Do you know what amazes me? Women doing their makeup while they're driving? I saw that on the way to drop the kids off at school this morning.

Like a full face, like a full face, literally. Car was in motion, not stopped. The car was in motion. And I was watching her powder, her face  and I was just like, I gotta talk to Kate about this. I'm not, okay, look, I'll admit if I'm at a red light, I'll get up some gloss. Oh, that's fair. I'll put on a lip balm.

I've seen people do like mascara and eyeliner. I would be so afraid that someone would hit me and this wand would go right in me eye. 

All right. You know where you  📍 are. Welcome to your weekly breakdown, the silly and occasionally smart podcast. I'm Emily, a washed up tech exec mother of two, and this podcast was last week's Apple Podcast editors pick. Woo hoo. Yes. How cool is that? That was nice to have a little win. Hello to you. New listeners who've just found us.

Welcome.  I'm Caitlin. I am an actor, a comedian, born and raised in Montreal, in Toronto, currently living in Vancouver. happy to be here. I'm also the one who showed up last week, stood outside for 30 seconds and realized we're not recording today. cause you love it so much. I'm so glad. It's a habit. I genuinely do love it so much because every week we get together to chat about cultural conversations in the news.

We'll make fun of the latest pop culture dramas. We will judge each other's style and life choices and rant about life's minor inconveniences.

This podcast is brought to you by Hard Copy, the Free Culture Newsletter, that 5,000 busy women actually read, get curated recommendations for what to watch, listen to, read and indulge in, and to stay in the know on all things culture, work, and women. You can get that at hard copy online. 📍 



   We got a piece of feedback. We get lots of feedback. 

So sometimes we get comments on Apple, Spotify, on all the different podcasting platforms. I'm not great at   keeping up with them.  This is my favorite one.  The subject is more, please. Five stars. Oh, so nice.

Five stars.  Caitlin is the best.  Can she be the only host? No, she can't. No. 'cause Emily does all the work.   . on our Instagram, which is your weekly breakdown.   We got  a dm,  she says Hello. I have never written fan girl mail, but I would imagine that this would classify as such, which means that this is a first for me. I have not found a podcast that I genuinely love this much in over a decade.

Not joking. I just discovered you folks back in December, so Nice. Since I only discovered you guys recently, I have now gone back and will work my way from episode one.  Thank you for being so fucking awesome and real. And I wish you were both my big sisters.    This one listener. Oh man. She was like, I love this so much. You guys are so good at reminding us to be confident and giving us pep talks and keeping us informed.

and then you guys put yourselves down.  You'll say, here's this factual thing and here's all the research behind it. You guys put all the receipts in the show notes, like you're doing the work. And then you'll be like, but we don't know.

We're dumb, but what do we know?  So I thought that was a very helpful, constructive criticism. Yeah. And I sent it to Kate and we were both,  agreed. Agreed. Yeah. We were both made aware of this truth of we do all this work, we work very hard on this podcast. We don't just show up and then we dumb ourselves down and then we go, yeah, but we're just a bunch of dumb thing dongs.

 You're wearing this beautiful hot pink color, right? Neon today. It is neon. It's glowing in here.  Since I was little, it was like, don't smile too big.

I don't wear bright clothes because I don't wanna draw more attention to myself. Don't speak so loudly. When you speak, you go, do you know what I mean? Or you end the sentence with, if that's okay, but I don't really know, or whatever. To dumb ourselves down , to seem less threatening to those around us.

So it's specifically at work. Oh my gosh, I used to do that all the time. So it was a little wild  to see that feedback. It was a good  little smack in the bum even this thing where it's you and me in a studio talking to each other, we still do it.

What did you make of it? I thought it really resonated.

Sometimes friends of mine will say things they'll say things about themselves in a negative way. And I get really upset where I'm like, don't talk about my friends that way.  But I'll do it about myself. 📍    

 We can't take time off because the list of things I wanna talk about today is very long. I saw your list as oh, someone missed me. I did miss you. I miss you two. The first thing I want to talk about though, astrologers say that Monday, April 7th life will be better based on what Mercury  in retrograde  we'll end on April 6th. some relief Okay. Through to July 17th. If you were able to like, just journal how you're feeling and then take note of how you're feeling in a month from now.

I wonder if there will be a shift. I dunno, man. It's the first week of April. It's a new quarter. I forgot what it was like in 2016. This is what it was like as well. The news cycle, if you're remotely plugged in, it is extremely daunting. 

Just chaos. Yeah. It's wearing on me. Yes. And this is our job. We filter through so much noise to try and find interesting things that we want to talk about. It's like being in the middle of a tornado and trying to like pluck something from it.

