Mark looks at three compelling trends: why affordability is always worse where liberals are in charge, growing evidence that saturated fats are not bad for you and the move of the Oscar telecast to YouTube. And, Linus reminds what Christmas is really all about
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by you Line for
quality shipping and industrial supplies. You Line has everything in stock.
Visit you line dot com. The Mark Belling Podcast is
a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
For those of you who listen to twenty seven podcasts
and Verrow and are listening to this in the middle
of twenty twenty eight, who won't care about this, But
for those of you who listen immediately, we're releasing this
podcast on Christmas Eve. We're tweaking our schedule for this
week because of Christmas a little bit, but this is
(00:43):
the Christmas Eve Christmas Day podcast of the program. And
in the next segment, not the first segment, some thoughts
about Christmas, the way we view Christmas, and so on.
But I wanted to take the opportunity today to cover
three other stories that I think I can do entire
podcasts on all of them. They're all really interesting, but
(01:07):
we're going to cover them on this special podcast running
in the middle of Christmas, kind of on themselves and
maybe set the table for talking about them in a
future moment, in a future time. The first one, I'm
going to tease it for just a second before I
share my Uline information with you other than the super Bowl?
(01:29):
What's the one thing on television that's some certainly not
as many as the super Bowl. Nothing matches the super Bowl.
Simply refuse to miss. It's not as many, but there's
a segment and it's huge that Just refuse to hold
that thought as I share some information with you. Have
you ever been offered an ad on option for premium
(01:50):
or white gloves service? You Line provides only one type
of service, the best. From knowledgeable customer service available twenty
four to seven three sixty five to keeping every product
in stock ready to ship the same day. When your
business needs quality shipping supplies, reliable warehouse equipment or office
furniture fast, contact you Line and get the best service
(02:11):
because you Line believes service is essential, not an option.
All right, I'm gonna tell a story from when I
was a kid, which is just perfect fru mean, you
remember all your Christmases when you were a kid, don't you.
I mean, But then, because you have kids of your own,
maybe some of the ones in between stick up. But
my guess is nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and
(02:34):
two thousand and one blend together as the same one
and you can't break anything. On the other hand, I
could remember, like the Chris, I remember my grade, the
fourth grade year, of the fifth grade year, of the
sixth grade year. I had a grandm well, I had
two grandmothers. The one grandmother in particular, I'm just telling
you she lived for one night of the year. That
(02:55):
was the night of the Oscars. I'm I think it's
not the same now. But for a whole lot of people,
the Academy Awards, the Oscars are still must watch television,
not to the level of the Super Bowl, which gets
well over one hundred million Americans watching it every year.
(03:16):
I don't know what the number is, but it just dwarfs.
But for the Academy Awards, for the people that are
into that stuff, and I'm not one of them, I
don't watch any Awards show. They've driven me away. I
don't need to watch programs in which I'm insulted and
attacked the entire I just don't need to do it. Plus,
I never know anybody who's winning any of the awards
(03:36):
and any of that stuff. But for some people, the
Oscars must watch television, which is why I think this
development is really interesting. Every now and then, There'll be
a story that comes down the pike that I think
is an indication of our world changing. It isn't immediate,
but starting in twenty twenty nine, that's still a long
(03:59):
way away, isn't it. Yeah, except when it gets there,
it's not going to seem like it wasn't long ago.
In starting in twenty twenty nine, the Oscars will only
be on YouTube. YouTube has won the right to carry
the Academy Awards. They They say that they plan to
(04:20):
show it on all of their platforms that would be
available on YouTube tv, which is their streaming service that
offers numerous channels, and on YouTube which is their own
specific individual channel. The Askies have been on ABC, I
think forever and ever and ever, and they're going to streaming.
(04:41):
I think that this is an indication that eventually everything
is going to go to streaming. If you ask me
if there's going to be a holdout, the only one
I can think of would be the super Bowl. There
are still a fair number of people that don't have
streaming and are unable to pay for tele levision services.
(05:01):
The super Bowl is still on over the air television,
and there may be a political revolt if some people
can't watch the Super Bowl without paying for a service.
But I'm not even convinced of that. I think eventually
regular broadcast TV is going to be dead. I think
that the cable and satellite companies are probably going to
go out of business and everything is going to be streaming,
(05:23):
and the challenge will be with all the different streaming
services out there. Well, what if you have Netflix but
not YouTube? And again, YouTube did say that they're planning
to put this on their regular YouTube channel, so anybody
with an Internet account will be able to watch it.
Now if they put it on YouTube TV, which is
a special pacer. Do you have YouTube TV? How much
(05:45):
is it a month? I think it's like eighty or
ninety isn't it eighty eighty bucks? But regular YouTube is
a free channel that you can get. It's confusing. There's
YouTube and YouTube TV. The initial announcement is that it'll
be on both YouTube and on to YouTube TV, meaning
it would be rather free for people to be able
to see. But the notion of the oscars not being
(06:06):
on a regular television network but on this is I
think a watershed moment, another story that I want to
focus on. And as I say, I could do an
entire hour on the transition of our world away from
broadcasting and telecasting and even cable casting to streaming. I
(06:30):
want to move to this. There's a very interesting column
that appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal from
Militia Finley, and she makes a point that I think
is critical for those of us on the right who
need to start doing a better job of fighting back
against the Marxists that are campaigning and preaching on this
whole affordability issue. I think in general, people on the
(06:56):
right are often ineffective a debunking nonsense from the left,
partly because they assume that everyone knows that it's nonsense.
I'll hear people say for everyone that goes without saying yeah,
except it doesn't go without saying there are people out
there who have not thought things through, who are not
hearing a counter to this. So I'm going to dive
(07:17):
into her column because the point becomes a parrot. She writes,
here's a trivia question for your holiday road trip, in
which five US metropolitan areas did the consumer price index
rise by less than two percent over the preceding twelve months.
The answer Detroit zero point seven, Dallas one point one,
(07:40):
Houston one point one, Phoenix one point four, and Atlanta
one point seven. Now let me interject, even though the
left is trying to blame Trump for inflation, the reality
is is that the CPI has drastically gone down under Trump.
And here she mentioned of the metrolinarias, those are the lowest.
So those are the lowest cities in terms of increase.
(08:02):
They were all under two percent year over year. Back
to her peace, Now, guess the four metro areas where
prices on average have increased by more than three percent.
Don't cheat by asking chat GPT, which answers incorrectly Anyway,
the answer here are the four metropolitan areas in which
(08:23):
the CPI over the past year has gone off the
most in US ending order, Philadelphia three point three, Los
Angeles three point six, San Diego four percent, Riverside, California
four point five. You may have noticed something about that list,
unless don't tell me you haven't noticed anything about this list. Yes,
(08:47):
the highest three are in California. Now again she's going
to get into her column here. Remember who it is
that's preaching affordability to us. The three metro areas that
have had the highest increase, And again we all face
the same thing. We all buy grocery such and such
here in the United States of America. But the three
areas in the last year that have gone up the
most are all in the state of California. Finley continues.
