Podcast 575-Surviving Thanksgiving

Podcast 575-Surviving Thanksgiving. How to maintain your sanity through Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season. As the final curtain is drawn on election 2016 the phrase “it’s all over but the shouting” should read, “It’s all over but for Political Junkies and others who can’t let it go”. Whether it is the cast of a broadway play, members of the alt-right paying homage to their leader, or Kanye West it seems sometimes as though people have lost their minds and are intent on making fools of themselves. Prepare for the toughest challenge of the political season: Your family at the Thanksgiving Day Table. A News Cleanse might be just what the doctor ordered. The Thanksgiving experience sets the tone for the rest of the holiday season. Podcast 575-Surviving Thanksgiving provides some simple ground rules so you don’t end up in a screaming match with your crazy uncle. If you are the crazy uncle these rules apply double. Back in the day people gave thanks at harvest time for surviving one more year. Today we give thanks for the new flat screen TV and stuff more of that cheeseball into our mouths. My favorite holiday is the fourth of July. No one cares what you do, or what you eat, or how much beer you drink and there are fireworks. Fireworks! At Thanksgiving it’s dark, winter is coming and we’re stuck with people who may just say things to see what happens. The culprit at Thanksgiving is High Expectations. People get very emotional. They want everyone to be happy. If you start in about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, everyone is not going to be happy. Among strategies for avoiding arguments or falling victim to relatives who like to poke at you, I mention techniques for changing the course of the conversation abruptly. Just bring up the Hollow Earth theory, Planet X, The Mandela Effect, the new Paul Is Dead theory, Time Travel, the Trumpets of Jericho and the idea that the world actually ended in 2012 and we are living in a computer. These are like conversational ‘in case of emergency break glass’ tools. Use them wisely. And have an excuse that allows you to leave early. Sponsored by X Government Cars, Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.[powepress]

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Podcast 572-Change

Podcast 572-Change. A Super Moon Walk and Talk Podcast in the wake of Election 2016. Disengage and Decompress from a bruising and challenging election cycle lasting two years. In Podcast 572-Change we’re going to talk about change. The election outcome was a surprise. While a Clinton win might have signaled some level of change, a Trump win signals change in a big way. Political junkies are still hashing over vote totals, turn out, exit polls, laying blame and praise. Leaving the political nuts and bolts aside, this podcast focuses on how we know we’re passing from one era to the next. Many of us feel that change is upon us, whether we voted for Clinton, Trump or some other candidate. What challenges and opportunities lie ahead? One thing is a constant. Things never stay the same. Even though we’re on the doorstep of 2017, sometimes it still feels like 2003. Yet, look at the social, economic and technological change we’ve experienced in the last thirteen or so years. The communication device you hold in your hand is more powerful and more useful than the desktop computer you used back in 2003. The technological changes alone are stunning. Staring up at the full moon in the middle of the night on this walk and talk, it sure feels like the pace of change is accelerating. When an era changes, it always catches people by surprise. We look back later on a particular year and say, “That was when things changed”, but we seldom know and feel it when it is happening. The music we listen to, the TV shows we watch, the clothes we wear, the political coalitions that dominated the news cycle, the rest of the world, how we think of our place in the rest of the world changes. Sometimes without warning. We’re seeing the effects of surprise on the faces of some people who feel they lost the 2016 election and at the same time a sort of triumphalism among supporters of the candidates who won. Over time this will change as people see political changes might not happen as suddenly as thought. Or policies supporters of the winner thought might be advocated for, aren’t. Meanwhile something else may be afoot. Let’s start thinking about change, because it is upon us, whether we want it or not. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization?

Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization? Adventure and Travel in Arizona at Casa Grande On The Road in at the Casa Grande ruins in the Sonoran Desert, in Southeastern Arizona. From the first century AD, to the mid 1400’s a people flourished in the Sonoran Desert. In Podcast 565-Lost Desert Civilization? I toured Casa Grande. Descendants of the Huhugham (translated incorrectly as the Hohokam because Huhugham is pronounced Ho Ho KAHM) are represented in many of the Native American tribes of this region. They were hunter gatherers who mastered irrigation from the Salt and Gila rivers. Their villages extended all along those river valleys and into this desert. You often hear from Europeans that there are no ruins in America as old as those in Europe. Of course the ruins in Greece and Italy and across Europe are amazing. America, though, does have ruins dating to a different culture and different people, much older than the United States itself. Some academics believe there were hundreds of thousands of people in this desert. They lived in villages stretching from what is now Southeastern Arizona to California, down into what is today Mexico. These villages flourished for many centuries before the 1400’s producing sophisticated art and trading as far west as today’s California and as far south as today’s Mexico. Think mastering irrigation is no major feat? Today, when you drive through this part of Arizona, all kinds of crops are cultivated year round because of irrigation. What makes the story of the Hohokam so interesting is their dispersal, which archeologists believe began sometime around 1450. What caused these people to break up and leave the area? Was it an overly rainy season? Wars? Disease and perhaps famine as the result of an oscillating climate? What makes Casa Grande so important and unique? Or, did they become victims of their own success, with too many people to support for even their advanced agriculture of the time? It makes me wonder what people will say about us someday. We think we are different but how many know that once there was a people who probably believed they were pretty advanced, and in the course of half a century or so, it all came crashing down. While we argue about something as petty as who said what about whom in these final days before election 2016, the message of Casa Grande might be one we should hear. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and X Governmentcars.com.

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