How do you pick, how do you pick? Well, The answer is you have to be in the tornado first and be like, that's a cow. Yeah. Twist our reference. Great reference. 

Can I share of happy news on my end? I love Happy News. My show, the Chicken Sisters that I got to shoot last year is finally in Canada. I saw that It's on Stack, so it's on Prime Hallmark channel or Stack tv, however you get your streamers. There's so Chicken Sisters is out.

It's with Wendy Mallick, Leah Thompson, Genevieve Angelson. Skyler Fisk. Yours truly. I play Shauna. I have a Southern accent.  I like to describe it as a Fried Green Tomatoes meets Schitt's Creek. Ooh. So it's generations of women and family drama. But in a town that's a bit off, I need to be on this show.

Yeah, This is  📍 me.  I know when you showed up last week, I know exactly who you wanted to talk about.

Oh my God.   Lindsay Vonn. Everybody what a cool badass woman. The reason I want to talk about Lindsay Vonn is 'cause she just made history.

She became the oldest woman to podium at World Cup.  Lindsay Vonn is 40. Okay. Fucking awesome. She's having an incredible comeback. So she had a massive injury a few years ago,  while she was skiing, she's gone through rehab.

She came back, it wasn't great. So she's really been struggling. Does she technically retire?  Yeah. At one point she was like, I just can't ski anymore. And then, ah, I love this. In March, she was like, Nope. I'm gonna ski and I'm gonna ski my ass off. And she secured second place in the Super G race during the Audi Ski World Cup finals in Idaho.

It marks her first podium finish since returning from retirement in January, breaking the previous age record and showcasing her enduring athleticism.  Wow. And it's crazy because  the way that she skis is 

she is throwing herself down a mountain  I'm 42,  I'm not gonna compare myself to Lindsay Vonn,  and yet, and yet I'm gonna say your body cartilage is different at 40, right? I follow her on Instagram and I love watching her train and  what she's gone through.

Yeah. Like incredible rehabilitation, major injuries, major surgeries,  to come back at 40. I love that. It's the same when Serena Williams decided to compete again. Yes. I just find that really inspiring. It's also like when you see that their bodies are so fragile and yet so strong, One injury can take you out and that's why they work so hard and they are such incredible athletes. But it must be so scary to think that one wrong move in your career is done. I think they don't live in that fear. I think they work really hard on their mental athleticism, if you will.

Yep.  To stay in that game. As a person who is nearing 40 I'm literally like I had my shot like at the Olympics. No, just like at work and that was as good as it was gonna get in my career. 

I can't really compare myself to these people, but those stories are the ones I find really inspiring. There's a popular podcast called Second Life Pod,  and it's women who are on their second career, and most of them are over 40. And they've completely reinvented themselves.

And so as a person who is, who's doing that, trying to do that. Yeah. those are stories I need to hear. I would say if anyone is listening and they've reinvented themselves at or around 40, you can let us know how you did it. 

That makes me think of Juju Watkins.

 She's a college level basketball player right now. March Madness is going on. Yeah, it's a, we're coming into the finals. It's very exciting. Juju Watkins was playing for USC, which is like probably the number one team in the women's bracket.

And she was injured in her first game. Wow. She suffered a season ending knee injury in her game against Mississippi State during the NCAA tournament. she was up for Player of the year and she tore her anterior cruciate ligament and is out for the remainder of  Speaking of injuries, it's a slight shift in gears.

 The Epstein Whistleblower   virginia Gey one of the most prominent accusers of disgraced financier. Jeffrey Epstein, who also alleges she was abused by Prince Andrew. She is in serious condition.

She claimed on Instagram, she was in an accident and  had been given just four days no to live. So this account that belongs to Virginia, who also goes by Virginia Roberts posted a photo of her looking bruised and said, I've gone into kidney renal failure. They've given me four days to live.

I'm ready to go. Just not until I see my babies one last time. It, she was hit by a bus. Ah, so of course all the conspiracy theory people are like, oh, they're gonna Princess Diana her because it's Prince Andrews involved  she is a key figure in the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell investigations who were accused of sex trafficking underage girls.

I thought that was, oh my gosh, crazy news. My kids would say, that's suss.  Who gets hit by a bus?  This isn't mean girls, the movie. That's some house of cards, like pushed in front of the bus kind of thing.  I thought that was very weird.

That is weird. I another weird is that a cybersecurity professor From Indiana University has mysteriously disappeared as the FBI raids his homes. Oh. Xiao Fang Wang is a longtime computer science professor he disappeared along with his wife. But here's what's interesting.

