This week, Chris teaches us the art of gummy ingestion and sleeping. Next, we talk guns in the wake of the recent mass shooting in Allen, Texas. And finally, Chris poses some thought-provoking questions.
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This week, Chris teaches us the art of gummy ingestion and sleeping. Next, we talk guns in the wake of the recent mass shooting in Allen, Texas. And finally, Chris poses some thought-provoking questions.
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week, we talk gummies, guns, and Chris has some questions. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks, where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you so much for joining us again, and as always, of course, it is our standard disclaimer. Listener discretion is advised. We like to curse from time to time, and depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter. And we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff. So if that is not your cup of tea, then perhaps this podcast is not for you. But for everybody else, get ready because here we go with this week's topics. OK, so last night you texted me, said you were contemplating taking a gummy. I wanna know what the outcome was.
Chris:Well, I did, but I only, so, we'll just put all the, we gotta start from ground zero here. So, all right. You and I took these, but we took a whole one. Yeah. And wow. Yeah, it was good stuff. It was good stuff, but it worked. Damn. Yeah, it worked. So I was sitting here, I'd had a couple of drinks and just two, but I was like, I want something I. And I didn't want that kind of maximum feeling that we had had before when we took it. And so it's like, well, I'm gonna do less than that, and I was gonna do half. And then I thought, well, I think I'll just do a quarter and because I know what a hole in does. Yeah. So let's back off of that and see where you start to feel anything. Well, after 45 minutes or so, I questioned whether I was feeling anything in my head, like, was I feeling any, you know, dizziness, spending, all of that? Not really. And, and it, I, I might have just a little bit, but it really wasn't much different from just feeling a relaxation or whatever from drinks. But then I started feeling so tired. I mean, I just, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Wow. And so it was a very different experience than having the whole one and feeling kind of hyped up and laughing and all of that. This almost had the complete opposite effect, so it was weird. Interesting. And just to go on the record here, this stuff is totally legal in Texas. This is not this, so I'm not an expert on this stuff by a long shot. It doesn't have very much THC in it or any THC, or, I don't know what it is. There's Delta eight, there's Delta nine, so this is, yeah, so this came from a CBD store, so that's legal in Texas. The, it's really, OK, so first of all, and I'm not an expert on this either, but I, I think hemp and marijuana are two different things. They're, they're related, but not identical. So this is from hemp for whatever difference that makes. OK. It cannot contain more than some percentage of thc, but part of the way they get around that is that that percent, that's percentage by weight. So they make bigger gummies, I think. OK. And, and that allows them to have
Jeff:more, I've heard when the state legislature legalized hemp or allowed for the, the sale of it or whatever, I, I heard they screwed it up. They, they wrote it in such a way that it still allows that kind of stuff to be sold and maybe it is by the weight thing or whatever. I just remember hearing after that and reading an article on how they screwed it up. Yeah. Um, but I didn't really understand it at the time, and I'm not sure I really understand it now, but whatever. Yeah, they work. Whatever we took works,
Chris:they work. And you go in the CBD store and these people, I mean, I've been in, in two different stores, but talked to three different people in these stores. Mm-hmm. That work there. They're crazy knowledgeable. I mean, yeah. They can tell you about all of these strains and the way they're prepared. You know, when they press'em, dry'em, get the oil out, all this kind of stuff. I'm like, holy shit. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I just want it to work and I don't really care how you get there. And, but, but they know their stuff. That's the point. And they have tried, they have explained. I was going to say, tried to explain, they've explained, I've tried to understand Yeah. What, what the, the kind of loophole is in Texas and I, I still don't completely get it. I know it has to do with percentage, but I know they get around that percentage in certain ways. And Yeah, I can tell you, and you can certainly back it up, these gummies are Delta nine, which is the kind of stuff that they sell in other states where marijuana is completely legal for recreational use. Right. So it is Delta nine and Wow. Yeah, it works.
Jeff:So, man, they, they came on hard and fast like it was Yeah.
Chris:Much faster than I expected. Yeah. Well, we timed it and it was 30 minutes because they said, they said it could take 60 to 90 minutes. And like 30 minutes in, I started questioning it. And then you did too. I was like, well, we're onto something here.
Jeff:Yep. No kidding. So take a quarter and then you had a drink or two. Yeah. And that just mellowed you out, made you sleepy it, yeah,
Chris:mellowed me out. Made me sleepy. I was trying to watch TV and mm-hmm. Now this is a little bit of the effect. I felt like I wasn't, I wasn't completely following it. Like what just happened? Yeah. But I was also feeling sleepy and there were times I was closing my eyes and almost nodding off. So then I realize that, and I have to run the TV back. I got to the point that I had run the same scene back like three times and I still wasn't getting it, so I just turned it off.
Jeff:Yeah, that's a sign that is time to go to bed. Yeah. Hell, if you'll excuse us. Yeah. We need to get the best. That's funny. It's good
Chris:stuff though, and I mean, yeah, it is. You know that, that's kind of good to know too, that yeah, you can take a small amount. It's not going to, you know, completely jack you, but Right. It's enough to, yeah. Calm you, help you sleep, whatever. I woke up today, you know, didn't feel any kind of after effect at all.