(09:11):
Milton Friedman observed that inflation is always in everywhere a
monetary phenomenon, but affordability the prices of particular things can
be very much a local phenomenon. I'll give you an example.
I live in downtown Milwaukee, travel all over the place,
work in southwestern Milwaukee County. I buy my gas near
(09:32):
we work. For whatever reason, the gas is cheaper here
than it is in Milwaukee, and so on. Is it
cheaper in Cedarberg than it is here? And do you
get your guests around where we are here too? Yeah,
there's a Woodman's. There's not a Woodman's out in this area,
but I hear Woodman's really is low any In any event,
the point is is that there are areas here even
(09:52):
in the metro area, which is the same thing costs
more than they do in others. And the point that
Finley is making affordability is also a regional issue. Containke
consider housing among the reasons for higher CPI readings in
California metro areas are fast rising housing costs. Riverside and
exurb of Los Angeles has drawn droves of middle class
families who can't afford to live on the coast. Yet
(10:14):
the housing supply on Riverside and for that matter, everywhere
else in the state hasn't kept up with demand. Blame
the state's litigation friendly environmental laws with strict zoning, which
raised the construction costs and suppressed development. In other words,
the point she's making is that even though there's clearly
a market for more housing in California, when you get
way away from the city of Los Angeles, the developers
(10:36):
can't do it and make a buck because of all
of the costs that California puts in place that makes
it unaffordable to build the new house. Continuing blame, shelter
prices risen four point four percent in Riverside and five
point six percent in San Diego over the preceding twelve months,
versus zero point one percent in Dallas one point one
(10:58):
percent in Houston. Shelter prices have declined by zero point
one percent. It's true that housing prices in many Sun
Belt cities surged early and the pandemic as people migrated
from states that had imposed strict lockdowns like California, but
more permissive permitting and zoning enabled housing developers to bring
on additional supply quickly, which has helped curb prices. Only
(11:22):
one hundred and eighteen thousand building permits for new homes
were issued for the Los Angeles metro region between twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty four, versus one hundred and
sixty three thousand in Atlanta, one hundred and eighty seven
thousand in Phoenix, two hundred seventy six thousand in Houston,
and two hundred eighty one thousand in Dallas. Now, she's
pointing out that those metro areas that had just mentioned
(11:43):
that had the most housing building were the ones that
have seen the lowest increase in CPI. The more new
homes that are going up, the cheaper they're going to
be for reasons that are obvious, a lot more to
choose from if you're a potential buyer. Back to the piece,
Vice President JD. Vans blames illegal immigrants from making housing unaffordable.
It's a specious explanation that doesn't add up now. I
(12:04):
don't agree with her point on this, but I want to,
in fairness to her lay it out. It's not as
if Arizona and Texas were unaffected by the flood of
foreign niagrants during the Biden presidency. One reason housing prices
have remained stubbornly high in Florida is a dearth of
construction workers, which as which it has been exacerbated by
a state law requiring companies with twenty five or more
(12:27):
employees to use Everify to check a new hire's work authorization.
I will interject, it is certainly true that we're at
not for illegal immigrants. Lots of fields, including construction, would
have a hard time finding sufficient workers. I think that
that's probably undeniably true. On the other hand, Democrats in
(12:47):
California don't want to build or drill. The state's milange
of climate policies have driven up energy prices in San
Diego eight point seven percent year over year, Riverside seven
point nine percent, and Los Angeles seven percent, even as
they have been falling in places like Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit,
and Houston that haven't sought to banish fossil fuels. Folks
(13:09):
in the Philadelphia Metro area have also seen a jump
in energy prices five point one percent, as the shutdown
of coal and nuclear plants in their region has driven
up electric rates. Another local phenomenon is legal abuse, which
affects insurance premiums and other business costs. Now, she goes
on the point that she is making, and it's a
(13:29):
point that I've tried to throw up a few times myself.
One of the things that's so ridiculous about the Marxist
running on affordability is everywhere they're in charge, things are
more unaffordable than when they're not. The more liberal the area,
the likelier the prices are to be extremely high. It
(13:52):
doesn't always hold, but it almost always holds. You put
a bunch of radicals in charging, every think costs more
for zillions of reasons. I'll make a quick point on
this and then get out of the next thing that
I want to cover. Milwaukee officials are carping about the
lack of grocery stores in the central city. There's a
Pick and Sand that closed, and the city officials have
(14:14):
been complaining and crying about this forever. And indeed, in
the central city itself, it's most of the mom and
pop independent stores. There are a couple of walmarts that
are set up on the edge of the central city,
and that's where a lot of central city residents go.
The grocery stores that are in the central city the
independent wants. The prices are extremely high. There's a reason
(14:37):
for that. When government officials don't do anything about shoplifting,
stores have to raise their prices in order to make
up for all of the loss that occurs with people
that steal stuff. Your insurance costs if you're a store,
if you're in a central city, are way higher. This
doesn't have to be The leftist policies that are soft
(15:00):
on crime and numerous other things all deal with the
affordability problem. This is an argument that's going to have
to be made over the next year as to how
Marxists are the last people in the world that should
be talking about affordability because anywhere that you have extreme
leftist policies in place, the costs are way higher than elsewhere.
(15:26):
And finally, this the following piece. I'm gonna get a
bunch of people who ask where you can find this,
so I've linked this up on my website, billing dot com.
It's a piece that was written by Nina titles it's
in the hill dot com. This is not a conservative website.
The hills Hill stands for Capitol Hill. They buy a
large cover politics and governmental than this story itself doesn't
(15:47):
deal with it. She writes about how medical science and
science have been dead wrong on a specific issue for
a half century. Not before I tell you what it is.
This happens all the time. There were any number of things.
(16:10):
I remember when as a kid, if there was a
show that went on television that was aimed at old people,
the prime advertiser was Jerrotol Lawrence Well, Ted mack all
this stuff that like your grandparents would watch Gerroto. What
Jared told was, do you, in fact you remember the
name of Jero Toler. Was that even before your tim Yeah,
you don't remember. What it was? Actually was an iron supplement.
(16:33):
Jered Toe was iron, and they pushed iron for old people.
But we've since learned that most people, not all, but
most people who are elderly, they have too much iron.