Their profiles on the school's website were wiped ahead of the FBI raid. So they were slowly disappeared from the website.  This is raising alarm bells for a few reasons.  This guy has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity. Okay. He's now gone.

Incommunicado. No one knows why. so here's why I raised the alarm bells for me. One, why was the university starting to wipe the profile? Yeah. Or did he wipe his own profile to disappear? Two, why is this guy and his wife Were they disappeared? Or did they disappear?  Why is the FBI raid the home?  Is this like a, an espionage situation?

Uhhuh, we have no answers. So it is just a juicy mystery I really wanna know about. I do too. Some folks on the internets are. Worried because if this person has been disappeared that's without due process. And we've seen how the US administration is all about challenging what we consider legal norms.

Sure. I'm putting that very diplomatically. Yes. That's a nice way of putting it. 

 I know what you mean when you like, are things crazy right now? Answer, yes. Even just the other day Trump was like, I'll go for a third term. You're not allowed. And he's like, ah, there's ways around it. Yeah. Okay, great.

 But so much of what he says is bloviating.  It is interesting actually our current Prime Minister, Mark Carney, had a conversation with Donald Trump apparently in this conversation, Donald Trump referred to him as the Prime Minister of Canada, respecting our upcoming election.

So you're like, I don't listen to the things that Donald says. Noise. So much noise. 📍  

 Remember we to act about 





and trees in earlier episodes. Yes. I wanted to give you an update on the bees and trees. I love updates.   Are friends with allergies that are listening, know that the pollen, right now, the pollen situation is big time.

Yeah. It is the first week of April. And there are pollen records. In Georgia. Last week they set a new record for the most pollen in the air. Congratulations, Georgia. So Georgians and all of the deep south laugh at the measurement used for extreme pollen.

 Tree pollen is considered extremely high when it exceeds 1500 grains per cubic meter of air. last week's number according to Atlanta allergy and asthma was close to 15,000 grains per cubic meter of hair. That's a lot.  That's 10 times what is considered extremely high.

my favorite part. Do you remember the answer as to why there's so much pollen? Oh, it's 'cause they stopped planting female trees.

Bingo.  They stopped planting female trees Because? Because they were messy. Because they're messy. 'cause they kept dropping things on the ground.

How rude.  Female trees actually don't produce pollen and remove pollen from the air. Yes, they clean the air. And that's why our allergies have been so bad is 'cause there's only male trees. Not And they're getting worse. Yeah. And I hate to see that male trees don't do anything.

It's just that they don't do as much as female trees. They're just not as helpful. Botanical sexism. Look it up. I'll link to it. 

 And then with bees. Millions of bees have died this year and it's the worst bee loss in recorded history.  And the researchers are struggling to understand what's causing  in addition to making honey, they pollinate 75% of the fruits, nuts, and vegetables grown in the us that's $15 billion worth of crops.

The current losses are unsustainable. If this is a multi-year thing, it'll change the way food is consumed in the us. It's just, it's real sad. There was one beekeeper who had 20,000 beehives at the start of the winter, and he's at less than a thousand.

very sad.  These researchers are saying it's not a beekeeper issue. Is a national food security issue. Yeah. but they don't know why. I think the bees are saying, fuck it. ' cause what a mess. Megan Sussex is growing bees.

I saw that on her show. You know what? Good for her. Good let her make a one cut cookies pasta. She's going back to her influencer days.  And I love how much she is just trudging forward.

You know what she did? She was having a guest stay with her the night, and so she put little peanut butter pretzels in a plastic bag, but she took it out of one plastic bag and put it in a different plastic bag. And I was like, cool. Letter. Absolutely letter. But also  people are gonna find something to criticize. How is that different than a  influencer Uhhuh pedaling a 30 product. Get ready with me morning routine with our Amazon storefront page and encouraging you to go buy all that shit. You guys. Come on. That's worse.

This is, it doesn't matter.  This is influencer culture. And you know what? She got season two. I think people just want to hate on her. Yeah. I am so not a hater. I think it's great for her. Oh, live and let live. She wanted out of there. She took her print and left. the people who are like they've got all these deals, they know what they're doing. No, they're learning. They're improving. Her podcast is canceled. It did not do well, wasn't it? No. Yes. And so now she has a new one, right? Because they're learning they get to fail multiple times.

Yes. This one is gonna be with female founders. She has a really good podcast voice. I think she needed a better editor, and now she's actually with lemonada media. Oh, cool, cool. With Stephanie Whittle. They have all the celebrity podcasts, but they're edited really well. So I think that will be a big good for her improvement for her.

