Smarter Speakers / Church Attendance / Hackman

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome Rory O'Neil back to the program now twenty four
to seven News National corresponding on a couple of items. Rory,
good morning, start.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
First here with this Amazon coming out with a smarter
smart speaker AI a big part of this, I assume, right.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, she's called Alexa Plus and does have AI. Will
be much more conversational and obviously capable of doing a
lot more things. It can get you that ride share
vehicle from Uber, order your grow through some Whole Foods.
It can order restaurant food as well, delivered to your door,
all on your behalf. Much more of a companion in

(00:38):
this new form. Now, just two things to note. If
you have an Alexa device, it will work on that
for the most part. The ones with the screens will
those echoes with the screens, it will work better there.
But you don't have to buy anything new. However, the
service does cost twenty dollars a month unless you're an
Amazon Prime subscriber. Points already free.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
But you have to download it.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
I assume, well, right, that's the device itself, will upgrade
and update on ask for it. Yeah, you can ask
if you can go to the web the Amazon website
and ask to be one of the early adopters.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Okay, all right, interesting to have one of those part
I do, I do. It makes me nervous that it
might be doing things by itself. I'm nervous enough about
that thing already. Rory. But yeah, that's that's excessing.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
It just seems you are talking into a microphone twenty
four hours.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's right, that's exactly right. Hey, We've talked over many
years now about the decline in church attendance in America,
and there's a survey out now that shows, at least
for the Christian faith, the decline maybe maybe at at bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Uh yeah, perhaps it is leveled off. This is a
Pew Research Center study. They as thirty six thousand people
in this poll, which is a huge number. I mean,
most presidential polls that we'll talk about are like fifteen
hundred people. This is more than twenty times larger, So
a massive undertaking for this polling information. In two thousand

(02:10):
and seven, seventy eight percent of Americans identified as Christian.
That number is now down to sixty two, but it
appears to be holding sort of at that level. Forty
percent of the population in the US identified as Protestant,
nineteen percent Catholic, one point seven percent Jewish. We have
seen the Muslim population go from zero point four percent

(02:31):
in two thousand and seven up to one point two
percent in this latest survey.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Do they do this based on what people identify as
or do they base it on church attendants or both?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Or what this is asking people about their faith? Because
then there are a lot of people who say, I'm spiritual,
but I don't belong to a specific church or a religion.
So they try to get this all encompassing idea as
to how people perceive their faith in the US.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, they're religiously unaffiliated. I see at twenty nine percent
appears to have leveled off, so right, and we've seen.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
That especially in that younger demographic. That's where we've seen
things sort of stabilized. Look, let's face it, typically there
are these deathbed conversions, right, everyone's religious in those when
they're over eighty, and that shows in these numbers as well.
But they're showing that there is still this spirituality among
gens zers. But whether or not they want to belong,

(03:33):
say to the Roman Catholic Church, that's where things get
a little bit more gray.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Right, interesting. So we got the news shocking news overnight
of the death of Jane Hackman and his wife found
dead in their home in Santa Fe. No foul play suspected. Ry.
Do we know anymore yet?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, we really don't, you know. The Santa Fe Sheriff's
office actually sent deputies out to the home for a
welfare check yesterday afternoon. We didn't get confirmation that it
was Hackman and his wife and their dog that had died,
uh until late last night. So we're hoping to get
an update from the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office later today.

(04:12):
At least it sort of put an end to a
lot of the wild speculations out there right now.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Right right right. What's your favorite Hackman movie?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
I think about that all day. I find one, then
I find another, But I think I think Crimson Tide.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Wow, Yeah, good underrated movie there.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah that was a submarine right yeah?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Hey, and Denzel, all.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Those John Grisham ones with Runaway Jury and all that.
I mean all those were so great too.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
The Firm, Yeah, and the bird Cage.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Then you throw that in there, You're like, wait, well,
you know this guy could do.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Everything they really could.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
You were right about one thing though, Rory the Lippins
on the Stallions that way am I missing you gotta
see Crimson Tide so good?

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well maybe that's maybe that's a that's a streamer this
weekend from.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
That's right, that's right, that's right from Portugal.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
All right, Ry O'Neil.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Twenty four seven News corresponding here