It's a problem. In fact, if you buy a multiviem
when it says fifty plus on it, usually that means
there's no iron in it. In other words, the guidance
of having old people pound iron right and left was
(16:55):
the worst possibly, But there's a zillion things that we've
learned with regard to thats. When they were brought in,
they were brought in as an alternative to the animal fats,
and it turned out the transfats were absolutely terrible. The
transtats essentially of the fats that were created in a laboratory,
and they ended up permanently clogging your arteries. And they're
not involved much of anywhere anymore. They're in potato chips
(17:17):
and a few other things. Otherwise they're not there. But
there are any number of things in which we thought
something was a good idea, and years go on and
you find that it wasn't. The problem that we have
now is that it has become so hard for the
leftist public health and medical establishment to ever admit that
(17:38):
it was wrong. In part, we are slaves to the
drug companies, and if the drug company makes a product
that combats something, we have to convince people that the
thing that its combating is something that needs to be combated.
Nina Titcholes's piece is on saturated fat. Paul's younger than me.
(18:01):
Your whole life, you've been told that saturated fat is terrible, right,
your whole life, your whole life. I still remember when
I the cardiologists were the first to pick up on this.
There's a the name of the book was, but it
was a groundmaking book that was written by Milwaukee cardiologist
Wheat Belly, That's what it was, in which they drew
(18:22):
attention to the real problems carbs. That fat isn't really
a problem much at all. And we're starting to turn
the corner on that this writer is observing that the
whole guidance that we've been getting forever and ever and
ever on avoidance of saturated fat is wraw. I'm going
to share the piece here and again, I just think
it's going to intrigue a lot of people. So if
you want to find it belling dot com my website,
(18:45):
we posted it up. She writes, for more than a
half century, Americans have been urged to shy away from
saturated fats found mainly in animal products. We have been
told to cook with canola oil instead of butter, select
skim instead of whole milk, and to fill our plates
with pasta instead of steak. Paradoxically, decades of adherence to
(19:06):
this advice has coincided with rising levels of chronic disease. Again,
RFK juniors on this all the time, all this guidance
we've been given, and undeniably, people in America are in
worse shape. They've gained more weight, diseases around the increase,
and so on. And it's mostly among the people who
I think of following rules. Back to the piece, As
people cut more saturated fats in their diets, the nation
(19:30):
grew heavier and sicker, not healthier. Put plainly, the war
unsaturated fat, rooted in the hypothesis that it causes heart disease,
has never been based on sound science. In fact, a
large and growing body of evidence reveals that saturated fats
aren't a menace, but a key part of a healthy diet,
(19:51):
and they should be recognized as such a national nutrition policy. Fortunately,
this long overdue change what appears likely to happen next month.
The federal government will soon release the new dietary guidelines
for Americans, the nutritional blueprint that shapes everything from school
lunches the hospital meals. Officials have finally signaled that they
(20:14):
will lift the decades that will limit on saturated fat.
This would mark a critical turning point. The misguided crusade
against fat began in the nineteen fifties when researcher and
sell Keys proposed a connection between saturated fat and heart disease.
But in his seminar seven countries study on the subject,
Keys cherry picked the countries that supported his claim and
(20:37):
ignored others like France and Germany, where people consume plenty
of butter and meat yet had low rates of heart disease.
Let me get interject, if you know anything about French cooking,
you know nothing about French cooking. Do you have a wife?
Maybe you do? What do you know about French cooking? Nothing?
Here's what I do. Put butter. Everything French cooking is butter.
(21:00):
And the point that's being made here is that this
Keys guy back in the fifties, he ignored France in Germany,
pulled them out of the study because France and Germany,
I think a German food that much harder, and French
food butter, butter, butter. Julia Child she tacked like the butter,
and she just poured them like a whole stick of butter.
And we put in a sauteed pen and so on.
Yet France in Germany had low rates of heart disease,
(21:22):
and they were excluded from the study. Back reupees. In
subsequent decades, scientists set out to test keys hypothesis. They
conducted a series of large, randomized controlled clinical trials around
the world, some funded by the National Institutes of Health
and rolling a total of sixty seven thousand participants. Subjects
on experimental diets replaced animal fats with vegetable oils made
(21:45):
from corn and soy, while the control group, ate the
traditional diets of the time, was up to eighteen percent
of calories from saturated fat. When the results of these
core trials failed to confirm Keys's hypothesis, researchers largely ignored
or buried them. One major study when unpublished for sixteen years.
(22:06):
Scientists who later recovered and reanalyzed data from this study
found surprisingly that the more the men lowered the cholesterol
on diet reduced and saturated fat, the more likely they
were to die from heart disease. Among dozens of review
papers on the court trials, not one could point to
(22:28):
evidence that lowering saturated fat had a saturated fat had
an effect on cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. It is
true that saturated fat increases LDL, the so called bad
cholesterol associated with heart disease. Participants in the court trials
on the experimental vegetable oil diet did successfully lower their cholesterol,
(22:52):
Even so their mortality didn't budge and there was little
to no effect on cardiovascular events. One plausible explanation is
that saturated fat also raised HDL, the good cholesterol that
protects the heart, possibly equalizing the overall effect on heart
disease risk. Another is that saturated fats only raise the
(23:16):
type of LDL particle called large and buoyant that isn't
associated with cardiovascuar disease. Saturated fat may even have beneficial effects.
The world's largest observational study, following one hundred and thirty
five thousand people found that those who ate more saturated
fats suffered fewer strokes. Yet, despite the substantial body of evidence,
(23:38):
federal nutrition policy remained stuck in the past. When the
Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services issued the
first dietary guidelines in nineteen eighty, fifteen percent of adults
were obese. Forty five years later, forty percent of American
adults are now obese. Three and four live with at
least one major chronic disease, and one third have pre diabetes.
(24:00):
Heart disease remains the nation's leading killer. Now let me
interject the cardiologists who have broken ranks and the nutritionist
who have broken ranks, and this ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.
They have argued for the longest time that the problem
is sugar and carbohydrates. Carbs are sugar, bread, pasta and
all of this stuff. The drastic increase in the consumption
(24:21):
of them by people that were reducing red maid and
butter and all this saturated fat stuff. That has been
their argument as to why we've had this obesity problem,
that the problem was never saturated fats or even fat.
The problem was always the carbohydrates. The problem was always
the sugar. Whether that's true or not, this fifteen percent
(24:42):
of beest to forty percent of bees. What really changed?
I think back to pre nineteen eighty everybody was eating
steak and red meat and butter all over the place.
Why were we so much less obese than Clearly the
more sedentary lifestyle and all of this comes into play.
But it is certainly possible that the dietary guidance that
(25:04):
we were given was completely raw, which is now the
point of this piece, on the point of some of
the cardiologists that have broken ranks, and it suggested that sugars, carbs, etc.
Are the real problem and that saturated fats out a
problem at all. Back to the piece. We got here
by replacing the whole unprocessed foods that our ancestors ate
(25:26):
for millennials with processed, refined carbohydrates. Let me interchet A
regular old steaks not a processed food. Get that box
of pasta that you buy on the supermarket shows that
has an expiration data twenty thirty. It's all highly processed.