And maybe now that she's got a few test runs out, she'll be better also. She is what she is. Take it or leave it. 

Speaking of messing things up,  two bankruptcies to report to you. Today.

First one, I think more important. Restaurant chain filed for bankruptcy. Oh, we should have gone.   

I feel like someone took me once when I was a little kid, which is so weird. She's Louise. I know. So Hooters of America has filed for bankruptcy. Okay. And Texas as it tries to deal with its debts by selling all of its company owned restaurants to a group backed by its founders. The firm currently directly owns and operates 151 restaurants with another 154 operated by franchisees, 

they're gonna continue opening, they're gonna continue operating in a business as usual manner.  Guys cancel culture's not real bankruptcy's not real. The chief executive of Hooters of America said  a renowned Hooters, restaurants are here to stay.

By filing for bankruptcy, that opens you up to a bunch of protections against those seeking you to repay your death. Huh.  And it sounds like they're just doing a little backdoor deal where they're like, we're gonna sell it to the people that we are, but in a different name. A little bit like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that. The other bankruptcy that I need to tell you about, because it may apply to our listeners, is the DNA testing firm, 23.

And me, they went bankrupt. Have you heard of 20? Yes. That's weird. I feel like they just showed this is the thing love, self investigation. How many times are you gonna get your DNA tested? Oh, one time. Oh yeah, you're right. So demand has dried up. they file for bankruptcy.

 Their co-founder quit after multiple failed bio bids. Uhhuh, The company got a financing commitment of up to 35,000,023 and me's market value actually peaked at 6 billion in 2021. you are urged, if you have used 23 and me to go delete  your data,   they had a huge data breach in 2023 as well.

Yes. Which was a major blow to the business, I listen to quite a few murder and crime podcasts often they solve the crime through like DNA genetics. They'll build a,  family tree with a little bit of DNA and these 23 and mes have been helping solve a lot of cases.

So I wonder how that's gonna affect crime there's still ability to do DNA testing. This was just one company, but it's gonna stop. But I'm saying like Gen Zs may not do 23 and me. No, they're giving their information up in lots of other ways. Yeah, but not genetics. Oh, ma eye scans, thumbprints.

 You need to get on the interwebs and go delete your data.

So you request to get it deleted. I would do that. ASAP. This is a PSA from your weekly breakdowns. A beep. You know what's not going bankrupt. What? The olive garden. It's having a comeback. Oh, really? Yeah. So get this. Are we eating bread again? Are we eating pasta? Yes, ma'am. Carbs, uhhuh.  The olive Garden is getting a, a little bump up. And it makes sense because I said it and we all went, oh, the bread, the pasta. And we're now craving things that are nostalgic and comfort. Comforting. A 100% we're stress eating.

what the Olive Garden did is that they made themselves cool again. through like nostalgic marketing. They were like, we have  the never ending pasta bowl. It's back. It never left. But they're saying like, it's back.  People are craving comfort food. It can confirm.  People are craving nostalgia and so when you put those two together, you get the olive garden.  If I think about what I see with online trends that tracks a lot of nineties, there's this resurgence of nineties movies.

Big nineties actresses and actors Oh my god. The fashion for sure. The music. I'm just happy for the Olive garden 

we're talking about things that are comforting online. gwyneth Paltrow's daughter is on TikTok. Apple. And it's getting really meta. Apple, her daughter went viral because she filmed a video of her mom, Gwyneth Paltrow and her mom's morning routine, but she was making fun of it.

Okay. So she's like filming Gwyneth Paltrow's morning routine and voicing it, be like, this is what I do in the morning. I eat this until I shit my pants. She just goes on, is like, that's perfect.  They have to make fun of themselves. This is the thing. Apple Martin made this video making fun of her mom.

It's a TikTok video, which to be clear, Gwyneth would've okayed that. Absolutely. She okayed it so much that they then put it on Goops social media page   be like indicating that their strategy is to connect with a younger audience. And they're relatable and they're entertaining.

Yet Gen Z doesn't want clean and crisp. if you look at online trends and current marketing and the brands that are succeeding, it's way less polished. That's Yes. Yeah. It's more like, oops, this happened. Oh, that is hilarious. 

 Speaking of the youths,  I read the craziest true thing.

Tell me far right. Influencers are hosting a $10,000 per person.

 Matchmaking weekend to repopulate the earth. Well, This is the end of your weekly breakdown. We're all gonna go explode.      You wanna know the name of the conference? Wait, let me guess. Yeah. Loser Palooza.  It's called the Natal conference. Ew. Ew, Emily. Ew. Walk into The natal conference, which costs up to $10,000 to attend features, multiple matchmaking strategy sessions and onsite ministers so that attendees can get married.