Jeff:Have you, do you take Benadryl ever?
Chris:No, I, I did some when I was younger, when I really needed to. Um, I usually will just take some other antihistamine if I need to, but yeah, that stuff, I know where you're going with that. Man, that will not me out. Yeah.
Jeff:So I will, I'll break a tablet in half and take that and holy hell, I don't know what it is, but that stuff knocks me out. Yeah. And if I, so I'd never taken Benadryl before, but my allergies were typically bad or, or particularly bad on this one day or whatever. And my dad told me that he always takes two. And I was like, OK, that's what I'll do. Well, holy
Chris:shit, man.
Jeff:First of all, I slept for like 10 hours. Yeah. And I felt like I weighed 400 pounds when I was getting out of bed. Like my hands were tingling, but they felt heavy. My legs felt heavy. So now I just break one of those in half, but. That's good to know. Take a quarter of one of those gummies and yeah, try it out.
Chris:See how, see how
Jeff:that goes for you. Yeah. I'll report back too.
Chris:Yeah, do that. Well, and we talked about, you know, maybe one of these days we'll do a show where we've had something too.
Jeff:Oh yeah. That'll be a good experience. Either both of us or just one of us.
Chris:Yeah, that'll be hilarious.
Jeff:OK, so I don't wanna spend a long time on this, but this is something everybody's talking about, and it is the mass shooting in Allen, Texas, which I think the death toll is now nine. Nine or 10. And there were several more sent to the hospital. I don't know all the specifics of it. I know the cops killed the guy. He acted alone. I saw a picture of him. He had like tactical vest on. He had a, a rifle, you know, AR 15 type rifle, which is what these mass shooters love to use. And I mean, I don't even know what to say. It's just, it's another day in America. It's a mass shooting, but this one is closer to us. And I know that shouldn't matter when you're talking about, you know, an event like this, but it does mean a little bit more when it's closer to you. And I don't know what to say other than that. It pisses me off and it kind of dominates my thoughts, but nothing will happen because no, we have a bunch of cowards in our legislature and in Congress who refuse to try anything to stop this when this doesn't happen in other countries. And we're just like a hamster on a treadmill, uh, or on a wheel. It'll just keep going. Again, it's thoughts and prayers and then nothing happens. Nothing changes. Yeah.
Chris:Well, they don't want to do anything cuz they're getting their pockets lined. That's, that's all it is. It's all about money. If it, if it weren't, I mean, I can't imagine that, that they're really OK with people getting killed. I mean, they can't really be OK with that. So anybody's common sense would say, well then you gotta do something different. They've just talked themselves out of thinking that, uh, not, I don't know if what they think they've talked themselves out of publicly acknowledging that doing anything is gonna make a difference and we have enough evidence in other places. That surely it can make a difference. Yeah. And it's just ridiculous that we have to put up with that. And I went, right, it happened to be after the fact. And at the time I didn't know, cuz it was soon enough after the fact. But I went right by that place yesterday and I, I did see, uh, I can't remember when I saw it, but I saw at one point a news headline that said, oh, there was a shooting at an outlet mall in Texas. Well, first of all, it didn't occur to me that that might be around here. So you say that like, you know, it, it gets your attention more mm-hmm When it's close. Well it does because you always just assume that these things happen somewhere else. You know? Yeah. It, it's, this can't happen to me. It's not gonna happen here. It doesn't happen to people I know. Whatever. And the fact is, it does, it's, that's everybody on TV that always says the same thing. Wow. I didn't think that could happen here. And, and to know that, that was just literally up the road. It, it, it is scary and it's crazy to recognize that those things can, can literally happen just in your backyard like that.
Jeff:Uh, a cop out among the pro-gun people right now seems to be that it's a mental health issue. Mm-hmm. As if other countries don't also have citizens with mental health issues. Canadians have mental health issues. People in the UK have mental health issues all over Europe. People have mental health issues and this doesn't happen in other countries. Right. And people say, well, it's just, uh, it's ridiculous to think that you could even do anything about it. Evil people are gonna find a way to kill other people. And, OK, so what is the, like, I don't understand what people are saying when they say that. Are they saying like, we don't need laws at all? Is that what you're saying? Like, if people are still gonna find a way to break the law, then why do we have laws? Right. That makes no sense whatsoever. And then, uh, other people say it's a societal issue. Like, like people are just crazy. They're, they're, uh, you know, out for blood or whatever. Well, if that's the fucking case, then why are we making it so easy for those crazy people to get their hands on guns? Exactly. Like, why not make it harder? If we have a bunch of nuts in our society, more so than other countries, then why are you making it easier for them to get guns that make killing super easy? I just don't get it.
Chris:I don't either. And it, I just, I want the answers to those questions, like, what's going on behind the scenes? Is there something going on behind the scenes that we don't know, or is it as obvious as it seems, is there just getting their pockets lined by the NRA and gun manufacturers and whoever else to keep things the way they are? I mean, yeah, that does make sense. I just want to know, are we missing something? Is that it? Is that really all there is to it?
