The Monday Morning Mix: Volcanoes, Cheerios, and the Vastness of Space

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Mondays are for easy listening, and this episode delivers with four diverse topics guaranteed to start your week with a smile and something to ponder. 

The first story revolves around a tourist who, in the pursuit of the perfect volcano view, took a terrifying tumble off a Hawaiian cliff. Miraculously saved by a tree after falling 30 feet, this adventurer's late-night expedition without a flashlight serves as both entertainment and cautionary tale. 

Cereal lovers might want to sit down for the next bit of news - Cheerios is discontinuing three beloved flavors, prompting a nostalgic reflection on those midnight bowls of cereal with extra sugar that seemed like such a good idea at the time. Meanwhile, Gwyneth Paltrow continues the tradition of celebrities seeking relevance through provocative content with her topless cooking video that sparked a cheeky response from her daughter.

The most thought-provoking segment dives into cosmic reality, featuring a former NASA official's debunking of UFO myths. The sheer scale of our universe - with up to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way alone and potentially two trillion galaxies beyond - makes alien visits mathematically impossible. The closest star system would take visitors 70,000 years to reach us! These astronomical facts invite us to contemplate our tiny place in this vast cosmos and question why we humans think we're so important.

The episode wraps with exciting news about a new Substack featuring three unique sections and a mouthwatering question of the day about ideal meals without health restrictions. After all this talk about strict keto diets and missing sugar, who wouldn't crave a conversation about dream dinners?

Subscribe for more morning musings that blend current events, pop culture, and cosmic perspective with a dash of humor and personal reflection. What would your answer be to today's question?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, hey, good morning.
It's a Monday.
Rise and shine, wakey, wakeyeggs and bakey.
Alright, here we go.
I have four topics for youtoday, not two, not three, but
four, and they're super easygoing four, uh, politicians of

(00:31):
their democratic politicians inminnesota, killing two of them.
Oh, you know.
And I wrote a blog postyesterday for the victor girls,
where his wife was actuallypulled over on Saturday, had
copious amounts of cash on her,apparently they didn't say how
much, but they mentioned it.
They had.
She had cash, she had ammo, shehad a weapon, she had passports

(00:55):
and three passengers in her car.
We didn't hear, we don't knowany of the details of that, but
they let her go.
They, they, they detained herfor a little while, talked to
her, interviewed her and thenlet her go, just let her go.
They, they detained her for alittle while, talked to her,
interviewed her and then let hergo, just let her go.
So I'm thinking, well, maybethey thought she was going to
lead him.
Lead them to him.
Anyway, I wrote about if youcare to go, look at it.

(01:16):
All right, we need to move onto the silly stories, all right.
Tourist falls off cliff whiletrying for a close-up view of
Hawaii volcano eruption.
He's okay, he's all right,don't have to worry about him,
let's see.
Let's go to the New York.
Why is this doing this?
Oh my gosh, okay, sorry, I washaving a little problem there.

(01:39):
New York Post.
A Bostonian slipped right offthe edge of a cliff while trying
to get a close-up look atHawaii's Kalua volcano erupting,
but miraculously survived.
Why, if I'm going to Hawaii,I'm not going to go tour a
volcano while it's erupting?

(01:59):
No, that's not my gig.
No, I'm not an outdoorsy kindof girl.
No, that's not my gig.
No, I'm not an outdoorsy kindof girl.
No, thank you.
The 30-year-old man edged just atad too close to a cliff at the
Byron Ledge Trail in HawaiiVolcanoes National Park while he
was trying to find a vantagepoint for the eruption on June

(02:21):
11th.
It was the 25th eruption sinceDecember in Hawaii.
The man took a tumble over theedge around 9 o'clock at night
while wandering around without aflashlight or headlight.
Officials with the NationalPark Service said, according to
a press release so I don't knowabout these tours.

(02:42):
I'm sure they give guided toursof these volcanoes, but nine
o'clock at night was he just outthere by himself?
What a dumbass.
Uh, search and rescue teams,already on site to help manage
traffic ahead of the explosion,combed the area for the man.
They eventually found him 30feet below the cliff after a
tree miraculously broke his fall.