Like, that. Like you know what? Because a lot of these kids don't believe in sex before marriage does anal count. No.  Organizers behind a protist conference with far right ties in Austin, Texas  last weekend have set up matchmaking events for attendees that include the option of getting married on site as part of their greater effort to repopulate the world.

The world is populated. The world is very populated. It's so popular.  a superior race thing. You know what's sad? South by Southwest did not have great numbers this year, and I think this is gonna have better better numbers than South by. Well, This is sold out, the sold out natal conference, 

 Has I quote, no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren. But the event, an earlier version of which was promoted by none other than Elon Musk, features speakers like Pizzagate Conspiracy theorist, Jack ak, oh my God. And Reya, an online pseudonym linked according to the Guardian two, Jordan Lasker, who discusses falling birth rates and promotes eugenics.

Natal conference organizer Kevin Dolan, a father of at least six. Ooh, is that what it says? Yeah. Has previous, you know of, oh my God has previously stated that eugenics,  the belief that white people are genetically superior and the prenatal list movement are,  very much aligned.

 So what is the prenatal list movement? It views declining birth rates around the world as an existential threat. And this movement has seen a boom in recent years propelled obviously by famous and powerful tech elites, including Elon Musk, who has about 14 children.

The Protist movement has been criticized as being racist and classist with some startups catering to adherence by. Offering to screen embryos used for in vitro fertilization which we know we had Elon Musk's daughter.

Daughter Vivian. We talked about her. She covered Teen Vogue   she spoke how she was a commodity that was bought and paid for.  She alluded to the idea that Elon paid for a boy Yes.  Wanted all boys. And that's why he's mad because didn't get what he paid for. And he has been awful online. He's repeatedly posted transphobic  comments online. He dead names her. He says his son is dead.

you know what, though? I wanna speak about Vivian, her full name is Vivian Jenna Wilson.  What's interesting about this is that. Yes, she has privilege, but also it's very scary to do what she's doing.

She's showing us what many trans youth experience in a less public scale, which is rejection, politicization, and the decision to stand in your truth in spite of all that. Yeah. And being estranged from your parent, literally, as you said, rejecting you. Yes. while trans people are more visible in media than ever that visibility does not translate into protection.

 Can you imagine? Yeah. And so for Vivian, what she's showing us too is that even if you have immense privilege, it does not shield you from harm or estrangement from your immediate  

So you know how for a while  Elon Musk as part of Doge was asking everyone to send bullet points. Oh my God. In the Department of Homeland Security. That was like last month. Yeah. Which is crazy because it feels like a year ago. It feels like a year ago. Oh, okay. So he was like, every Monday I need a bullet point list of what you accomplished this week.

No links, no attachments, and if you don't send it, we're assuming you've quit. This is what was put out to all the DHS employees, which is the Department of Homeland Security as well as the EPA, social Security Administration, and even the FBI. they're like, these have to go out every Monday, five bullet points by midnight, and if they don't comply, we considered a resignation.

Do you know who's reading these emails? Nobody. It came out recently that no one knows if anyone is reading these emails. It would be impossible. How many emails would they receive? Yeah. The Office of Personal Management hasn't confirmed any kind of system for reviewing them. There's no dashboard, no ai, no intern named Kevin scanning for typos.

Just an inbox maybe, or maybe not. We don't know. Essentially, federal workers are  sending their weekly homework to avoid because the guy who builds rockets and sells flame throwers said, so  and then recently Elon was like, you guys, you can pause that now. Just p don't do it for a little the US is Elon's company now. Yes.  And people are like still into it.   His most recent mother of his most recent child Oh yeah. Sold her Tesla.  he's cut his childcare support to her. Yeah. he alluded that he didn't know if the kid was his That's right. Which is hilarious.

'cause then he also confirmed that  he gave her two and a half million dollars and gives her $500,000 a year. Yes.  Because if you don't know if the kid is yours, you'd send the person two and a half million dollars. Absolutely. 

You wouldn't get a check. No, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, you know, look into it. But also you had Elon's baby girl, what are you gonna do? Yeah. Why did you do that? You did that. that? 📍  

  , we got into this conversation around nutrition and health   This is a great article soap to Supremacy, the Rise of White Wellness.   One minute you're doing the downward dog. The next year.

Listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the New World order, how did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic? 

You find these groups and you participate in this yoga, running, whatever wellness.

You follow influencers for their weird Get Ready with me videos that are oddly soothing.  Some of these people start talking about, pro-Russian views with the Ukraine War, it started with health. Like covid doesn't exist anti lockdown. Everyone was fed up with the government.

