11 Minutes to Enlightenment: A Morning Monologue on Celebrities, Pronouns, and Golf Coverage

Starting with a sharp, satirical take on Katy Perry's recent suborbital space adventure, this episode dives into the absurdity of celebrity overreaction to brief experiences. Perry's 11-minute journey somehow transformed into a profound spiritual revelation, complete with claims of seeing "the universe's heartbeat" – a stark contrast to the genuine hardships faced by professional astronauts like Sunita Williams who spent 286 days in space.

The conversation shifts to a provocative policy implemented by White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt, who refuses to respond to journalists who include pronouns in their email signatures. This stance reflects a growing tension between traditional views of biological reality and evolving social norms in professional communications. The New York Times has criticized this as evasion, while supporters view it as a stand for factual reporting in an increasingly ideological media landscape.

We also explore an unexpected controversy in sports broadcasting, where former PGA Tour pro Steve Elkington publicly criticized CBS for their understated coverage of Rory McIlroy's pivotal missed putt during the Masters. This criticism raises fascinating questions about sports journalism – should commentators amplify dramatic moments, or should they maintain golf's tradition of letting crowd reactions speak for themselves? The episode wraps up with a thought-provoking question: if humans were to establish the first Mars colony, who would you nominate to go? Politicians? Celebrities? The question invites listeners to consider who truly deserves to make history – or perhaps who we'd simply like to send 140 million miles away.

Share your thoughts on celebrity space tourism, media communication policies, and who you'd send to Mars! We love hearing your perspective on these modern absurdities and thought experiments.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:29 Morning Introduction
• 0:56 Katy Perry's Space Adventure Monologue
• 3:42 White House Email Pronoun Policy
• 7:28 CBS Golf Coverage Controversy
• 9:42 Mars Journey Question

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello, good morning. The birds are chirping early. All right, we have a lot to get to. I need to pack it in in 10 minutes. I'm not going to tell you everything I'm going to talk about, just in case I run out of time. I won't cover some of them, but let's get started, shall we? And yes, kenny, I'm going to read. Good morning, kenny Huber. Hope you have a great day. All right, here we go.

Speaker 1: 0:42

First off, I've prepared a little monologue for you about Katy Perry's ride into space. See, kenny, I do try to make it a little bit more original instead of just reading headlines. All right, here, I gotta let this go. Let it go. All right, here we go.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Oh, katy Perry, galactic queen of the 11-minute cosmic joy ride, more like an over-glorified carnival ride. What a revelation you've bestowed upon us mere earthlings strapped into the blue origin, shiny tin can. You soared, well-floated, for a whole 11 minutes, kissing the edge of space like it was a Grammy afterthought, and then back to sweet, sweet terra firma, where you practically made out with the ground, didn't you? Well, she kissed the ground. After floating 11 minutes in air, she came back down like she had been up there 11 months instead of 11 days. Give me a break, excuse me instead of 11 days, give me a break, excuse me. Gotta thank Mother Earth for not yeeting you into the void after that stunt.

Speaker 1: 1:47

But the real show started when, opening your mouth post-flight, didn't it? Out came the spiritual word salad, giving Kamala a run for her money, dripping with all the profundity of a bumper sticker on a yoga mom's SUV. I saw the universe's heartbeat. You probably babbled eyes wide like you just cracked the code of nirvana instead of, you know, taking a quick, quick, suborbital field trip. 11 minutes up there and suddenly you're channeling Deepak Chopra at a Coachella after party. Was it the curvature of the earth or the complimentary champagne that you whispered? You're one with Cosmo. Now, katie, spare us the starry-eyed sermon pop princess. You didn't find enlightenment. You took a pricey carnival ride and got a participation trophy called Astronaut Wings. But sure, tell us more about how those 11 minutes rewired your soul, while the rest of us are just like paying taxes and not waxing poetic about gravity. Truly, the universe is so lucky to have you as its unofficial mystic mouthpiece. Namaste, namast, namaste or whatever.

