Bald, Blind, and Buddies

We welcome Gina Bennett, member of the Sisterhood who helped track down Osama bin Laden, to the podcast.

Gina shares lessons from her father and her thoughts on parenting and responsibility while she tells us about her favorite Mother’s Day.

Gina explains the difference between safety and security and elucidates the Hunter Gatherer approach to national security. She tells about Girl Security and why she encourages women into this t...

First, we stop to acknowledge the tragedy of the Texas floods.

If you can, consider donating to disaster relief.

Donate to the Red Cross

We are excited about our upcoming guests. Next week, Gina Bennett an American Intelligence Analyst joins us.

John provides last week’s trivia answer and serves up a tennis question.

We discuss the Supreme Court decision regarding nationwide injunctions and how much of the news coverage conflates the le...

This Fourth of July week, we pause to consider the United States of America.

We begin with a quintessentially American moment from Tim’s week.

John’s trivia captures both famous and infamous people.

Tim tells his own American story, and John offers thoughts from Reagan and de Tocqueville.

We draw from movies that capture unique aspects of the American experience from cross-country road trips to treks to outer space and from the fi...

On this episode, we tackle two vastly different stories from the news--the U.S. bombing Iran and the Supreme Court upholding a Tennessee law restricting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.

We begin with the weather, baseball and hockey trivia and tease upcoming guests.

We share our initial thoughts on the bombing of three sites in Iran. John questions the relationship between nuclear weapons and peace.

We visit the ...

On this episode, we discuss the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions and riots in Los Angeles.

First, we address Father’s Day. We offer brief thoughts on Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. John wonders if “reporters” are doing their job by waiting for lucrative book deals to publish important information.

John gives us more baseball trivia.

We discuss the riots in Los Angeles. John implies that the fact ICE is...

This week’s podcast is all about books. We offer a selection for your summer reading list.

We open with musings on the falling out between Trump and Musk.

John and Tim share a smattering of books to enjoy and consider.

Tim’s whack-jobs from the University of Michigan invest their efforts or money in nonacademic pursuits.

University of Michigan ends undercover surveillance contracts after Guardian revelations | US universities | The Gua...

We welcome listeners from Taiwan (Republic of China), American Samoa, and Bolivia to the podcast.

Both John and Tim get into the trivia game.

Reporting suggests that artificial intelligence was used to draft parts of the Make America Healthy Again report, undercutting value it may have had. John wonders why the report was produced in the first place.

Tim gives a chemistry lesson on how fluoride protects teeth and addresses concerns ab...

On this week’s podcast, a nonprofit in New Orleans has been using real-time surveillance using a network of cameras throughout the city to monitor for people of interest and then alerting police to pick them up.

We begin the podcast by recognizing Memorial Day.

John addresses racing trivia and Tim has a trivia question of his own.

We discuss what expectations citizens have regarding privacy and John describes related Supreme Court cas...

On this week’s podcast, we discuss how cars constantly invade your privacy, but the press didn’t seem to observe Joe Biden’s difficulties for years. Things might have been different If he drove a Tesla instead of a classic Corvette.

John answers last week’s trivia and offers a new question about horse racing.

We discuss how General Motors got its wrist slapped by the FTC for using your personal data and how this is the standard of be...

The Catholic Church chooses Pope Leo XIV—the first American pope.

We take time to reflect on Mother’s Day and do our trivia.

We consider Pope Leo XIV’s selection and take care not to trap him in his prior statements. We reflect on a pope whose history is so accessible to us.

John identifies challenges facing the modern Catholic Church including the role of women, celibacy, and marriage. Tim highlights how the Catholic Church is treate...

John answers last week’s trivia and offers a new question for sports fans.

Tim juxtaposes the White House entering the news business with its trying to pull funding for NPR and PBS.

We discuss whether the DOJ should get involved with medical journals and responses to its concerns.

We discuss the give and take that academic freedom requires, the problem of ideological capture and consider what can be done about it.

John’s whack-job has ...

We welcome you to Season 2 of the podcast and share some ideas including possible guess.

John answers last week’s trivia and offers another.

We each share topics from the headlines including arrested judges, deported children, and charter schools.

We touch on selecting a pope, a quarterback, and lawyers in California.

Tim’s whack-job from Wisconsin is chasing a conspiracy when there’s work to be done.

John’s hero stands up to Trump.

Refe...

We begin by recapping our weekends and John shares about visiting Washington D.C.

We reflect on Pope Francis’s life.

John offers papal trivia and last week’s trivia answer which Tim actually knew.

We discuss the case of Mr. Abrego Garcia. John sees it as a political move to test limits. Both of us acknowledge the President’s scope in international affairs and also want due process and the rule of law respected.

John and Tim discuss whe...

Ken W Good, an attorney who represents professional bondsmen, joins us to discuss the bail process and reforms.

Ken shares examples from Texas and introduces us to ‘good and bad’ bail reforms around the country, noting that private surety bonds produce the highest appearance rates.

Ken describes concerns with charge-based release mechanisms, and what practices during the pandemic taught us about emptying the jails.

John answers last w...

We are proud to have Ken W. Good, a bail bondsman (bondsperson?) and attorney, on next week’s podcast and begin with that news.

We revisit the topic of “student athletes” to talk about their medical care.

We return to trivia.

John recounts the consequences, thus far, from the new tariffs, and we postulate why Trump may be doing this.

John draws from a Post article to explain just what global trade has done for Americans.

Tim asserts tha...

We begin with thoughts on visiting our young nation’s capital.

John recaps history leading to the present NCAA rules around transfers and profiting from one’s name, image, and likeness.

Tim wonders what a modern university is ‘supposed to’ be and if the roles it tries to take on are in conflict.

Both support letting athletes share in the rewards of their labor.

John and Tim offer improvements to the NCAA system that try to decouple edu...

We begin with thoughts on the nation’s capital and reflect on the DMV.

We share trivia including a listener-submitted question.

We opine on how Columbia University quickly capitulated to the Trump administration and what this says about the modern university.

John shares thoughts from Matt Taibbi on how universities fail to deliver results and are isolated from the consequences of their actions.

Tim points out the fragility of dependi...

John and Tim, friends for 30 years, bring their divergent takes to the news, society, culture, and important questions of the day. What can a blind psychiatrist and a bald grad from the London School of Economics have in common—not much, except for an ability to laugh at themselves, to listen, to learn, and to dialogue. We guarantee you’ll learn, think, or laugh by the end of every podcast.