Jeff:And, and what has happened? What has happened in the, the past? I, I don't, I mean, you can go back 50 years or more, but our government used to respond to this type of stuff, so mm-hmm. They passed the, um, it was the National Firearms Act, and there might have been another one in the 1930s. Uh, and that was a response to prohibition. People like Al Capone and his gang and all that. They, they were out gunning cops on the street. They had sought off shotguns. Those were legal, uh, machine guns. Those were legal, and Congress got a handle on that. And they put all kinds of restrictions on, on rifles. In that case, you know, you can't have a sought off shotgun now you can't have, well now you can get auto fully automatic guns, but it's really, really hard to do, and you have to pay like a lot of money to do it. Mm-hmm. And then in the 1960s when we had assassinations happening, seemingly like every year, but uh, Kennedy was killed. J F k Oswald ordered that rifle through the mail. When Martin Luther King Jr. Was killed, James Earl Ray ordered his rifle through the mail. Really? And finally Congress was like, you know, that's probably not the best thing in the world for somebody to just be able to order a rifle out of a magazine, so let's make that illegal. And now, right. What does Congress do? They don't do Jack shit. Exactly. It's just, it's
Chris:frustrating. Well, I didn't realize both of I knew Oswald got his that way. I didn't know that that was a more common way to do it, but mm-hmm. We talked about this before I, I think on here some years ago up in Michigan, because that's a very pro-gun state. There were Yeah. Banks giving away free rifles to people that opened new bank accounts. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. That was in, uh, bowling for Columbine, I think. Oh,
Chris:that's right. Yeah. It sure was.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah, he walks in and opens an account and walks out with our rifles.
Chris:Yes.
Jeff:What the fuck, man, I don't know. I don't really have anything more to say. I mean, there is more to say, but it's just, it's frustrating and depressing and it is, makes me respond.
Chris:Everything that there is to say has been said and it's not making any difference. That's it.
Jeff:Yes. OK. Yeah, it does. Yeah. You articulated that, uh, exactly what I was feeling. Yeah.
Chris:Yeah. Cuz I don't know what, I don't know what else to say either. I feel like everybody else has said it in good ways. I've tried to say what I think about it, and I, and I've said on here too, you know, I'm not an anti-gun person either. However, and having said that, you know, if we were to become a country that didn't allow guns, period. I'm not saying I would necessarily be against that either. My, mm-hmm. My not being anti-gun is that, well, if we're going to allow guns, then I think a person like me being that I can pass background checks, I don't have major mental problems. You know, things like that is like, yeah, I should be able to get a gun if other people can get guns, because I'm not one of those people. Yeah. But I also am completely in favor of having, I mean, you wanna make it, you wanna make it harder to get guns stricter. To get guns. I say Go for it, because yeah, if, if it affects me, then it's going to, it's certainly gonna affect all of the other people who shouldn't have them. And it may affect other people that today we say, uh, they can have it. Well, OK, so what if they can't? I mean, everybody, I say everybody, um, y you know, there are a lot of arguments in saying, well, that, you know, constitutional right, which is up for debate anyway, but saying that that constitutional right was put out there for citizens to help protect themselves from the government, then it's like, you know what? You're not protecting yourself from the government anymore with any, you could have all of the fire power that you could legally and probably even illegally get. Mm-hmm. You're not standing up to the
Jeff:government. You're no match for the US military.
Chris:No. I mean, if, if we wanna allow people to have guns, that's one thing, but let's just call it what it is. It's not about what it may have started as because there's no way that people who wrote the constitution going on 250 years ago could have anticipated the kind of firepower that exists today. Right?
Jeff:No way. Very, very different back in 1791 when that that amendment was put in there on a happier note, or I think it's happier. I have no idea. But I think you have some questions and I'm a little nervous cuz I have no idea what this is about.
Chris:Well, so we have talked about doing this before, and I will quote the source here. So this is from the, the book is called The Book of Questions, but uh, this is by Gregory Stock, and they put out multiple versions of these. Books back in the eighties, nineties, sometime in there. And so they have some that was just called the book of questions, which is all kinds of generic kinds of questions. This particular one is called Business Politics and Ethics. And so there's some great questions in there. It's uh, a little bit in the vein of a would you rather, but you know, kind of, Hey, if you were in this kind of hypothetical situation, what would you do? So I'm just gonna start with one off the top. Could you feel free if you were prohibited by law from changing careers? What if you were allowed to, but knew you could never afford to take such a risk? Well,
Jeff:the second one, OK, the first one sounds like communism. Mm-hmm. The second one sounds like capitalism.
Chris:Exactly. That's exactly what I thought is the second part sounded like what most people that we know would experience on a day-to-day basis.
Jeff:Right, exactly. If you are, uh, if you have money and a lot of disposable income, you can afford to take risks. And one of the biggest risks you can take is totally switching careers, going in a, in a new, new direction there. But yeah, most of the people we know, me included. I, I can't, I couldn't do that unless it would have to be a 100% surefire thing, and I don't know that that exists. No, but the other way I could, no, I couldn't feel free if, if I was, if, if a governing authority was telling me this is what my job is gonna be, that's, yeah, that's communism. Yeah, I don't want that. Well,
Chris:and then you've also just got societal, what am I trying to say? Countries like India, that's a cast system, you know? Mm-hmm. Where you, you are, what you're born into and yeah, that dictates it too. So it may not be as much of a government thing as a societal thing, as in, OK, true. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is what you do because this is who you are. That would be horrible.