Yeah. Anti masks. And then it kind of became anti-everything. The BBC is lying. Don't listen to them. Follow what you see on the internet, And so there's this radicalization of nice middle class hippieish groups  I remember hearing a lot about this when I had little kids, right? And it was like, a lot of people are opting to not vaccinate their kids. And I was like, that seems crazy. How are you gonna get them into school?  And there's all these debates. Oh, I don't wanna inject them with toxins and  oh, they put too many vaccines together. I could see where the influence comes from  for different theories and different views and oh, everything's working against you. Where you would get frustrated with existing systems.

 There's many people who are interested in alternative medicine, meditation, spirituality, personal training, those types of views that fall within the mainstream view.

Yep. These wellness interactions, I think you build this trust and like you're doing it for you as such a good lure 

they like goop and Andrew ate. As long as those things are viewed as  entertainment. I remember I had a chiropractor once who said you could cure the flu with juice.  He wasn't gonna vaccinate his kids. He was disbarred at some point, but I, he practices now oh.  He was sharing his viewpoints while, treating  pregnant women or new moms.

And he is sharing this information with them that he's not gonna vaccinate his kids. So there's influence there. Yeah. And I think those are, and he's in a position of power. Covid definitely accelerated it. But what it tells me is that we're information hungry. Yep. And our current systems,  our healthcare systems are not perfect. Far from perfect. True.

And so people are looking for alternative medicine. I can tell you with my own chronic shit, like the traditional medical system, our publicly funded medical system does not work. It's not enough. Everything I do is private or alternative. And that's a lot to put on a not medical person to try to figure out.

 But you're right. It's a lot for you to take on where you're like, I don't know what I'm doing.

 Speaking of  health. 

The Trump administration has frozen 35 million in Title X funding. Okay. I didn't know what Title X is. Do you know what Title X is? No. Title X is for family planning. The Title X funding Supports over 4,000 clinics  and funded over 4 million visits.

It's Family Planning Services and Population research. Okay.  the act was enacted in 1970, so it's been around for e ever. It's overall purpose is to promote positive birth outcomes and healthy families by allowing individuals to decide the number and spacing of children.

So in 2022, they served over 4 million people, 90% of them were women. by freezing 35 million in Title X funding, it leaves eight US states without any federal family planning dollars.  The scale of this funding freeze is a bit alarming.

Yeah. Staggering, alarming, shocking, scary. I don't know. California, Hawaii, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi,  Tennessee and Utah will receive zero Title X dollars. Those are huge states. Huge. Most of Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Alaska will lose access as well. Other states impacted include Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

My gosh. Title X is the nation's only federal family planning.  It provides affordable reproductive healthcare. Birth control, SDI testing, even cancer screenings primarily to low income and uninsured patients.

Over 10% of the US population are uninsured, be clear. we knew something was coming. A lot of people had been reporting on it, even though Wall Street Journal had reported that the Trump administration had planned to strip. Planned Parenthood of its Title X funds under the guise of targeting DEI    

and it's just the beginning. They want to gut America's family planning program. we're talking about that. We're talking about this prone list movement guys. It's right there. 📍   

 I have some recommendations.

Bring 'em.   I enjoyed my time away. Yes. It meant that I just read Oh, for pleasure. Good. I'm glad. I was often reading like new releases or authors who have a debut. Yeah. And love supporting women writers. I'm embarrassed to say this 'cause I read a ton.

I have read the ACOTAR series. A Court of Throne and Roses, which is, they call it romancey. Is it Fantasy Romance? It's a mix. What did you say? Aar? Aar. It's the A Court of Throne and Roses. Oh, it's the acronym. Oh, okay. Okay.   I hadn't read Throne of Glass. Serge Mass. 

 She has a whole other fucking series. Same shit.  I made it through two. I made it through the Assassins Blade, which is five novellas. They're like a prequel. Okay. Toed throw glass warm  So I made it through two and then a friend of mine actually my neighbor had dropped off another book by Brandon Sanderson and it reminded you might like this trilogy. I'm a loser who keeps the boxes with my trilogies. I love it. I do that with my DVDs. Yeah. you have DVDs? Yeah. That's a whole other conversation.  I learned about Brandon Sanderson through the Wheel of Time series. Oh, I know that one. = Excellent series. And there's 13 or 14 books. It's now been made into a TV show. I've never watched a TV show, but I read that entire series by Robert Jordan. Over the course of a few months, Uhhuh, I was obsessed. I love fantasy. It was a male protagonist. It's very like Game of Thrones ish.