(25:47):
The processing of the foods often results in the food
being good for years and years and years and years
and years. This is me and not the author. Does
that mean that it's not breaking down in our bodies
the way that it ought to. Foods strongly linked to obesity, diabetes,
and premature death. The federal limits on fat are long
overdue for correction. The guidelines have long told Americans to
(26:08):
keep calories from saturated fat below ten percent of total
caloric intake and to swap butter for vegetable oil, full
fat dairy for low fat. There is no solid evidence
that these swaps will improve health or as at least
some experts behind our federal nutrition policy appear to have known.
Internal communications from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in twenty
(26:29):
fifteen revealed the acknowledgment that there is quote no data
to justify the ten percent recommendation. The scientific process may
have been clouded by pervasive corporate ties among committee experts.
Most of them, according to research published in a paper
ic author for Public Health Nutrition last year, really received
(26:49):
funding from the ultra processed food manufacturers that profit from
keeping whole foods off the menu. Those, of course, would
be your craft, after your hinds, your big companies that
do all the processed foods. Those aren't the ones that
are ranching beef and ranching pigs and all of that stuff.
They're not them. They're the ones that have a vested
(27:11):
interest in selling the process stuff. Continuing, thankfully, momentum as shifting,
policymakers in both parties are calling for a re examination
of the nation's nutrition policies. FDA Commissioner Doctor Marty McCarry
has repeatedly said the demonization of saturated fat in medical
dogma must end. Continuing to steer Americans away from butter,
(27:31):
cheese and meat ignores decades of evidence. As the next
dietary guidelines take shape, policymakers have a rare opportunity to
correct course and end the unfounded war unsaturated fat. So
guess what they were wrong all these years? They just
I mean, it's just the more we learn. But the
(27:52):
difference now is the new stuff that we learn is
being rejected because there's so much money tied into continuing
to do things the way that we've been doing it.
The twoc balls that I talk about all the time
that for some reason our lefties have now joined after
being against forever is the processed food industry and the
drug companies, and they've i think driven down our throats
(28:16):
this notion to do certain things, all of which are
in their interests but are not in our interest I mean,
look at it anecdotally. Clearly we were healthier before. You
look at what we were doing before. Everybody was smoking,
everybody was drinking, everybody was eating red meat. They're slapping
(28:37):
butter on everything. Again. I'll go back to my grandmother again.
She take like lord and lap that into the frying
pan before make it say all this stuff you weren't
supposed to do. And now look at us now, and
none of them were fat. What's the meaning of Christmas?
(28:58):
This podcast is being released on Christmas Eve. We'll talk
about that in a moment on the Mark Belling podcast.
This is the Mark Belling Podcast. It was actually sixty
years ago this year the Charlie Brown Christmas aired on CBS.
(29:20):
At the time. Peanuts. In fact, Peanuts is still an
incredibly popular comic strip. It's one of the few that
they didn't have a new author come in and take over.
They simply, you know, most of them were just timeless.
They didn't deal with meteor technology. The many newspapers still
run the old Charlie brown Snoopy Linus, Lucy Peanut strips
(29:40):
of the past. When Charles Schultz was alive, that comic
strip was just massive sixties, seventies and eighties, and they
started to convert. They did one a year and turned
it into a television show and it would tie around
a theme. And the Charlie Brown Christmas is one of
the first and the people who produced it, along with Schultz,
they made brilliant decisions. Vince Garald and his arrangements just
(30:02):
became identified with them, and they came out and they
were they're huge, and they still live on in rerun land.
The Charlie Brown Christmas Special became ictic. I can actually
say I watched it the first time I was around.
Paul can't because it was out before he was born.
(30:23):
But it became like The Wizard of Oz and a
few things. It was just shown every year, forever and
ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
If anything was a classic, it was it, and it
was just the story. Charlie Brown was always this kind
of loser and a guy who couldn't catch. He was
like a kid that was a Rodney Dangerfield type. He
just couldn't catch a break and so on, and he
(30:44):
was attracted to other people like him, and he fell
in love with this just ramshackle falling apart Christmas Tree.
It was like the last out of the lot. It
only had a few needles left. And it became kind
of the storyline for this, and the backstory was all
the commercialization that was going on, et cetera. And as
(31:04):
the program was winding down, Charlie Brod was just frustrated
and he said, doesn't anybody know what Christmas is really
all about. And that's when this extraordinary thing happened. It
never would have happened today. I don't even think it
would have happened twenty years ago. The only reason that
it continued to be showed on TV is to edit
(31:26):
out the next portion of the segment would have created
a backlash. But as it is, the Charlie Bon Christmas
has essentially been shut it off to streaming and elsewhere
because there's a portion of what happened that just makes
people uncomfortable. I can think of since this year. It
only a handful of times ever that the New Testament
(31:51):
of the Bible was quoted, and in the segment which
became iconic. We played this on my old radio show
a few years ago. Linus, who was the friend of
Charlie Brown, when hearing this question what's the meaning of Christmas,
responded by quoting the Gospel of Luke.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Sure,
Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Lives please. And there were in the same country shepherds
(32:34):
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,
and lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them.
The glory of the Lord shall round about them. And
they were sore afraid, and the Angel said, unto them,
I fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of
great joy which shall be to all people. For unto
you is born this day in the city of David,
(32:56):
a savior, just Christ, the Lord. And this be a
sign on he you. You shall find the Babe, wrapped
in swaddling clothes, lying in an anger. And suddenly there
was with the Angel and multituded the heavenly host, praising God.
I'm saying glory to God in the highest and on earth.
Peace wouldn't will toward men. That's what Christmas is all about,
(33:29):
Charlie Brown.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
That program had a monstrous viewing its first year. It
had monstrous viewings after the in the following years that ensued.
And as they say, when you think of like a
Broadway musical, there's always the showstopper. That was the show stopper,
a cartoon character voting from the Bible on that character's
(33:58):
belief of what Christmas wants all about, which was the
birth of the Savior. He's right, that is Christmas is
all about. This is the mark Belling Podcast. That's it again.
Our podcast was initially released on Christmas Eve, whenever you're
(34:21):
listening to it, so if you're listening to a Christmas
Eve or Christmas Day, Merry Christmas. For those of you
paying attention to our schedule, our next podcast will be
released December twenty sixth, Friday, not Thursday. Better release it
day after Christmas and that will include our weekly football
preview and points spread Pricks. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts,
production and engineering by Paul crown Forest. The Mark Belling
Podcast is presented by you Line for quality shipping and
industrial supplies. You Line has everything in stock. Visit you
line dot com. Listen to all of Mark's podcasts available
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(35:04):
to your favorite podcasts.