Jeff:Does this book offer any, uh, insight, or is it, it just gives you the question and then that's it. It
Chris:just gives you the question. Now this one does have a follow up question, so I'll go to that too. What does freedom mean to you? Wow. Is it important to you to have freedoms that you are unable to exercise?
Jeff:Important to have freedoms that I'm unable to exercise. Yeah. What
Chris:is it? Well, OK, so that's, you have the freedom to change jobs, but you may be unable to exercise that
Jeff:freedom. So maybe, uh, yeah. More in the abstract. Sure. I guess it's important, but I tend to look at freedom in a bit of a different way. Maybe I, I actually asked this to my students in my, uh, American government course, like an early on in the semester, you know, what does it mean to be American? What does freedom mean to you? And a common answer is that they're free to kind of be what they want, who they want, whatever. It's, it's that so-called American Dream. I can, you know, be whatever I want to be. There's nothing in place, there's no caste system. There's no governing authority that's telling me that I can't. So yes, to be what I want to be for sure is freedom, but, Freedom within our capitalist system, to me also means being able to afford basic necessities that I'm gonna need. Yeah. Like healthcare, not paying exorbitant amounts for that. And when I look at that kind of stuff, I say no, I'm not particularly free. Freedom to me also means that I should be able to go be able to go to an outlet mall and not have a fear of being shot. Mm-hmm. And we don't really have
Chris:that. There's that. And that's, that's a great point because people feel frozen in fear by those Yeah. Types, types of things. It's like, I don't Yeah. If, if you feel that way, it's like, I don't feel like I can go do this without that fear, then you don't feel free. Right. Don't feel like you can easily go do the things that you would otherwise do.
Jeff:Yep. So, OK. I'm liking these.
Chris:Yeah, I do too. So this is also giving some examples of freedom to marry whomever you wish to live, where you want to speak freely, to travel anywhere. I mean, from that standpoint, we certainly do have a lot of freedoms in America. Yeah. True. Um, where those things are concerned, I think some of the things that limit us the most are money is the, the capitalist society. Yeah. I am in favor of the capitalist society, but I certainly see its harms and limitations. Right. And, and we certainly have some limitations when it comes to that. No doubt about it. Yep.
Jeff:Yeah, I agree. All right. Lay another one on me. All right. I'm gonna knock this one out of the
Chris:park. OK. If the president called up and said he would do his best to implement any one program or policy you chose, what would you want done?
Jeff:Oh my God. OK. Well, because it's fresh on our, on my mind it would be gun regulations. Like yeah, let's pass some actual meaningful gun gun regulations. And you know what I was thinking about before? Even the people who are against any kind of regulation, uh, or further regulations, why can't the other side say, you know what, how about we implement X amount of regulations for five years and see if it makes a difference, or 10 years? Let's see if it makes a difference. And if it doesn't, we'll go back to what we were doing before. In other words, prove us wrong in that time span. And if it doesn't work, OK, you win. We'll go back to what we were doing. That's a very good point. I like that. I don't think they would, they wouldn't go for it.
Chris:No, I don't think so either, but I like that. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think there's too much fear of, you know, if we go that direction, and I'm gonna say this from that standpoint, they look at it as controlling authoritarian whatevers is, we're gonna put these restrictions on you. You can't do this, you can't do that. Is that we would never go back. You know, you say that about five years, but I think the fear is, well that five years is gonna pass and we'll never get it undone.
Jeff:Well, with the assault weapons man that they had in the nineties, that was, they set a 10 year limit on that in the law. So you could write it into the law. But look what's happened since. Yeah, like anybody brings it up now is like, Shut down. No, no pun intended.
Chris:Yeah. Well, so I could certainly see supporting that before when I knew this question and before we ever started talking about this gun violence during the show, one thing that I was thinking, and I realize it can't be done in a vacuum or it wouldn't do any good, but I would want to see real tax reform that levels the playing field. Oh, I like
Jeff:that too. Yeah. Because
Chris:we do have issues in the country where money is concerned, as in maybe there isn't enough money to pay for the things that need to be paid for, but it's not like that money's not available. We're ju the government just isn't getting it. Yeah. You know, if, if taxes were more fair, To the poorer people and more fair to the richer people, then you would have that playing field more leveled. But there's no doubt the government would ultimately be taking in more revenue. Way more. Yeah. And if that, and this is where this would be a two-pronged approach, taking in the money doesn't solve anything. It has to then be reasonably, fairly justifiably spent. Yeah. But if that, I mean, that is a step in the right direction. You gotta get the money first to be able to spend it. And I think that's a huge thing that needs to happen. I
Jeff:wish there was something, I've seen stuff like this before, but when somebody pays their taxes or, well, OK. When somebody pays their taxes and how much money they pay, In tax, could there be something that says this amount of your tax is going to whatever program this amount is going to? Like what percentage or whatever, so people would actually know what stuff goes toward. I think so many Americans now, they have no clue what taxes pay for, how much the government spends on this or that. It's like this big mystery. I think that's part of the frustration with taxes in general.