(03:04):
Had the man not hit the tree,he would have fallen an
additional 100 feet, whichofficials say could have been
fatal.
Instead, he walked away, he hadto wait there and he had to get
rescued.
Blah, blah, blah.
Uh well, I don't know why thesepeople do this.
Um, all right, we're moving onto the next article.
If you're a Cheerios fan, youmight be a little sad this

(03:27):
morning.
Popular cereal brand pulls fanfavorite flavors from shelves
and people are not happy aboutit.
I'm so sad not me.
That's what the article says.
That's what the headline says.
They're pulling um, they'repulling from Cheerios.
The beloved General Millscereal bread has decided to stop

(03:49):
manufacturing three popularflavors.
Here they are Honey NutCheerios, medley Crunch
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheeriosand Honey Nut Cheerio Minis.
Now look, I haven't.
I used to eat cereal all thetime.
I loved me some cereal and Ilike Cheerios.
I would add sugar to it too,and whole milk.
Oh my God, no wonder I gainedso much weight.

(04:11):
I used to get up in the middleof the night and eat cereal.
Yes, I know, no wonder, nowonder, I was unhealthy and fat.
Don't eat cereal, y'all Okay.
So anyway, if you care aboutthat, that's happening, so go
stock up on your Cheerios, allright?
Here is another example of a50-something-year-old woman

(04:34):
celebrity trying to be relevantagain Gwyneth Paltrow relevant
again.
Gwyneth Paltrow show now.
Now, look, these people have todo this themselves.
They don't have camera people,cameramen and camera women
walking around their home.
So she did this on purpose toput this out there.

(04:57):
The paparazzi was not all up inher home filming her.
She did this.
All right, here we go.
This is from page six.
Excuse me while I clear mythroat.
Apple Martin, which is herdaughter, cheekily reacted to
her mom, gwyneth Paltrow,ditching her top to cook a

(05:18):
boyfriend breakfast whilecountryside in Italy.
All right, first of all, whatis a boyfriend breakfast?
I don't know what that is.
She was cooking breakfast.
Why do they have to name thesethings, little cutesy shit like
that?
Did I steal your shirt byaccident, or dot dot dot?
The 20-year-old wrote in thecomment section of the instagram

(05:41):
video of the actress standingover a stovetop wearing nothing
but white pajama shorts.
Uh, on saturday.
So she's in her own home.
She's recording herself beingtopless, with the back towards
the camera.
By the time she turns thecamera around, she does have a
shirt on.
But why, why?
Why do this?
Why the Goop founder, 52 yearsold Gwyneth Paltrow is, was

(06:06):
amused by the model's response,writing back a laughing, smiling
face, and it shows the pictureof her.
I mean, she had to havesubmitted these pictures to Page
Six.
The clip showed Paltrow, whoshares unless they grabbed him
off her Instagram account.
Showed Paltrow, who sharesunless they grabbed him off her
Instagram account.
So there's another example of a50 something year old woman

(06:30):
celebrity trying to remainrelevant by thinking stripping
down in front of the camera isgoing to do it.
Well, I guess it worked, becauseI'm talking about it, but not
in a good way.
The last thing I have up is USgovernment uses UFOs as cover to
hide a lot of things.
We have known this.
We have known this.
Remember, they used to talkabout UFOs and somebody would
always say they're trying todistract you.

(06:52):
Well, here you go.
We got a NASA official tellingus that is true.
In an era captivated byunidentified flying objects and
government conspiracies, oneformer NASA official is cutting
through the noise and castingdoubt on aliens coming to Earth.
I read most of this article andI just find it fascinating.

(07:14):
I hope I can skip over to theparts that the reason I brought
this up?
Because we have such a massivearea here that God created with
space and all the planets andstars and galaxies and we are
the only living human beings inthis whole thing, I mean, when

(07:39):
you think about it, it justblows your freaking mind.
So prove it Honestly, prove it.
He said to those who believe inthe presence of UFOs on Earth.
They've been claiming thatthere have been UFOs since the
1940s and you know Area 51supposedly houses UFOs, he told
Fox News Digital.
Have someone go in and look atArea 51.