The Mark Belling Podcast is presented by you Line for
quality shipping and industrial supplies. You Line has everything in stock.
Visit you line dot com. The Mark Belling Podcast is
a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
For those of you who listen to twenty seven podcasts
and Verrow and are listening to this in the middle
of twenty twenty eight, who won't care about this, But
for those of you who listen immediately, we're releasing this
podcast on Christmas Eve. We're tweaking our schedule for this
week because of Christmas a little bit, but this is
(00:43):
the Christmas Eve Christmas Day podcast of the program. And
in the next segment, not the first segment, some thoughts
about Christmas, the way we view Christmas, and so on.
But I wanted to take the opportunity today to cover
three other stories that I think I can do entire
podcasts on all of them. They're all really interesting, but
(01:07):
we're going to cover them on this special podcast running
in the middle of Christmas, kind of on themselves and
maybe set the table for talking about them in a
future moment, in a future time. The first one, I'm
going to tease it for just a second before I
share my Uline information with you other than the super Bowl?
(01:29):
What's the one thing on television that's some certainly not
as many as the super Bowl. Nothing matches the super Bowl.
Simply refuse to miss. It's not as many, but there's
a segment and it's huge that Just refuse to hold
that thought as I share some information with you. Have
you ever been offered an ad on option for premium
(01:50):
or white gloves service? You Line provides only one type
of service, the best. From knowledgeable customer service available twenty
four to seven three sixty five to keeping every product
in stock ready to ship the same day. When your
business needs quality shipping supplies, reliable warehouse equipment or office
furniture fast, contact you Line and get the best service
(02:11):
because you Line believes service is essential, not an option.
All right, I'm gonna tell a story from when I
was a kid, which is just perfect fru mean, you
remember all your Christmases when you were a kid, don't you.
I mean, But then, because you have kids of your own,
maybe some of the ones in between stick up. But
my guess is nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and
(02:34):
two thousand and one blend together as the same one
and you can't break anything. On the other hand, I
could remember, like the Chris, I remember my grade, the
fourth grade year, of the fifth grade year, of the
sixth grade year. I had a grandm well, I had
two grandmothers. The one grandmother in particular, I'm just telling
you she lived for one night of the year. That
(02:55):
was the night of the Oscars. I'm I think it's
not the same now. But for a whole lot of people,
the Academy Awards, the Oscars are still must watch television,
not to the level of the Super Bowl, which gets
well over one hundred million Americans watching it every year.
(03:16):
I don't know what the number is, but it just dwarfs.
But for the Academy Awards, for the people that are
into that stuff, and I'm not one of them, I
don't watch any Awards show. They've driven me away. I
don't need to watch programs in which I'm insulted and
attacked the entire I just don't need to do it. Plus,
I never know anybody who's winning any of the awards
(03:36):
and any of that stuff. But for some people, the
Oscars must watch television, which is why I think this
development is really interesting. Every now and then, There'll be
a story that comes down the pike that I think
is an indication of our world changing. It isn't immediate,
but starting in twenty twenty nine, that's still a long
(03:59):
way away, isn't it. Yeah, except when it gets there,
it's not going to seem like it wasn't long ago.
In starting in twenty twenty nine, the Oscars will only
be on YouTube. YouTube has won the right to carry
the Academy Awards. They They say that they plan to
(04:20):
show it on all of their platforms that would be
available on YouTube tv, which is their streaming service that
offers numerous channels, and on YouTube which is their own
specific individual channel. The Askies have been on ABC, I
think forever and ever and ever, and they're going to streaming.
(04:41):
I think that this is an indication that eventually everything
is going to go to streaming. If you ask me
if there's going to be a holdout, the only one
I can think of would be the super Bowl. There
are still a fair number of people that don't have
streaming and are unable to pay for tele levision services.
(05:01):
The super Bowl is still on over the air television,
and there may be a political revolt if some people
can't watch the Super Bowl without paying for a service.
But I'm not even convinced of that. I think eventually
regular broadcast TV is going to be dead. I think
that the cable and satellite companies are probably going to
go out of business and everything is going to be streaming,
(05:23):
and the challenge will be with all the different streaming
services out there. Well, what if you have Netflix but
not YouTube? And again, YouTube did say that they're planning
to put this on their regular YouTube channel, so anybody
with an Internet account will be able to watch it.
Now if they put it on YouTube TV, which is
a special pacer. Do you have YouTube TV? How much
(05:45):
is it a month? I think it's like eighty or
ninety isn't it eighty eighty bucks? But regular YouTube is
a free channel that you can get. It's confusing. There's
YouTube and YouTube TV. The initial announcement is that it'll
be on both YouTube and on to YouTube TV, meaning
it would be rather free for people to be able
to see. But the notion of the oscars not being
(06:06):
on a regular television network but on this is I
think a watershed moment, another story that I want to
focus on. And as I say, I could do an
entire hour on the transition of our world away from
broadcasting and telecasting and even cable casting to streaming. I
(06:30):
want to move to this. There's a very interesting column
that appeared this week in the Wall Street Journal from
Militia Finley, and she makes a point that I think
is critical for those of us on the right who
need to start doing a better job of fighting back
against the Marxists that are campaigning and preaching on this
whole affordability issue. I think in general, people on the
(06:56):
right are often ineffective a debunking nonsense from the left,
partly because they assume that everyone knows that it's nonsense.
I'll hear people say for everyone that goes without saying yeah,
except it doesn't go without saying there are people out
there who have not thought things through, who are not
hearing a counter to this. So I'm going to dive
(07:17):
into her column because the point becomes a parrot. She writes,
here's a trivia question for your holiday road trip, in
which five US metropolitan areas did the consumer price index
rise by less than two percent over the preceding twelve months.
The answer Detroit zero point seven, Dallas one point one,
(07:40):
Houston one point one, Phoenix one point four, and Atlanta
one point seven. Now let me interject, even though the
left is trying to blame Trump for inflation, the reality
is is that the CPI has drastically gone down under Trump.
And here she mentioned of the metrolinarias, those are the lowest.
So those are the lowest cities in terms of increase.
(08:02):
They were all under two percent year over year. Back
to her peace, Now, guess the four metro areas where
prices on average have increased by more than three percent.
Don't cheat by asking chat GPT, which answers incorrectly Anyway,
the answer here are the four metropolitan areas in which
(08:23):
the CPI over the past year has gone off the
most in US ending order, Philadelphia three point three, Los
Angeles three point six, San Diego four percent, Riverside, California
four point five. You may have noticed something about that list,
unless don't tell me you haven't noticed anything about this list. Yes,
(08:47):
the highest three are in California. Now again she's going
to get into her column here. Remember who it is
that's preaching affordability to us. The three metro areas that
have had the highest increase, And again we all face
the same thing. We all buy grocery such and such
here in the United States of America. But the three
areas in the last year that have gone up the
most are all in the state of California. Finley continues.