Chris:That's true. And I can put myself in that, uh, in that club. I don't feel like I know where it goes. Yeah. I mean, I know where some parts of it go, but if you say, where does the, where does the majority of your taxes go? I don't know. Right. OK. This is a little bit lighter. If while surgically removing a lump from your cheek.
Jeff:Oh my
Chris:God. So I don't know why you have a lump in your cheek. Wait, I'm, I'm
Jeff:removing a lump from my cheek. No,
Chris:no. It's being removed. Oh, OK. OK. Well, I should say while having a lump surgically removed from your cheek, your doctor inadvertently cut a nerve and caused one side of your mouth to be paralyzed. Would you sue? Imagine you have a good case, but the surgeon is without insurance and will have to personally pay any settlement. Uh,
Jeff:yeah. I'm suing. Yeah, absolutely. I would too. The hell yeah. Yeah. This is why doctors have to have, Malpractice insurance.
Chris:Yeah. I mean, if they don't have it or don't have enough, then I'm probably not getting anything, but I'd make him wish he had. Right. Absolutely. Next time have insurance.
Jeff:Absolutely. Now, if you live in Texas and other states have done this too, they limit how much you can get in a medical malpractice claim. And in Texas it's 250,000 bucks. So Really? Yeah. Yeah. They passed that back in 2003. So is one side of your face being paralyzed worth more than 250,000 bucks? I would say so.
Chris:I would say so. I mean, I don't know how you put a value on that, but I would say it's worth more than that. Yeah. Wow. I don't think I knew about that limit. That's disturbing.
Jeff:It's very disturbing. Why are we here again?
Chris:Well, I don't know. I, I don't. I don't have an answer to this, so this doesn't have to be part of the show, but if you could go somewhere, where would you go? I don't know where that's, I can't really talk, I don't feel like I can speak about it in an educated way. If I were really gonna go somewhere, I would, I would research it. I mean, I'd, I'd certainly research it well enough. But Do you have any place off the top of your head that you would go?
Jeff:Min uh, this is aside from any weather stuff and weather's important to me, but Minnesota, Minnesota always ranks high in,
Chris:no, I mean outside the us. Oh,
Jeff:outside the us. Well, now language is an issue. I could go to the uk.
Chris:Would, would you see that as an improvement?
Jeff:Maybe in some ways, yeah. I, you know, it might be ridiculous, but I, I. I get concerned over stuff that I just take for granted here. And I know home's gonna be home, whatever you make of it. But I don't know, just off the top of my head, like, see, this sounds ridiculous. Am I gonna have the same TV shows over there that I am here? What's their Netflix like? You know? Do they have
Chris:HBO Max? I think, um, I mean, given that you would've a choice in the country you would go to, I think those would probably not be huge issues. Maybe not, you know, with our globalization, it's like you could probably get to it one way or another.
Jeff:So I said, uh, the uk there's no language barrier, but holy hell, you ever heard a Scottish person talk?
Chris:Oh yeah. Jesus, and that was Jesus Christ. That was about it. I heard sounds, and I don't, I don't have a fucking clue what they said.
Jeff:Theoretically they were speaking English, but I'm skeptical. I was like, what the hell? Hell, I was coming outta your mouth.
Chris:I caught two or three words in a whole speech and I was like, well, yeah, all right. Said something about a door and it was behind me. Yeah. I was in a, a taxi with a guy and holy kid. Holy cow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's rough. You know, a lot of people in the US have gone to like Costa Rica. Yeah. Belize now
Jeff:in Belize. They speak English. They speak English down there. Yeah. Yeah. Now, do I have to worry about getting shot down there? Like are there, is there cartel or, I don't know. I don't either. I need to research that. OK. What
else?
Chris:All right. Let's see. If you ran a hospital, what policy would you have for dealing with emergency patients arriving without health insurance or money? Oh my
Jeff:God. This is Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
Chris:Yeah, it really is.
Jeff:I mean, don't doctors have, don't they have a, an ethic like ethical code? Like they have to treat people, it's part of their, yeah. Ethics and I would say morality,
Chris:but Yeah. But then at what point, I mean, how do you stay in business? I was
Jeff:gonna say, if you're a for-profit, and that's a whole other topic right there, but if you're a for-profit hospital, you can't keep treating people off the street who can't pay you. Yeah,
Chris:that's a tough one.
Jeff:Yeah, it is. Man, I don't know. I don't have a good answer. I'd have to come up with a policy. I'd have to collect my thoughts.
Chris:Well, and I mean, you take, you take a, you know, accounting hospital like Parkland, so they're getting tax dollars, but it, it does have to come down to that. I mean, how, how much tax dollars are you getting? Yeah. And how many patients do have the ability to pay? Can that offset those that don't? And at some point, I mean, how do you keep your doors open?
Jeff:Well, that's part of the issue with our current system is, is the people who can pay end up paying more than they otherwise would just for the straight care or through their insurance premiums. Yeah. But yeah, that's a whole other topic. We're all getting screwed. Yeah, we
Chris:are. OK. I like this one. Do you expect people who are working under your direction to work harder or longer hours than you do? This
Jeff:reminds me, Elaine, when she became president of j Peterson, she said, I want, what was it, five ideas or two of ideas by five o'clock? No. Make that five ideas by two o'clock. Yes. No, I don't want them to work. Well, certainly not longer than I'm working because that looks bad. If you're a leader and then they're slaving away and you're going home and they're still there, that's not a good look. There's gonna be a mutiny.
