me
as odd. When the Packers and the Bears played in
(01:13:37):
Green Bay, I believe the Packers are about a six
and a half point favorite. So if you say home
field is worth two and a half points, that would
be two and a half plus two and a half
because the games in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
That would explain where we are.
Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
But that means the point spread is completely discouting the
absence of Micah Parsons and the potential absence of Christian Watson.
Zach Toms listed as questionable for the game. Packers have
several guys that are questionable in addition to the fact
that their bench defensive player is out of the game.
I'm surprised the Bears aren't favored given the fact that
(01:14:11):
Green Bay just in a short period of time got
decimated by injuries. Now it's not the quarterback and maybe
the lines just don't move if it's not the quarterback.
But do you think that this line is reflecting at
all the absence of Parsons and maybe several other key players.
Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
Yeah, I do think it is, and I'll give you
a reason. Last week. They have a look ahead lines
on these games. So last week Green Bay was faired
by three in this game, you could have wagered on
Green Bear Chicago at three. Last week. Now it's down
to one. So it's moved two points. And I think
the reason it didn't move from the first game as
(01:14:47):
much as it should have based on the look ahead
line is green Bay won that game by seven, but
they dominated that game. They all gained the Bears by
two yards per play and really dominated that game. So
I think that's probably why the look ahead line was three.
But it's moved two points just based on the injuries.
It's not a great spot for green Bay. I'll be honest.
(01:15:07):
Back to back road games, and if you look at
teams coming off of playing in Denver don't do well.
I mean the last three seasons, those teams are six
and seventeen against the spread. This year, teams that play
at Denver the next week are zero and six against
the spread. I think it's a tough spot for them,
all right, man, I think this game is really hard, Mark,
(01:15:27):
I think it's really hard. Packers got a lot of injuries.
Bears got some wide receiver injury issues here. And we've
talked about this all season. If the Bears win the
turnover battle, they're gonna win. If they don't, they're not.
They have one win this year out of ten where
they had an even or negative turnover margin, and it's
gonna come down to that. In the first game it
(01:15:48):
was one turnover a piece. Green Bay dominated the stats
and won the game. I think it's gonna come down
to that again. Green Bay is hoping to get some
guys back. Obviously Parsons is out. They hope to get
Watson back. They got some offensive linemen and dB banged up.
Not sure if those guys are coming back or not.
And if they don't, Green Bay is probably going to
be in trouble in this game.
Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
The chances of the Packers going on and being a
Super Bowl contender, how big of a hit did they take?
I look at the now, every team in the NFL
has injuries, and as the season goes on, I'll get worse.
Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
The season is too long. It's the same thing as
the NBA.
Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Where guys are going down with acls right and left
in the playoffs and so on. But if you take
a look at the overall picture for Green Bay, they
had this year two players they probably were first team
All Pro the tight end and Micah Parsons. Craft the
tight end was on his way I think probably to
(01:16:43):
being first or second team All Pro, and Parsons is
clearly first team All Pro. How do you lose two
of your best three players? Jordan loved being the third
most third best player, but he's not the best quarterback
in the NFL. How do you lose those two teams
without it have a devastating.
Speaker 3 (01:17:01):
Impact on you.
Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Imagine if you argue that having those players are a value,
not having them has to be a significant negative.
Speaker 3 (01:17:10):
How much will.
Speaker 4 (01:17:12):
Go ahead?
Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
How much do they miss Parsons and then cumulatively having
lost Craft earlier in the season.
Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
Et cetera.
Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Yeah, I think green Bay we tracked this. I think
Green Bay has the worst injury luck this season of
all the NFL teams. You could argue Watson as their
third most important offensive player, second most offensive player and
he's been hurt.
Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
No, he's hurt again, but that's the norm. He's always hurt.
Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
He is. But when he came back, he made a
big different. They're a different offense with him in there.
They just are. They look much better they average, they
look better in the passing game. They're a better team
with him in there. I think it's I think Parsons,
you know, for defensive players. You talked about it earlier.
Quarterbacks move the spread if they go out, defensive players
usually don't look like Parsons might be worth a point.
(01:18:01):
I'd argue he's probably worth more than that. Third in
the NFL and pressures this year at seventy nine. Here's
a good stat for He had seventy nine quarterback pressures
this year, third in the NFL. The next best on
Green Bay is Rashaan Gary with twenty eight. That's fifty
one fewer pressures on the quarterback.
Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
And Parsons is being double team than Gary wasn't. Let's
add all of that in. I just think that these
losses are more compelling than people think, and I think
most Packer fans agree with me. I think most Packer
fans think the team's chances of winning a championship which
looked really bright two weeks ago, our dog one near shot.