(09:11):
Milton Friedman observed that inflation is always in everywhere a
monetary phenomenon, but affordability the prices of particular things can
be very much a local phenomenon. I'll give you an example.
I live in downtown Milwaukee, travel all over the place,
work in southwestern Milwaukee County. I buy my gas near
(09:32):
we work. For whatever reason, the gas is cheaper here
than it is in Milwaukee, and so on. Is it
cheaper in Cedarberg than it is here? And do you
get your guests around where we are here too? Yeah,
there's a Woodman's. There's not a Woodman's out in this area,
but I hear Woodman's really is low any In any event,
the point is is that there are areas here even
(09:52):
in the metro area, which is the same thing costs
more than they do in others. And the point that
Finley is making affordability is also a regional issue. Containke
consider housing among the reasons for higher CPI readings in
California metro areas are fast rising housing costs. Riverside and
exurb of Los Angeles has drawn droves of middle class
families who can't afford to live on the coast. Yet
(10:14):
the housing supply on Riverside and for that matter, everywhere
else in the state hasn't kept up with demand. Blame
the state's litigation friendly environmental laws with strict zoning, which
raised the construction costs and suppressed development. In other words,
the point she's making is that even though there's clearly
a market for more housing in California, when you get
way away from the city of Los Angeles, the developers
(10:36):
can't do it and make a buck because of all
of the costs that California puts in place that makes
it unaffordable to build the new house. Continuing blame, shelter
prices risen four point four percent in Riverside and five
point six percent in San Diego over the preceding twelve months,
versus zero point one percent in Dallas one point one
(10:58):
percent in Houston. Shelter prices have declined by zero point
one percent. It's true that housing prices in many Sun
Belt cities surged early and the pandemic as people migrated
from states that had imposed strict lockdowns like California, but
more permissive permitting and zoning enabled housing developers to bring
on additional supply quickly, which has helped curb prices. Only
(11:22):
one hundred and eighteen thousand building permits for new homes
were issued for the Los Angeles metro region between twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty four, versus one hundred and
sixty three thousand in Atlanta, one hundred and eighty seven
thousand in Phoenix, two hundred seventy six thousand in Houston,
and two hundred eighty one thousand in Dallas. Now, she's
pointing out that those metro areas that had just mentioned
(11:43):
that had the most housing building were the ones that
have seen the lowest increase in CPI. The more new
homes that are going up, the cheaper they're going to
be for reasons that are obvious, a lot more to
choose from if you're a potential buyer. Back to the piece,
Vice President JD. Vans blames illegal immigrants from making housing unaffordable.
It's a specious explanation that doesn't add up now. I
(12:04):
don't agree with her point on this, but I want to,
in fairness to her lay it out. It's not as
if Arizona and Texas were unaffected by the flood of
foreign niagrants during the Biden presidency. One reason housing prices
have remained stubbornly high in Florida is a dearth of
construction workers, which as which it has been exacerbated by
a state law requiring companies with twenty five or more
(12:27):
employees to use Everify to check a new hire's work authorization.
I will interject, it is certainly true that we're at
not for illegal immigrants. Lots of fields, including construction, would
have a hard time finding sufficient workers. I think that
that's probably undeniably true. On the other hand, Democrats in
(12:47):
California don't want to build or drill. The state's milange
of climate policies have driven up energy prices in San
Diego eight point seven percent year over year, Riverside seven
point nine percent, and Los Angeles seven percent, even as
they have been falling in places like Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit,
and Houston that haven't sought to banish fossil fuels. Folks
(13:09):
in the Philadelphia Metro area have also seen a jump
in energy prices five point one percent, as the shutdown
of coal and nuclear plants in their region has driven
up electric rates. Another local phenomenon is legal abuse, which
affects insurance premiums and other business costs. Now, she goes
on the point that she is making, and it's a
(13:29):
point that I've tried to throw up a few times myself.
One of the things that's so ridiculous about the Marxist
running on affordability is everywhere they're in charge, things are
more unaffordable than when they're not. The more liberal the area,
the likelier the prices are to be extremely high. It
(13:52):
doesn't always hold, but it almost always holds. You put
a bunch of radicals in charging, every think costs more
for zillions of reasons. I'll make a quick point on
this and then get out of the next thing that
I want to cover. Milwaukee officials are carping about the
lack of grocery stores in the central city. There's a
Pick and Sand that closed, and the city officials have
(14:14):
been complaining and crying about this forever. And indeed, in
the central city itself, it's most of the mom and
pop independent stores. There are a couple of walmarts that
are set up on the edge of the central city,
and that's where a lot of central city residents go.
The grocery stores that are in the central city the
independent wants. The prices are extremely high. There's a reason
(14:37):
for that. When government officials don't do anything about shoplifting,
stores have to raise their prices in order to make
up for all of the loss that occurs with people
that steal stuff. Your insurance costs if you're a store,
if you're in a central city, are way higher. This
doesn't have to be The leftist policies that are soft
(15:00):
on crime and numerous other things all deal with the
affordability problem. This is an argument that's going to have
to be made over the next year as to how
Marxists are the last people in the world that should
be talking about affordability because anywhere that you have extreme
leftist policies in place, the costs are way higher than elsewhere.
(15:26):
And finally, this the following piece. I'm gonna get a
bunch of people who ask where you can find this,
so I've linked this up on my website, billing dot com.
It's a piece that was written by Nina titles it's
in the hill dot com. This is not a conservative website.
The hills Hill stands for Capitol Hill. They buy a
large cover politics and governmental than this story itself doesn't
(15:47):
deal with it. She writes about how medical science and
science have been dead wrong on a specific issue for
a half century. Not before I tell you what it is.
This happens all the time. There were any number of things.
(16:10):
I remember when as a kid, if there was a
show that went on television that was aimed at old people,
the prime advertiser was Jerrotol Lawrence Well, Ted mack all
this stuff that like your grandparents would watch Gerroto. What
Jared told was, do you, in fact you remember the
name of Jero Toler. Was that even before your tim Yeah,
you don't remember. What it was? Actually was an iron supplement.
(16:33):
Jered Toe was iron, and they pushed iron for old people.
But we've since learned that most people, not all, but
most people who are elderly, they have too much iron.