Chris:Yeah, I've sure seen that plenty of times.
Jeff:Yeah, I have too. Um, but then harder, I mean, I don't know how, I don't know how you'd really measure that, but Yeah, I, I, it's a bad look if you're the boss, the team leader, whatever your title is, you're in charge of people and you're going home before they are. Yeah. That's not a, the situation is untenable.
Chris:Yeah. You're right about the mutiny. Well, but that's just it. I, I think that's where a lot of employees feel, you know, undervalued is Oh yeah. Is where, Hey, I'm being left here to do all of this, and they just kind of come and go as they please. Yep. And, and we have to take care of all of these kinds of things while the boss is out here, you know, networking, and they sit in meetings and make decisions about the things that we're gonna do, but then they don't implement any of
Jeff:it. Right. And then I've also, and I'm sure you have as well, felt it the other way to where, all right, it's five o'clock, but the boss is still there. Can I go home? But you feel pressured. So everybody just stays there. It's like seven o'clock. It's like, what are we doing? But Yep. You're scared of what's gonna happen to you if you duck out. It's ridiculous that that is even a thing. But it is. Oh, it's a thing. Yeah.
Chris:Oh, it'd be so,
Jeff:all right.
Chris:All right. This one's kind of rough. Uh oh. If you knew that when you died, you were immediately reincarnated as the next baby born in the world, how would attitudes about foreign aid, international politics, et cetera, change and also recognizing that 90% of all births are in poorer regions of the world?
Jeff:Well, I was about to ask you, cuz I thought you were done asking the question I was about to ask, do I know where I'm gonna be born?
Chris:Well, you have a 90% chance that you're worse off.
Jeff:Yeah. Well, my attitudes are definitely, it would definitely change things, but, uh, what was the, the international, international politics, but what did you say? Yeah, foreign aid. Foreign aid. Foreign aid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I knew I was gonna be born into a terrible situation, I guess I would be in favor of increasing that stuff on the off chance that it might help me out just a little bit. I might reach the age of 30 as opposed to 25,
Chris:but, but if you are not gonna be reincarnated, you're just kind of OK with the status quo.
Jeff:Yeah, I've already got my lifeboat. Fuck everybody else. Yeah, no, there's a, there's a philosopher. I don't remember who, but he came up with that scenario and he termed it something I don't remember, but. If you didn't know what your situation was gonna be in life, like you don't know what your sex is gonna be, you don't know what your race is gonna be, you don't know what kind of privilege you're gonna be born into, or are you born into privilege at all? You have no idea what you're gonna be born into. What policies and laws would you be in favor of? Mm-hmm. So, you know, and then you, and you could do this as an exercise, I might do this with my students, but you, you know, reach into a hat and pull out something and you're a black female making$40,000 a year living in Detroit or wherever it is. Like, OK, well what policies and laws were you in favor of? And is that gonna work for you in your situation? It's kind of the same thing. Yeah.
Chris:This is funny. If permanent world peace could be gained by Oblating one country, would you be willing to select the country to be sacrificed? If so, which one? Which would you choose and why?
Jeff:Man, that is, that's rough. It's rough because it's leaders in control of the country who are responsible for all the fuckery. I'm thinking about North Korea, like I'd love to obliterate Kim Jong-un, but you're gonna wipe out a bunch of innocent people. Yeah, yeah. You know, it reminds me, this was never even brought up when I was in school, not even when I was in college, but the merits of dropping the atomic bomb bombs on Japan. Mm-hmm. When I was growing up, it was like, That was the right thing to do because it saved American lives, because we're gonna have to invade, you know, with troops and, and so many more people would've died. But it never even occurred to me like, man, we killed a bunch of innocent people by doing that. Right. And is that, was, was that the ethical thing to do? And I'm, we don't have to get into that now, but I'm just saying, I, my first thought was North Korea when you asked that, but how many problems are they really causing us? They're more of just a nuisance right now, right? Yeah. They're just idiots,
Chris:right. Just smack'em down.
Jeff:Yeah. Russia, they're causing us a lot of problems. China's causing us a lot of problems. Yeah. But I don't know that I could, obliterated entire country. Iran might
Chris:cause us more problems in the future. Yeah, true. OK, so here's one. I like, and I've got something to add to this too. So if a casual acquaintance asked you how much your salary was, would you reveal it? What about a friend? And if not, why not? And the thing I want to add to that is I just recently learned that in Finland. So keep in mind what we know about Finland. Happiest country in the world. Mm-hmm. Multiple times running
Jeff:and a hot prime
Chris:minister. Oh, did you know she's out? Oh, they ousted her. Yeah, they ousted her. Well, why would they do this? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure what I, I don't remember what happened, but yeah, she's out now.
Jeff:Who is it now? Some pasty old man. That's a guy. Yeah, that's no good. I don't
Chris:know what he looks like, but yeah, it's no good. OK. OK. So Finland, so anyway, in Finland your pay is public like it is. Oh wow. Published annually. It's out there.
