All white people are like John Wayne - shoot first, and ask questions later. Or are we all like The Rock? Donald Trump? Of course, I'm not much like any of these people - and I resent being reduced into such a limited st...

The TL;DR of it is that democrats won just about everything possible, and typically with large margins. Trump's approval rating (per 3 recent polls) sits at 37% and just 30% with independent voters. He is underwater on the economy a...

The immigration conversation in the US is dangerously distorted and made emotional. In this podcast I debunk four myths about immigrants:That they are all "illegal"That anyone is proposing open bordersT...

Donald Trump built his brand on being the “strongman” who would restore law and order — but strongmen always need enemies to stay strong. In this episode, we look at how Trump’s constant wars — against immigrants, scientists, journalists, unive...

We live in the age of information — and misinformation. In this episode of Friendly Neighborhood Philosopher, we explore what philosophers call epistemology: how we know what we know.We’ll look at how epistemic bubbles ...

Charlie Kirk’s sudden death by a sniper’s bullet has left America reeling—and divided. To some, he was a hero of faith, family, and conservative values. To others, he embodied exclusion, cruelty, and dangerous ideology. In this episode, I step ...

Episode Summary In this episode, I reflect on the loneliness of living in nuance in a world of scripts. From MAGA truisms to the Sermon on the Mount, I explore how authoritarian movements thrive on simple answers while Jesus called h...

As a on again/off again live sound engineer, we are always thinking about signal to noise ratio. Or, why is that speaker humming? It's keeping me from hearing the vocals clearly! In daily life we are bombarded with influencers and n...

The cancer community that I am part of lost a friend last weekend. This podcast is an essay that I wrote about his memory and the loss. The topic is what healthy manhood looks like, and how that is different for different people. In this we con...

An ability to hyperfocus has long been one of my defining characteristics. In this episode I explore why we hyperfocus, the neurochemicals involved, when it becomes a special interest, and if this is a Golden Age of hyperfocus. ...

Has rigid denominationalism left you out in the cold? Is the God you are being asked to worship a monster? Is asking questions forbidden where you are?Then this episode is for you. 

A friend accused me of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” From immigration to healthcare, foreign aid to the erosion of empathy, I break down why I speak out against Trumpism—not because I’m obsessed, but because I believe the Gos...

Three autistic girls were "disinvited" from playing on a homseschool coop volleyball team recently. In this episode we look at:How you can argue anything from the BibleHow to balance the needs of the many vs the needs ...

This last two week period has been one of the craziest of my life. In this episode I take a philospical look at how we survive and thrive through chaos, uncertainty, and health challenges. For me that's included funerals, hospitaliz...

In this episode we consider the nature of truth: What does it mean for a thing to be true? What does it mean to be "true for me" and "true for you"? In science things are "true to the best of our current unde...

In this episode, I talk about life as a caregiver, grief, politics, faith, and the strange process of being radicalized by basic human decency. It’s a personal one. There’s some ranting, some reflecting, some philosophizing, a sunrise, and prob...

Welcome to the first episode of the Friendly Neighbhorhood Philosopher podcast! I was inspired by Northern Exposure's Chris in the Morning to become a philosphy major and for the last 30 years I've been thinking philosophically about pretty muc...