It's a problem. In fact, if you buy a multiviem
when it says fifty plus on it, usually that means
there's no iron in it. In other words, the guidance
of having old people pound iron right and left was
(16:55):
the worst possibly, But there's a zillion things that we've
learned with regard to thats. When they were brought in,
they were brought in as an alternative to the animal fats,
and it turned out the transfats were absolutely terrible. The
transtats essentially of the fats that were created in a laboratory,
and they ended up permanently clogging your arteries. And they're
not involved much of anywhere anymore. They're in potato chips
(17:17):
and a few other things. Otherwise they're not there. But
there are any number of things in which we thought
something was a good idea, and years go on and
you find that it wasn't. The problem that we have
now is that it has become so hard for the
leftist public health and medical establishment to ever admit that
(17:38):
it was wrong. In part, we are slaves to the
drug companies, and if the drug company makes a product
that combats something, we have to convince people that the
thing that its combating is something that needs to be combated.
Nina Titcholes's piece is on saturated fat. Paul's younger than me.
(18:01):
Your whole life, you've been told that saturated fat is terrible, right,
your whole life, your whole life. I still remember when
I the cardiologists were the first to pick up on this.
There's a the name of the book was, but it
was a groundmaking book that was written by Milwaukee cardiologist
Wheat Belly, That's what it was, in which they drew
(18:22):
attention to the real problems carbs. That fat isn't really
a problem much at all. And we're starting to turn
the corner on that this writer is observing that the
whole guidance that we've been getting forever and ever and
ever on avoidance of saturated fat is wraw. I'm going
to share the piece here and again, I just think
it's going to intrigue a lot of people. So if
you want to find it belling dot com my website,
(18:45):
we posted it up. She writes, for more than a
half century, Americans have been urged to shy away from
saturated fats found mainly in animal products. We have been
told to cook with canola oil instead of butter, select
skim instead of whole milk, and to fill our plates
with pasta instead of steak. Paradoxically, decades of adherence to
(19:06):
this advice has coincided with rising levels of chronic disease. Again,
RFK juniors on this all the time, all this guidance
we've been given, and undeniably, people in America are in
worse shape. They've gained more weight, diseases around the increase,
and so on. And it's mostly among the people who
I think of following rules. Back to the piece, As
people cut more saturated fats in their diets, the nation
(19:30):
grew heavier and sicker, not healthier. Put plainly, the war
unsaturated fat, rooted in the hypothesis that it causes heart disease,
has never been based on sound science. In fact, a
large and growing body of evidence reveals that saturated fats
aren't a menace, but a key part of a healthy diet,
(19:51):
and they should be recognized as such a national nutrition policy. Fortunately,
this long overdue change what appears likely to happen next month.
The federal government will soon release the new dietary guidelines
for Americans, the nutritional blueprint that shapes everything from school
lunches the hospital meals. Officials have finally signaled that they
(20:14):
will lift the decades that will limit on saturated fat.
This would mark a critical turning point. The misguided crusade
against fat began in the nineteen fifties when researcher and
sell Keys proposed a connection between saturated fat and heart disease.
But in his seminar seven countries study on the subject,
Keys cherry picked the countries that supported his claim and
(20:37):
ignored others like France and Germany, where people consume plenty
of butter and meat yet had low rates of heart disease.
Let me get interject, if you know anything about French cooking,
you know nothing about French cooking. Do you have a wife?
Maybe you do? What do you know about French cooking? Nothing?
Here's what I do. Put butter. Everything French cooking is butter.
(21:00):
And the point that's being made here is that this
Keys guy back in the fifties, he ignored France in Germany,
pulled them out of the study because France and Germany,
I think a German food that much harder, and French
food butter, butter, butter. Julia Child she tacked like the butter,
and she just poured them like a whole stick of butter.
And we put in a sauteed pen and so on.
Yet France in Germany had low rates of heart disease,
(21:22):
and they were excluded from the study. Back reupees. In
subsequent decades, scientists set out to test keys hypothesis. They
conducted a series of large, randomized controlled clinical trials around
the world, some funded by the National Institutes of Health
and rolling a total of sixty seven thousand participants. Subjects
on experimental diets replaced animal fats with vegetable oils made
(21:45):
from corn and soy, while the control group, ate the
traditional diets of the time, was up to eighteen percent
of calories from saturated fat. When the results of these
core trials failed to confirm Keys's hypothesis, researchers largely ignored
or buried them. One major study when unpublished for sixteen years.
(22:06):
Scientists who later recovered and reanalyzed data from this study
found surprisingly that the more the men lowered the cholesterol
on diet reduced and saturated fat, the more likely they
were to die from heart disease. Among dozens of review
papers on the court trials, not one could point to
(22:28):
evidence that lowering saturated fat had a saturated fat had
an effect on cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. It is
true that saturated fat increases LDL, the so called bad
cholesterol associated with heart disease. Participants in the court trials
on the experimental vegetable oil diet did successfully lower their cholesterol,
(22:52):
Even so their mortality didn't budge and there was little
to no effect on cardiovascular events. One plausible explanation is
that saturated fat also raised HDL, the good cholesterol that
protects the heart, possibly equalizing the overall effect on heart
disease risk. Another is that saturated fats only raise the
(23:16):
type of LDL particle called large and buoyant that isn't
associated with cardiovascuar disease. Saturated fat may even have beneficial effects.
The world's largest observational study, following one hundred and thirty
five thousand people found that those who ate more saturated
fats suffered fewer strokes. Yet, despite the substantial body of evidence,
(23:38):
federal nutrition policy remained stuck in the past. When the
Department of Agriculture and Health and Human Services issued the
first dietary guidelines in nineteen eighty, fifteen percent of adults
were obese. Forty five years later, forty percent of American
adults are now obese. Three and four live with at
least one major chronic disease, and one third have pre diabetes.
(24:00):
Heart disease remains the nation's leading killer. Now let me
interject the cardiologists who have broken ranks and the nutritionist
who have broken ranks, and this ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.
They have argued for the longest time that the problem
is sugar and carbohydrates. Carbs are sugar, bread, pasta and
all of this stuff. The drastic increase in the consumption
(24:21):
of them by people that were reducing red maid and
butter and all this saturated fat stuff. That has been
their argument as to why we've had this obesity problem,
that the problem was never saturated fats or even fat.
The problem was always the carbohydrates. The problem was always
the sugar. Whether that's true or not, this fifteen percent
(24:42):
of beest to forty percent of bees. What really changed?
I think back to pre nineteen eighty everybody was eating
steak and red meat and butter all over the place.
Why were we so much less obese than Clearly the
more sedentary lifestyle and all of this comes into play.
But it is certainly possible that the dietary guidance that
(25:04):
we were given was completely raw, which is now the
point of this piece, on the point of some of
the cardiologists that have broken ranks, and it suggested that sugars, carbs, etc.
Are the real problem and that saturated fats out a
problem at all. Back to the piece. We got here
by replacing the whole unprocessed foods that our ancestors ate
(25:26):
for millennials with processed, refined carbohydrates. Let me interchet A
regular old steaks not a processed food. Get that box
of pasta that you buy on the supermarket shows that
has an expiration data twenty thirty. It's all highly processed.