Jeff:Even for like businesses, just not, not government, but business. Yes. Just wow, private citizens. OK. Wow. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but yeah, I would reveal my salary. Like I don't, I don't care. It's fine.
Chris:So a follow up question to this, why are most people in our culture so private about their finances?
Jeff:I think because we all try to live, not all, but so many Americans try to live beyond their means and put so much stuff on credit. We feel pressure. Probably because of what we see in the media, Hollywood, whatever. We feel pressure to live up to certain standards. And a lot of people don't have the money to do that, so they feel reticent about actually revealing what they make. I don't know. Yeah. Uh, you know, that whole thing about publishing salaries, that's been a, a thing, and I don't know how many states have that on the books as a law, but to make it a requirement that businesses let other employees know what people are making. And there are pros and cons to it. I don't, I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I didn't know that that was a thing in the, like in the entire country.
Chris:I didn't either. I have, I have seen that with certain companies. I don't, I don't know a specific one, but yeah, I've heard of that. I'm not sure how I feel about that either. Because I can see it causing issues. On the other hand, yeah, talking about leveling the playing field. Yes, it certainly could do that too.
Jeff:Could level the playing field for sure, because hey, why is that person getting 10,000 more a year than I am? Right. On the other hand, if there's, you know, differences, it can cause dissension and then you got lack of productivity issues and all that. So I don't know.
Chris:And some of those differences can be very subjective too, you know? Right. It's not like we're only talking about, Hey, you've been here two years and they've been here five years. Well, should the person who's been here five years automatically get more money? Not necessarily. The person who's been here two years might be taking more training. They may be better equipped, they may be producing more. Who knows? Yeah. And, and, and then you get into very subjective things. True. If you could make the exact same amount of money as you're making now, would you change professions? So I guess let's say it eliminates the risk of whatever that could be too. So you're guaranteed to keep the job, you know, you're guaranteed the same amount of money. Would you switch? Would you switch professions?
Jeff:Well, it depends on what I'm switching to. Do I get my choice?
Chris:Yeah, yeah. You could switch to anything. Would you switch? I mean, that's basically a question of how happy are you doing what you do versus would you choose something else? If it were without consequence,
Jeff:yeah, I probably would. So, but I say that with hesitation. I've always thought traveling would be cool. Could I? Travel in my job, but to, I've always thought it'd be cool to write for travel, I don't know, advice, something of that nature, you know, book travel books, magazines, well magazines. That's not a thing anymore, really. But, you know, to publish something about different places in the world and to travel, right. I've always thought that would be cool. I've always thought it'd be cool to do something in music. I have no idea what that would be, but I do know that I would miss teaching. I definitely would, being in the classroom, I don't like teaching online, but that's part of the nature of the beast, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, I could see myself doing that. So if you, if you eliminate the risk, then Yeah, I think I would. Would
Chris:you? I don't think, I wouldn't say no, but I'm not sure what I would say that I would do. I, I want to say yes because I'm interested in a lot of things and, and what you just brought up about, you know, traveling and being able to write about that. The very first thing that comes to my mind is I'd have to be up late the night before writing what I'm writing, because that's the only way we get done. You're on a deadline. Yeah. I mean, I'd spend, let's say I had to put out, you know, an article once a week or something. Well, I'd spend six days living it up and then I'd have to, I'd have to pull an all night or once a week.
Jeff:I could see myself doing that too, for sure. Yeah.
Chris:But I mean, yeah, there are things like that you think, holy shit, but I could, yeah, just be out there traveling. I'm sure there's aspects of that that could get old too. And maybe traveling isn't literally moving all the time, like on the move. Yeah, maybe. Maybe it's you're planted somewhere for six months and you know, something like, I don't know. I, I, but yeah, I could absolutely see doing something like that. I don't know how it would, what it would look like, how it would really work, but if we're talking about removing risk and uncertainty and all of that, yeah, that'd be pretty cool. Yeah. But, but yeah, back to, you know, where we were before. I couldn't just up and do that now, you know, we've all got too much responsibility and the risk that comes with it and all that you say, no, I couldn't. I can't make that kind of a move.
Jeff:All right. Let's do one more.
Chris:OK. For a sizable payment, would you go on TV and enthusiastically endorse a product you thought mediocre? Sure.
Jeff:I don't care.
Chris:See, I think I could do that too.
Jeff:Yeah. And I'll still be able to sleep at night. I don't care.
Chris:Yeah. What I mean, it's not like it's shit. Yeah. It's not,
Jeff:it's not gonna kill anybody.
Chris:Yeah. If it's not a complete misrepresentation. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. I could do that. I would love to do that, by the way, if anybody wants to sign us up Yeah. To endorse whatever. Exactly. There's, there's a lot that I will say for money,
Chris:so. Sure. That reminds me of, uh, Forrest Gump when he came home from being in the military, you know, and mm-hmm. There was a, a ping pong paddle. He said, yo, yeah. You know, would he endorse that? And he was like, but I didn't use this. And Sally Field's mom said, well, maybe you can just hold it and see what you think about it.
Jeff:Yep.