I mean, am I being too negative? No?
Speaker 4 (01:18:43):
I think it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough now.
The loss of Parsons is huge, And you mentioned Kraft.
You know, teams don't have to game plan for Parsons now,
they don't have to double team. That's a huge, huge,
huge loss. I think their chances have dwindled drastically since
the injuries last week.
Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Well, and let's also mention that they lost Devonte Wyatt,
so the Packers are now without their best run stopper
and probably the first or second best pass rusher. I
don't know that anybody's better than Miles Garrett of Cleveland,
but Parsons is a unique and extraordinary player who's affected things.
The other thing, of course, is there's still multiple weeks
left in the regular season, and there's lots of injuries
(01:19:19):
to come, not only for Green Bay but for everybody else.
And you know, at the end of the season, the
team that wins the Super Bowl is off and the
team that was less impacted by injuries. All right, that's
our preview. It's time to get some point spread picks.
I do want to mention our schedule here. Our next
football segment will be We've got a unique schedule next week,
Christmas Week. Because of Christmas, we're not going to be
(01:19:41):
releasing the podcast on Thursday, which is Christmas Day.
Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Instead, the final podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Of the week is going to be released on Friday,
So when you're looking for the football segment next week,
that podcast is going to come out on Friday. So
for the purposes of our picks here, any game between
Thursday night of this week, and I don't think there
are any games on Christmas. Maybe the NFL is a
Christmas Day game, but we don't have a line on
that anyway. But for the next week, those are the
(01:20:08):
games that are available for us. Paul, you get by
the way, we should recap how everybody did last week, Yeah,
Paul said.
Speaker 3 (01:20:15):
Please do. I lost.
Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
I thought that Dallas would beat the Vikings by six,
or Dallas is favorite again this week. I'm done with Dallas.
Dallas is just like Kansas City. Kansas City was favorite
all the time and they just never won. Dallas couldn't
beat the Vikings. They lost their game. Paul took the
Steelers to beat the Dolphins, by more than three. It
(01:20:37):
was a thirteen point game, but it was really a wipeout.
Miami quit in fact, breaking news today to at taga
Oola's time, and Miami's probably done. They benched him and
I don't think he's going to come back for the
regular season. And Mike took a game that was played
this week. Jacksonville State was a three point underdog against
Troy and they beat them seventeen to thirteen.
Speaker 3 (01:20:58):
So we're all underwater.
Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
But Mike's making a late season run and I'm still
floundering and Paul and I are.
Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Duking it out for we actually duke get it out
for the lead.
Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
But see what happens, all right, Paul, we get to
get a pick from you.
Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
He wants to know the over under in the rams
Seahawks game. All right.
Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
If we talked about a second game this weekend, I
didn't want to because I wanted to spend so much
time on the Packers. That would have been clearly the game.
It's probably the marquee game of the week. Let's find
it here. Oh that's right, it's the Thursday night game.
It's the Thursday night game. Than today, we're releasing the
podcast on Thursday. So what's tonight. The over under in
that game is forty three and a half. Eagles and
(01:21:45):
the Commanders. Oh that's a Saturday. You're right, these games
are all early. There's two Saturday games this week in
addition to the Thursday game, the Eagles and the Commanders.
They play actually Saturday afternoon. The Eagles are favored on
(01:22:05):
the road by six and a half. You're going to
take the Eagles. Boy, Washington just looks toast, don't they.
They have nothing to play for, Paul says, and the
Eagles do. They are a better team, As I said,
I think I said it last week. I don't recall
(01:22:26):
a team ever dropping off more from one season to
the next than Washington. And a lot of people thought
that this was the year. You know, Washington went to
the NFC Championship Game last year, and a lot of
people thought this was the year that they were going
to go to.
Speaker 3 (01:22:36):
The Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
And instead they have one of the worst records in
the entire NFL.
Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
The Eagles are weird.
Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
I mean, they have just dominant some weeks and not
very good others. But Washington just seems right now to
be consistently terrible. The quarterbacks always banged up, and the
coach seems to have lost control of the operation. I
don't disagree with Paul. What do you think, Mike?
Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Yeah, no, I wouldn't take Philly neck. Ye, I don't.
I don't like Philly Philly. You gotta remember I had
lost three straight games going into last week and they
beat the Raiders. Raiders have quit. Raiders had seventy five
totally yards in the game last week. They're done for
the season. I'm not sold on Philly. Washington's still playing hard.
They beat the Giants last week on the road as
an underdog, and the Giants were coming off by week.
(01:23:22):
Their last home game they lost to Denver by one point.
I would not lay close to a touchdown of Philadelphia
in this game. I just don't trust Philadelphia at all.
Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Yeah, I don't either. But I think that Washington is
just fading away and banged up. But the quarterback is
still is still playing. Daniels is still there and so on. Okay,
time to get a pick from Mike. Where are we going?
Let's go?
Speaker 4 (01:23:46):
Well, I had a Tuesday game in the Bulls. I
don't want to look that far ahead this weegaon. I'm
gonna I'm gonna look at the NFL.
Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
How about the.
Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
Let's look at Pittsburgh Detroit on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
That's a good game, Aaron Rodgers playing the Lions.
Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
Let's see you here.
Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
That game is in Detroit. The Lions are favored by seven.
I got to admit, Pittsburgh has exceeded my expectations. They're
not really good, but they're better than I thought they
were going to be. And Rodgers is playing very very well.
And Detroit is what they are, not as good as
last year, but still very good. Not so much on defense,
but they still have an elite offense. Lions are favored
(01:24:23):
by seven at home.
Speaker 4 (01:24:27):
I'm gonna take Detroit in that game.
Speaker 3 (01:24:29):
You are okay? Tell us why?
Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Yeah? First of all, I liked that they're coming off
a loss last week at the Rams, which was expected.
Their Rams were almost a touchdown favorite in that game.
Detroit coming off a loss the last fifteen times they've
lost the game the next week fifteen in all straight out,
fourteen and one against the spread. That goes back to
back a couple of years. They're just really good off
(01:24:51):
a loss. You're getting Pittsburgh on short rest on Monday night.
They played Monday night in the last since the start
of last season. They're all four against the spread and
straight up on a short week, and they're on the road.
I like the fact that Detroit Detroit led by ten
last week at the Rams, who are arguably the best
team in the NFL, and they blew it. So the
(01:25:14):
last fourteen times under Dan Campbell where they blew a
seven point or more lead and lost, they're eleven to
three against the spread, so they bounce back well the
next week. Steelers have a negative yards per game, negative
yards per play differential. They've got some injuries. I'm guessing
what won't play again won't play this week. And I
like the fact Detroit has five home wins this year.
(01:25:35):
They've all been by seven or more, and they've been
by an average of eighteen points per game. I think
Detroit wins by at least ten in this game.
Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
Well, you persuaded me. I love the lesser balls.
Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
I just think there's always one or maybe two games
per year in which you can find a real opportunity,
and I've done really well over the last few years
on them. Two years ago, I really like South Florida
game they played. I think they play Syracuse and when
forty five to nothing, I'm pretty good at them. My
problem is the two that I found are both within
(01:26:08):
the next week on Christmas Eve. Let's see California place Hawaii,
and it's the ball game in Hawaii, and Hawaii's in it.
It's a home game for them. This is not the
pick that I'm going to use, but I really wrestled
with it. California fired their coach and the transfer portal
(01:26:28):
is going to be overwhelmed with cal players leaving as
a new regime comes into place over there. In the meantime,
Hawaii had its best season in a long long time,
and it's the first Bowl game in a number of years.
They're actually a dog. And I wish I could make
next week's pick be that Paul. Could I put in
two weeks and just a sign whatever I have in
(01:26:48):
the next week's thing. But I just fought through this
and there's just a game that I like a little
bit better.
Speaker 3 (01:26:53):
And that game is.
Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
On Thursday night tonight as we do the podcast. It's
a game, really obscure ballgame. Missouri State plays Arkansas State,
and I want to get the line that we have
on that right now. Should have had that ready since
I knew I was going to pick it. It's out
of sync in the rotation for some reason. I think
it's one. Yeah, Arkansas State is favored by one point
(01:27:21):
in the game, and I'm going to take Arkansas State.
Missouri State's coach quit. He got a job at Coastal Carolina,
which to show you where Missouri State lands in the
pecking go to have things. Coastal Carolina's apparently an upgrade,
and the Missouri State coach has left. They haven't even
named a replacement yet. It appears as though the coach
(01:27:42):
who left, Beard is going to take several of the
staffers at Missouri State with him, including the guy who's
the interim coach in tonight's game. It's Bobby Petrino's son,
Nick Petrino, is going to be the interim coach. So
Missouri State's kind of a mess. I suspect that anybody
on Missouri State's team that was pretty good is pondering
the transfer portal to move to a bigger program, and
(01:28:04):
the head coach who had been there was gone. In
the meantime, Arkansas State, obscure as the team is, actually
has stability.
Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
Their coach is a.
Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Big name coach who got canned in a couple of
jobs and he's been down there for several years. Butch Jones,
who you may remember from Tennessee, Cincinnati, and I think
Central Michigan. He's coached there and they've played very well
down the stretch. Now they're one of these teams that
when they win, it's always a close win, but they've
played rather gritty. This game is in Frisco, Texas. Probably
(01:28:36):
doesn't mean much for either team. There's probably going to
be almost nobody there the end of the season six
and six, but the quarterback is going to be playing.
I haven't read anything about players leaving for the transfer portal.
And in addition to that, Butch Jones's ball game record
over this multiple schools is very very good. So I'm
going to lay one point with Arkansas State because of
(01:28:59):
the stability and the program. I also think the two leagues,
the Sun Belt was the better of the two leagues.
Missouri State was in a Conference USA, and I think
that they played a better schedule, And I think that
there's the potential here for an Arkansas State team that
is a pretty good offense. Neither team is good defense
to just go over in steamroll Missouri State team, that's
(01:29:22):
all screwed up. You know, Missouri State had a better
season everybody expected, but now the coach quit, the players
are looking for the portal. Weirdly, Missouri State was not
going to be eligible for a ball because it's their
first year in full Division one FBS. But there were
so few teams that were ball eligible, and then teams
like Notre Dame that opted out. They created an exemption
(01:29:45):
so Missouri State can get in. They shouldn't be in here,
and I'm going to take Arkansas State.
Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
Now.
Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
We know that Mike got to win last week with
Jacksonville State, so I know he looks at these lesser balls.
Do you have any Do you think I'm right about
this or would you be on the other team?
Speaker 4 (01:29:58):
Well, first off, my second pick, if I had to pick,
was going to be Hawaii for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Oh so.
Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
Hawaii. By the way, One other thing I should mention
on the Hawaii team. Way back in the day when
there were nowhere near as many cable channels and they
weren't as many games on TV. The Hawaii game was off,
which often would start at like eleven at night or midnight.
I would stay up and I'd watch that game. Their
quarterback was a guy named way back this June Jones,
the former NFL coach, was the coach, and Timmy Chang
(01:30:27):
was their quarterback and he just set all the passing records.
His backup was Nick Rolovich. Nick Rolovich is the interim
coach for California in this game, and Timmy Chang coaches Hawaii.
So there they come full circle, all this needless information,
So you would have steered me to Hawaii instead.
Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
But well, yeah, I mean because we used Missouri State,
we used opposite of what you just said.
Speaker 3 (01:30:47):
Oh you think I'm wrong about this, tell me why.
Speaker 4 (01:30:50):
We didn't use it as a big play, but we
used as small play. Tomorrow night, you had a lot
of good points about the coaching. That was our one
downside in this game. But all all these instance that
everyone stayed. I know they still have some distractions going on.
Everyone stayed, and from everything we've heard, they are absolutely
thrilled to be in this game. They've never been in
a bowl game, and I know they shouldn't be in
(01:31:12):
the bowl game because they had to make an exemption.
But they were seven and five. They weren't a bad team.
It's not like they were had a losing record and
didn't deserve to be in a bowl. They just couldn't
be in a bawl. They weren't supposed to be in it.
Speaker 2 (01:31:22):
I still have an image of earlier in this season.
I took USC against them, and USC scoring. I think
east them.
Speaker 4 (01:31:30):
Yeah, I know. Arkansas State I think is decent. They
had to win five of their last seven just to
get into a ball, and three of those five wins
were by one point. Like you said, they win, they
win games close.
Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
I just I like but they were pretty good teams
and the Sun Belt was was a stronger league than
normal this year.
Speaker 4 (01:31:49):
Yeah, I think Missouri State's the better team. We haven't
power rated better. I think if both teams play their game,
I think Missouri State wins. But the coaching stuff does
make well.
Speaker 2 (01:32:00):
Can I change I've picked out of Hawaii since Mike
agrees with me, I can tell you this, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
Both of those are going to be losers. One of
them is going to win.
Speaker 2 (01:32:08):
I still Mike's nay saying me on Arkansas State, but
I'm going to I'm gonna stick with it. I think
that their quarterback is better Mike talks about the power
ratings being better. I think that the better team and
I just like to go against teams that have instability,
and you're right, all the assistants are there and players
are excited about playing the game and so on. I
think Arkansas State's a better team. Okay, recapping everybody's picks,
(01:32:32):
I take Arkansas State to beat Missouri State by two
or more. Paul says, take the Eagles to beat Washington
by seven or more, and Mike's taking the Lions to
beat the Steelers by more than seven points.
Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
And again.
Speaker 2 (01:32:46):
The football segment will be on a podcast that will
be released on Friday of next week. And my next
podcast overall will be Christmas Week next week and that'll
come out on Monday.
Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Talk to you soon.
Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
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