Podcast 215

Back In The Studio. After almost ten days on the road, back in the home studio for this podcast. And what a news weekend it was. The US sends ‘troops’ to Africa to provide logistics support and training in the effort to combat the spread of Ebola. Meanwhile, a movie executive says ‘apocalyptic tentpole movies’ are boring audiences. When you consider people getting their heads chopped off, and a raging epidemic of the world’s most deadly disease, maybe some people actually think we are living in a future-post-apocalyptic-dystopia. What does the media report, and what are the real facts on-the-ground in any of the situations we’re watching in the world today. We have no way of knowing. Do our subconscious minds know the difference between the news, and Game Of Thrones, Walking Dead, or any other end-of-the-world themed venue? More and more the commentariat really is an echo chamber, where pundits and presenters are talking to each other. This was one of the primary reasons for the ‘News Cleanse’, and the ‘Road Trip’. It doesn’t appear that these events – as horrible as they are – have negatively effected the people in the many states I drove through last week. I hate to say it, but life looks like it is pretty good for some pretty normal looking people, despite The Pope saying we’re in a sort of ‘low-grade’ world war three. Are we? What do really know about anything going on these days. The pollsters told us Scotland would break off from the UK. Scotland voted No. Do we make our own luck, or live in fear? Also some quick views on what passes for local TV Broadcast news, how the most quiet Atlantic Hurricane season since the early 90’s has effected cable television news, and the latest scare in the virus world (besides Ebola) EV-D68, now ‘flooding’, ‘mobbing’ and ‘crowding’ ER’s in New York State, where there have been dozens, dozens mind you, of this respiratory virus which is also known as a bad summer cold. It never ends. But…that’s what makes my job fun. Sponsored by Baklund R&D.

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Podcast 206

Boardwalk Empire and the 1920’s. A new guilty pleasure and obsession is HBO’s award winning ‘Boardwalk Empire’. 1920’s America was a time of great upheaval, social change and prosperity. Innovations like Radio, telephones, automobiles, commercial flight, electricity and mass production enabled some to make enormous sums, but also created a burgeoning middle class. As the nation’s wealth doubled, the Jazz Age began. Prohibition, depressed crop prices, waning unions and progressivism, the shift of population from small towns to cities gives this era real bite. What’s not to like about the 1920’s. ‘Boardwalk Empire’ is doing a great job showing the good – and the bad – from 1920’s America. If your image of the 1920’s is crowds milling around Wall Street in October of 1929, you’re really thinking about the 1930’s. In fact the 1920’s was an era throughly embraced by its young people, for its raw growth, music and opportunity. But it was also an America that had not been fully transformed by a national ‘image’, a time when cities were smaller (Chicago only could claim 2.5 million citizens), and every place still still claim some level of ‘uniqueness’. Even train travel as we know it today was still relatively new. Still ahead was the depression, the run up to World War II, and the post war world. Behind the 192o’s was World War I. It was a time of peace and prosperity. Generally speaking, good times. How does this era compare to the 1920’s? What kinds of discoveries, innovations and developments are on the horizon to explode, and transform our world – for the better – if and when prosperity returns? Sponsored by Autonomouscad.com.

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Randal O’Toole – Podcast 188

Randal O’Toole shares his knowledge about Light Rail, Street Cars, the Driverless Car, state and city planning, subsidies and the Highway Trust Fund, with The Bob Davis Podcasts. Cities all over the United States are spending billions, sometimes tens of billions to research, and billions more to build, light rail, streetcar and so called ‘high speed’ rail lines. These projects are designed to serve centrally planned cities with subsidized high density housing. Studies say this is what people want, but are the studies right? What is the history of this kind of thinking? O’Toole knows. Moreover, O’Toole is willing to debate, discuss, and write about the issue. Most of the time he doesn’t get enough time on talk radio, but he is a wealth of information. If you want to learn how to argue these issues, Randal O’Toole is the man to learn from. Do we continue to tax people, no matter where they live, to subsidize and maintain expensive transit systems for the elite, and to promote a vision of the future which may be dangerously wrong. Hear him as you have never heard him before, because The Bob Davis Podcasts will give him plenty of time in this podcast, and the companion podcast 189, to share those arguments with you. Sponsored by Baklund R & D.

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