Chris:OK. I like this one because we were talking about moving somewhere else. If you and your family immigrated to Spain, how long would it be before you spoke Spanish in your home? Oh,
Jeff:wow. In the home? Yeah. Man, that would be rough. Do
Chris:you think that
Jeff:would ever happen? I, I'm inclined to say no. I, I don't think so. I'm not sure
Chris:I would think that either. I mean, there are a lot of people that are here from other countries and, you know, they speak their native language at home. Yeah.
Jeff:And the typical pattern is the, the first generation immigrants, they speak their native language in the home, but then they have kids and their kids speak the native language and English, and then the third generation. They speak English and hardly know any of the mm-hmm. The other language. So I think when you first get over there, it'd be really, really tough to just completely switch to a new language. Yeah. I could get by in a Spanish speaking country. I mean, it wouldn't be pretty, but I would at least recognize some words and I could fumble myself through conversations. I'd sound like I was mentally challenged, but I could at least do it.
Chris:Yeah. If they, if they spoke really slowly and they're not using slang, you know, just right straight up, I could, I could make it. And then of course over time we'd get better just like everybody. Yeah. Does. So the follow up to this was, do you think you would lose your cultural identity if you had to give up your native tongue
Jeff:cultural identity? I'm not even sure what that entails. Well,
Chris:like, I mean, from that standpoint, I would think, how much of your identity do you think is based in the fact that you speak English? So let me, let me turn this around. Um, I was going to say this. So there's a, a lady that I worked with several years ago who was from Brazil, but she lives in the us, married an American, and he doesn't know Portuguese, so mm-hmm. They speak English. I mean, just speak English at home because that's all he knows and she speaks English working because nobody can do otherwise. And so the only time that she would speak Portuguese is if she's talking to people back home. And she told me at one point after she had been here for I think five or six years, That she was starting to forget some words. Yes. Which shocked me. Cuz I'm thinking when this is your native language and you grew up with it, I would think it would stick more than that. But she said she was forgetting some things. And, and now going back to this question about, you know, the idea of, of losing any of your identity. Brazilians really identify very much with their language and, and they, they, it's, it's a sense of pride that people will refer to it there as my language. Well, wow. You would never say that here in the us. Yeah. I don't say, this is not my Exactly.
Jeff:Technically it's not Brazil's language either.
Chris:Well, that's true.
Jeff:You mentioned he doesn't know Portuguese. I thought about Elaine. I don't know. No Portuguese, but I stopped having sex three days ago. I don't know. No Portuguese. That's great, man. I don't, so I don't know. I've never thought about that. My culture being tied to my language. I don't really think of it that way at all. So maybe it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Yeah,
Chris:I don't either. That was one of the things that I thought was, was kind of neat about Brazilians is, is the kind of, well, I guess that's the best way to say it. The identity that they have that comes from their culture and language. And I don't feel like, I mean, certainly we have an identity that is American, but I don't know. Some people, some people feel a lot more patriotic than, I guess I do. I just, I don't necessarily see it that way.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of this might be the majority of Americans, their patriotism is tied up into something other than speaking English.
Chris:Absolutely. And then I think about American food too. You know, if, if someone were to come here from another country and you go, I wanna take you out to eat, and something that's American, what do we eat that's not considered junk food? American food is junk food. It
Jeff:pretty much
Chris:is. It's hotdogs. Yeah. And hamburgers. And even pizza was not ours, but it's like we made it ours in a way. Right? Pizza is an American junk food thing. Like what do we do that is different from other countries? That's not shit.
Jeff:I don't know. That's a really good question. Uh, maybe there is nothing.
Chris:Those are good. Those are good. I like it.
Jeff:Yeah, those are really good questions. So if you like this kind of stuff, and we're gonna ask more. So you've got like three of these books, right? Yeah. And there's one on Love and Sex. Holy shit.
Chris:Yeah. That one scares me. I know it.
Jeff:I know it. Maybe that should be when we take the gummies.
Chris:Ooh, there you go. Let the expletives fly.
Jeff:Yeah, buddy. OK. If you like this kind of stuff, then this is your type of podcast. We are your type of people and you should subscribe, follow us. That way you will get new episodes delivered to you automatically every single Tuesday when they drop. And please go ahead and rate us. We will be really, really happy if you'd give us five stars. And while you are there, go ahead and write something. You can give us a question if you want, and we'll answer it. It doesn't matter what you write though, because the way these apps work is if you write something, it makes it easier for people to discover the show. We have a website. It is Subpar Talks dot com. There you can find out more about me, about Chris. You can email us, you can leave us a voicemail. If you wanna make suggestions for future topics, then you can do that as well. We always take those into consideration. We are also on social media on Twitter. We are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts, you can do that as well on there. I am at@independentjeff and I am
Chris:at Chris Bradford tx.
Jeff:And last, but of course not least, share subpartalks.com with your friends and family and colleagues and whoever you come across in your daily life. Because the more people we have listening to this show, the easier it is for us to get this content to you every single week. And there you go. I like that. It ended on a happy note. We started with mass shootings and guns and it got lighter, which is what I want. It did. That was good. That's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. All right. That is another episode,@subpartalks, and until next week, so long.