Speaker 1: 3:02

All right, there was my little monologue I created for you guys about Katy Perry. Can you believe that crap. She's not a Sunni or butch that was stranded in space for 286 days. She was 11 minutes, 11 minutes, and she's acting like she needs to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Shut up, these celebrities are so dumb. All right, what else do we have going on? Let's see.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Okay, yes, I wanted to talk about the Victor Girls blog post that I wrote about Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, who has decided to not answer email that comes in from reporters and journalists with pronouns in their signature blocks. And here's why, when you do that, you are not living in reality. Basically, that's the message when you put a pronoun in your signature block that tells everybody else that you think that there are more than one sex. Now here's the thing they dress up the word sex and they put, they replaced the word sex because there's only two sexes male and female, but they, over the decades, therapists and psychologists and healthcare professionals have decided to use the word gender, which implies there are more than two. That means you can feel whatever you want to feel Like. If you feel like you're a woman, but you feel like a man, you can call yourself he, him, no, no, that means you are not living in reality. All right, let's go read some of the article. Kenny, here we go. These are my words, I wrote it, so I'm going to read it.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Reporters who put pronouns in their email signature and think they'll get a response from the White House have another thing coming. Why does it matter? Because if you can't live in reality, you can't be trusted to report on it, especially when it comes to Donald J Trump. Our president, white House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt, knows that. So your email will not be answered, sir ma'am. No more pronouns will not be answered. Sir ma'am, no more pronouns. Journalists are supposed to deal in facts, not fantasy. If you've got preferred pronouns parked next to your name and expect the world to play along, you're signaling that reality isn't your strong suit. So no, the White House will not answer your email. I'd applaud them if they moved it directly into the spam folder. Want to be taken seriously? It's simple Just drop the pronouns. And, of course, the New York Times, of course, is not having any of it. And they have the big B-A-L-L-S to come at the White House and say this the New York Times disparaged the policy in a statement to Fox News Digital, saying it was an excuse for evasion. And here's the quote Evading tough questions certainly runs counter to transparent engagement with free and independent press reporting.

Speaker 1: 6:09

A spokesperson said. Independent press reporting, a spokesperson said. But refusing to answer a straightforward request to explain the administration's policies because of the formatting of an email signature is both a concerning and baffling choice, especially from the highest press office in the US government. Oh, that's rich, coming from a publication who loved to cover joe biden and his bike riding and ice cream intake. Yeah, those are some serious questions, aren't they? So no, if you're ready to ask the tough questions, just remove the pronouns from your email signature and then you'll get answered. So that's over there at the Victor Girls.

Speaker 1: 6:52

I won't finish that, but you can go. I wish that you would go read it and then share it with other people. That would be lovely. All right, this other thing is from the New York Post and I do want to read it because I'm just baffled by it. I'm baffled by it. Oh, no, where'd it go? Oh, hold on, I got to go find it again. All right, buckle in Kenny, because I'm gonna read some stuff from another article. Here we go. Oh, shoot, where is it? Oh, here we go. All right, this is titled.

Speaker 1: 7:20

Former PGA Tour Star Steve Elk Elkington eviscerate CBS for handling a Rory McIlroy's Masters collapse. So this commentator was upset that CBS didn't get all riled up about McIlroy's missed putt to go into overtime. This is what he's upset about. It's hilarious. I don't understand. It's funny, but I don't understand it. All right, silence is not golden for Steve Elkington.

Speaker 1: 7:50

The former PGA Tour pro railed against CBS Masters coverage Sunday and was particularly peeved over the way the network handled Rory McIlroy's struggles. On the 72nd hole, mcilroy missed a five foot par putt for the win and play-by-play man Jim Nance simply said we're going to a playoff. After McElroy tapped in for a bogey. That could be the greatest collapse in golf history and effing. Cbs says we have a playoff. Elkington wrote on X Calm down, sir, it's not a big deal. It's golf. That's how they commentate on it. They whisper and it's not a big deal.

Speaker 1: 8:36

It seems the 62-year-old Australian wanted a little more criticism of McElroy, who led for most of the day from Nance and the CBS analyst, after the Northern Irishman missed an opportunity to seal the win. The missed putt came after McIlroy, 35, hit his approach shot from 125 yards away into the right bunker. That was a wedge into the right bunker on 18,. A wedge Elkington commented. A wedge Elkington commented. However, it is not uncommon for announcers to stay quiet in big moments and let the noise of the crowd tell the story, and the shocked reaction from the Augusta fans did a good job of doing just that. So, yeah, you can go finish reading that. I did not put that on my X-File, but you can go find it on the New York Post.

Speaker 1: 9:28

Okay, question of the day. Okay, quick, because I'm at nine minutes. Okay, here we go. Who would you send up into space and let's say we make it to Mars who would you send up in space to Mars to live on the first ever jaunt out there to Mars? Who would you send what? Celebrities, politicians, criminals, whatever? Who would you send to Mars the first time to stay out there? All right, that's the question. Thanks for listening and I got it in in 10 minutes. All right, love y'all, bye.