(25:47):
The processing of the foods often results in the food
being good for years and years and years and years
and years. This is me and not the author. Does
that mean that it's not breaking down in our bodies
the way that it ought to. Foods strongly linked to obesity, diabetes,
and premature death. The federal limits on fat are long
overdue for correction. The guidelines have long told Americans to
(26:08):
keep calories from saturated fat below ten percent of total
caloric intake and to swap butter for vegetable oil, full
fat dairy for low fat. There is no solid evidence
that these swaps will improve health or as at least
some experts behind our federal nutrition policy appear to have known.
Internal communications from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in twenty
(26:29):
fifteen revealed the acknowledgment that there is quote no data
to justify the ten percent recommendation. The scientific process may
have been clouded by pervasive corporate ties among committee experts.
Most of them, according to research published in a paper
ic author for Public Health Nutrition last year, really received
(26:49):
funding from the ultra processed food manufacturers that profit from
keeping whole foods off the menu. Those, of course, would
be your craft, after your hinds, your big companies that
do all the processed foods. Those aren't the ones that
are ranching beef and ranching pigs and all of that stuff.
They're not them. They're the ones that have a vested
(27:11):
interest in selling the process stuff. Continuing, thankfully, momentum as shifting,
policymakers in both parties are calling for a re examination
of the nation's nutrition policies. FDA Commissioner Doctor Marty McCarry
has repeatedly said the demonization of saturated fat in medical
dogma must end. Continuing to steer Americans away from butter,
(27:31):
cheese and meat ignores decades of evidence. As the next
dietary guidelines take shape, policymakers have a rare opportunity to
correct course and end the unfounded war unsaturated fat. So
guess what they were wrong all these years? They just
I mean, it's just the more we learn. But the
(27:52):
difference now is the new stuff that we learn is
being rejected because there's so much money tied into continuing
to do things the way that we've been doing it.
The twoc balls that I talk about all the time
that for some reason our lefties have now joined after
being against forever is the processed food industry and the
drug companies, and they've i think driven down our throats
(28:16):
this notion to do certain things, all of which are
in their interests but are not in our interest I mean,
look at it anecdotally. Clearly we were healthier before. You
look at what we were doing before. Everybody was smoking,
everybody was drinking, everybody was eating red meat. They're slapping
(28:37):
butter on everything. Again. I'll go back to my grandmother again.
She take like lord and lap that into the frying
pan before make it say all this stuff you weren't
supposed to do. And now look at us now, and
none of them were fat. What's the meaning of Christmas?
(28:58):
This podcast is being released on Christmas Eve. We'll talk
about that in a moment on the Mark Belling podcast.
This is the Mark Belling Podcast. It was actually sixty
years ago this year the Charlie Brown Christmas aired on CBS.
(29:20):
At the time. Peanuts. In fact, Peanuts is still an
incredibly popular comic strip. It's one of the few that
they didn't have a new author come in and take over.
They simply, you know, most of them were just timeless.
They didn't deal with meteor technology. The many newspapers still
run the old Charlie brown Snoopy Linus, Lucy Peanut strips
(29:40):
of the past. When Charles Schultz was alive, that comic
strip was just massive sixties, seventies and eighties, and they
started to convert. They did one a year and turned
it into a television show and it would tie around
a theme. And the Charlie Brown Christmas is one of
the first and the people who produced it, along with Schultz,
they made brilliant decisions. Vince Garald and his arrangements just
(30:02):
became identified with them, and they came out and they
were they're huge, and they still live on in rerun land.
The Charlie Brown Christmas Special became ictic. I can actually
say I watched it the first time I was around.
Paul can't because it was out before he was born.
(30:23):
But it became like The Wizard of Oz and a
few things. It was just shown every year, forever and
ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
If anything was a classic, it was it, and it
was just the story. Charlie Brown was always this kind
of loser and a guy who couldn't catch. He was
like a kid that was a Rodney Dangerfield type. He
just couldn't catch a break and so on, and he
(30:44):
was attracted to other people like him, and he fell
in love with this just ramshackle falling apart Christmas Tree.
It was like the last out of the lot. It
only had a few needles left. And it became kind
of the storyline for this, and the backstory was all
the commercialization that was going on, et cetera. And as
(31:04):
the program was winding down, Charlie Brod was just frustrated
and he said, doesn't anybody know what Christmas is really
all about. And that's when this extraordinary thing happened. It
never would have happened today. I don't even think it
would have happened twenty years ago. The only reason that
it continued to be showed on TV is to edit
(31:26):
out the next portion of the segment would have created
a backlash. But as it is, the Charlie Bon Christmas
has essentially been shut it off to streaming and elsewhere
because there's a portion of what happened that just makes
people uncomfortable. I can think of since this year. It
only a handful of times ever that the New Testament
(31:51):
of the Bible was quoted, and in the segment which
became iconic. We played this on my old radio show
a few years ago. Linus, who was the friend of
Charlie Brown, when hearing this question what's the meaning of Christmas,
responded by quoting the Gospel of Luke.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about? Sure,
Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.
Lives please. And there were in the same country shepherds
(32:34):
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night,
and lo, the Angel of the Lord came upon them.
The glory of the Lord shall round about them. And
they were sore afraid, and the Angel said, unto them,
I fear not, for behold, I bring you tidings of
great joy which shall be to all people. For unto
you is born this day in the city of David,
(32:56):
a savior, just Christ, the Lord. And this be a
sign on he you. You shall find the Babe, wrapped
in swaddling clothes, lying in an anger. And suddenly there
was with the Angel and multituded the heavenly host, praising God.
I'm saying glory to God in the highest and on earth.
Peace wouldn't will toward men. That's what Christmas is all about,
(33:29):
Charlie Brown.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
That program had a monstrous viewing its first year. It
had monstrous viewings after the in the following years that ensued.
And as they say, when you think of like a
Broadway musical, there's always the showstopper. That was the show stopper,
a cartoon character voting from the Bible on that character's
(33:58):
belief of what Christmas wants all about, which was the
birth of the Savior. He's right, that is Christmas is
all about. This is the mark Belling Podcast. That's it again.
Our podcast was initially released on Christmas Eve, whenever you're
(34:21):
listening to it, so if you're listening to a Christmas
Eve or Christmas Day, Merry Christmas. For those of you
paying attention to our schedule, our next podcast will be
released December twenty sixth, Friday, not Thursday. Better release it
day after Christmas and that will include our weekly football
preview and points spread Pricks. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
The Mark Belling Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts,
production and engineering by Paul crown Forest. The Mark Belling
Podcast is presented by you Line for quality shipping and
industrial supplies. You Line has everything in stock. Visit you
line dot com. Listen to all of Mark's podcasts available
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(35:04):
to your favorite podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.