(08:00):
He says that during his workwith the NASA office of
Inspector General, he wouldregularly get calls from
individuals who believed theywere abducted or had a chip in
their brain from aliens.
Believe they were abducted orhad a chip in their brain from
aliens.
What I used to tell my studentswas the possibility of anybody
coming from another world tovisit us is beyond unlikely, he

(08:22):
said.
And what I would tell thepeople that would call me up
with these tales about beingvisited by aliens.
See a psychiatrist?
Yes, I agree.
Citing astronomical distancesand scientific understanding of
the solar system uh, gutt heinzthat's his name explained that

(08:42):
improbability of anyextraterrestrial visitors
reaching earth.
Here we go.
This is the paragraph I wantedto get to.
There are up to 400 billionbillion 400 billion stars in the
Milky Way alone.
There are maybe one to twotrillion galaxies in the

(09:05):
universe.
Let that sink in.
There are maybe one to twotrillion galaxies not stars,
galaxies in the universe, butthe reality is this the closest
solar system is Alpha Centauri.
Alpha Centauri A, b and ProximaCentauri are the closest stars,

(09:28):
he said.
The bottom line is that it's4.4 light years away, or 25
trillion miles away, and ifsomebody started flying to
Proxima and Centauri, or theother way around, it would take

(09:49):
them over 70,000 years to gethere, 70,000 years to get here,
70,000 years to get here.
He said.
Nobody is visiting us fromanother world.
So let that sink in though.
All of that, all of that, allthe galaxies, all the stars, all

(10:10):
the galaxies, everything, theexpansiveness of space.
And here we are on this littleplanet called Earth.
All the stars, all the galaxies, everything, the expansiveness
of space.
And here we are on this littleplanet called Earth, with people
walking around thinking we'reall that important.
What in the world?
That just blows my mind.
Okay, I've run over my time.
I need to do a question of theday, but I wanted to let you

(10:33):
know I've started a sub stack, Iknow, and Americanistcom is not
going anywhere.
It will still be my my mainbaby to to write on politics and
stuff like that, pop culture,things that's going on in the
news.
But my sub stack is going to bea little bit more personal.
I have three sections in my substack.
I have Suge Speaks, I have theOff-Duty Dispatch and I have

(10:55):
Stories from the Speed Queen.
So it's going to be fictionwriting.
So it's going to be probablygeared towards women over a
certain age.
So I understand if Mr Sean's agibbous don't want to subscribe,
I get it, but maybe present itto your wife.
I am kind of looking for like asmall focus group to follow to

(11:18):
these, especially my speedqueens, speed queen, stories of
fiction, just to get somefeedback and stuff like that.
All right, question of the day.
All right, I'm going to punishmyself.
Punish myself a little bit herewith this question of the day.
I've been on this strict ketodiet and last night I was
telling the gent how I'm sick ofit.

(11:39):
You know I miss eating good,bad food.
I, you know I still.
Of course I can still eat steakand stuff like that.
We just haven't had steak in awhile.
Maybe I'll suggest that to thegent, let's have some steak
steak tonight, but I won't havea potato with it.
You know I miss the potatoes.
The starches, uh.

(12:00):
The sugar, oh my gosh, I missthe sugar.
The bowls of cereal, oh, oh now.
I haven't had cereal in years.
But, um, if I had a bowl ofcereal in front of me right now,
I'd probably eat it anyway.
I, I like the results I'mgetting okay with this, but it's
like, if I have to think aboutit in long term, like this is
what I have to eat for the restof my life.

(12:20):
Yuck, I want to enjoy my food.
I mean, the food that I eat isnot bad.
Okay, it's really not.
I just sometimes I crave somebad stuff and that's what I want
.
The other night I was craving.
I wanted a whole container ofnothing but cake icing.
I was about ready to go to thestore and just get me some

(12:43):
vanilla icing and just eat it.
All right, question of the day.
I promise I'm getting there.
Tell me about your ideal meal,barring any kind, forget any
kind of health.
Give me what you like as yourfavorite meal.
All right, I gotta go.
Thanks for listening.
Love y'all.
Bye.