 It was written before Game of Thrones, so I think that's cool. Game of Thrones might have ripped some shit off from Robert Jordan. I don't know. I don't know. I know. Anyway, Robert Jordan died before he could finish the series. So they brought in Brandon Sanderson to help.

Co-write or finish the last couple books of the series. They were great. Love that. So that's how I learned about Brandon Sanderson, amazing fantasy writer I've had this trilogy for over a decade. I was hospitalized with pneumonia in my twenties, very random.

 A story for another time. I was in the hospital for five days. Oh. And you just sit there and your ask, it's so sore. So I don't know how I got my hands on these books. Somebody got them for me or I ordered them or something. But it's the Mist Born trilogy,  by Brandon Sanderson, female protagonist.

And it's awesome. So if you like Aquar of Throne in Roses Yep. Or you like Throne of Glass, Sarah J Mass. Rebecca Yaros, the Iron Flame. I would give the Miss Born trilogy a try.  

Speaking of strong badass women, have you seen Queen of the Ring? No. This is a wrestling movie.  The early days of women's wrestling? a sport drama, if you will.  I don't know a ton of the cast. There's one of the hot dudes though, that's in it.

Who's like my man.  Josh Lucas. Josh Lucas. Yeah. Oh, I love him. I love a tall blonde.  And Walter Goggins is actually in it. Our favorite Love him. White Lotus. Righteous gemstones. He's in it.  It is the story of Mildred Burke, who was the champion, professional wrestler who pioneered the sport at a time when all girl wrestling was banned.

Costumes are fabulous. A great movie. Yeah. Josh Lucas is in it. I had to lust over somebody. I had to get my mojo back. 

There's another guy. Patrick Wilson. Is that who I'm thinking of? Oh my God, the two of 'em, they're such nerd blondes. Oh yeah. Patrick Wilson and Josh Lucas. You love a big forehead?

 You like a big forehead? Yeah. Walter Goggin's forehead in the white Lotus. Jesus. Oh my god. I haven't seen this most recent weeks, but I'm excited.

Oh my God. You haven't? Okay. I won't spoil it. It's so good.  The finales on Sunday. It is, yeah. Get your shit together. You know what? I've had people staying at my house for the past few days. My uncle was staying with us for four days and my cousin is staying with us for the next four days.

This is what happens when you have a spare bedroom.   They're mooching your space. Yeah. And I know they're listening to this podcast. Yeah.  By her treats by her.

They do. You cant get a hotel for under $400. It sounds like you might need some calm and zen music. You remember the Band Boy Genius?

Of course. I love them. Lucy, one of the trio. Lucy DCUs  there's no radio hits on there, right? Like it's a very, you put it on and do your thing around your house.

It's very lovely and calming.  I love that. Oh, I forgot to tell you. We're looking for money, right?

A vibrator brand from the uk  are like, what if we give you our product and you talk about our product?  Is the product money?   We'll send you our vibrators. And I was like, how would this work?

This will not be on YouTube.  Emily, if we do get a vibrator from the eu, it's good news because the EU all has the same kind of USB. Cords now.  They made a law in the eu. That USBC, that port the USBC port. Yes. Is the only port allowed now.

 I have too many. And then I get the one end, and then the other end doesn't fit in because I don't 'cause they changed the charger. Yeah. The block is different now. So now in the eu, all devices, we're talking mobile phones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, handheld video game consoles, portable speakers.

Anything sold in the EU must feature A-U-S-B-C charging port. I think that is very wise. You know what, the EU does a lot of good stuff around technology, software, hardware. they're regulating it. I really like it. This is also like when we're talking about what can we do to help the planet.

 This kind of initiative of making the, all ports the same is gonna reduce electronic waste.

. What about using open AI to generate art in the style of Studio Ghibli? No. Thank you. Yeah. Big fat. No, I'm so anti, And then I went on the internet and I think we are outnumbered, I think more people on the internet specifically, which makes sense.  People are like, AI is saving the world, no gap. They said it's better for humanity. No,  for who? 

How, I don't understand why they think it's gonna make humanity better.  Is it gonna help with childcare? Is it gonna help women get equal pay? Is it gonna help, climate change? Certainly. Fucking not.

Nope. Is it gonna help people who are unemployed? Is it gonna help sick people? Maybe in some certain cases on mass? No. Is it going to feed hungry people? No. It's not helping humanity. What is your definition of humanity?  your version of humanity. When you're looking at fucking, I'm gonna make a cartoon out of this picture that I already had.

I'm gonna feed my information into this computer that's just gonna rearrange the pixels to look different. I'm gonna call that art. That's gonna save humanity. Do you know what it is? It's soulless. It's soulless. And it's also, it's nothing new. What I love about anything that is artistic or art, is that it makes you question something.

It gives you a different perspective of what you're looking at. It makes you feel something new. Anything created by AI is a regurgitation. There's nothing new about it.  I was really trying to understand, because I wanna be more articulate in having this conversation with people.

Yeah. Because I definitely, I have an immediate gut reaction to it There's this dynamic of the concept of art,  what's its purpose? What was the process? Mm-hmm. To create the art and what's the outcome? Yeah. 

One of the arguments I hear repeated more often is oh, this is allowing more people to be artists. And I don't think that's what's happening. No, ma'am. They're a client, they're a commissioner. And I don't agree.  What if you tried to draw it? Yeah. What if you just drew it instead of  you have your phone in your face, you're inputting, , you're feeding it either a description or your own photo and you're waiting.

You just wait. It doesn't happen instantaneously. And you wait like this and then it pops up. Is that art?   I just think that IP theft, which is what I believe it is, and some would argue is not helping humanity is not innovative. It's making us lazy. Yeah. We're getting dumber from using it. 

It's like someone saying I'm a chef, and it turns out they just microwave leftovers. That's an interesting, that's an interesting comparison. Hadn't thought of that before. You take something from a restaurant and you reco it or you rearranged it on a plate. Yeah. And now you're a chef. 

 I think the possibilities for AI are really cool. I don't think that's how it's being. It, I know it is not how it is currently being used.  It's just big statements like it's AI is better for humanity. It's too blanket of a statement. How, and so I ask how, and I just keep asking questions and then the conversation becomes very defensive and nobody actually has the answer. It's like, well it might do this, or it's hypothetical and I'm like, hypothetically, all these other things not helping.

No,  art requires vulnerability. It requires humility.

It requires failure. I think a lot of these  nerds the proponents of AI are afraid of those things,  we're also be being very catered to. And so our tolerance is going down because we're being catered to with everything that we like. And we're not being challenged by anything. 

We have this discussion when someone says, well, it's, it's good. And you challenge it. People don't like being challenged   📍  I was reading about these books and it's and I really liked the title and it was called  The Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls

cute. Yeah. By Elena Veli and Francesca Cavallo. It's for little kids. It was for little kids,  I think women of all ages read it. So these two women started this Kickstarter to write these  bedtime stories for Rebel Girls, and it broke records for the most funded children's book on the platform of Kickstarter.

each book features 100 very short illustrated biographies of real women from diverse backgrounds, fields, and time periods. The stories are written in a fairytale style, making them engaging and accessible for young readers. And it, their aim is to inspire young girls and provide them with real life role models and counter traditional narratives that often focus on male protagonists and stereotypes of what a woman should be.

there's more books coming out right now and they're doing a whole new series. the first one was Or sorry, goodnight stories for Rebel Girls. And  there's another series they came out, 

100 Immigrant Women Who Changed the World. 100 Real Life Tales of Black Girl Magic 100 Inspiring young change so cool. Isn't it great?  They've sold over 11 million copies. It's in over 50 languages. It's reached over 55 different million audio listens.

 That gives me so much hope that people wanna hear those stories. That's right. You always, you're like, am I just shouting into a void here? No. It's so connecting. The reason I found it is 'cause I was looking at this term, which is called the Rebel Girl Effect.

it's a shift in children's literature. And I was like, oh, what is this Rebel Girl effect? And it came from these books, these stories. Okay.  Not to leave the boys hanging because I do think it's important for the boys to have different stories as well.

They're one of my favorite books that I have and I read with my son and my daughter is called Stories for Boys Who Dare To Be Different. I like that. And it, again, it profiles lots of different men who've done it's good. I think we focus a lot on  all these girl champions.

Yeah. And I think it's important  to tell tales of courage and confidence and to inspire Mm-hmm. The Rebel Girls is also a podcast now, so if you want, you could listen to these stories too. And that's for everyone, I think. Okay. Melinda Gates is in there. Jamila, Jamil, Tarana Burke.

Yeah. So good. Yeah. Okay. Let's empower all young  📍 kids.    📍 Friends, we are done here for this week. Please click subscribe below, or whatever the little button says so that you don't miss the weekly episodes.

We'd love it if you'd rate and review the podcast so that other people like you can find the podcast more easily. Better yet, if you know another busy woman, send this to her.  We love being here with you. We love it so much that I'll even show up when we're not supposed to. We are so fricking happy to hang out with you on Spotify or wherever else you listen to your podcasts.

 See you next week. Bye.   📍