The Present Illness
Society’s running a fever, and two sharp-witted physicians are on the case. Surgeon-scientist Arghavan Salles dives into social media’s wildest trends, while anesthesiologist-bioethicist Alyssa Burgart follows news and legal cases for their ethical twists. Together, they examine the cultural, political, and public health symptoms of our time with scalpel-sharp analysis, unflinching questions, and enough humor to keep us all going.
The Present Illness
Pride Under Trump 2026
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
It’s the second Pride Month of this Trump administration, and things are rough. San Francisco Giants’ pitchers anti-Pride stunt; gender as a weapon; Rainbow washing and corporate backstabbing.
Note: Dana White is the president and CEO of UFC
Summary of MOU with Iran
Pride Under Trump + Juneteenth:
- What happened at the Giants’ Pride Night
- JD Vance says “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore”
- Josh Hokit calls Michelle Obama a man
- Reactions to Josh Hokit’s comment
- Dad takes daughters to the bathroom, police are called
- 1 year-old Kohen Wiley killed by police in Mississippi
- Cyrus Carmack-Belton killed by Rick Chow
💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊
- A fabulous song about perimenopause
- A hilarious rendition of You Oughta Know
- Collage from anesthesia drug labels
- Complex sculptures made of old medicine containers
Thanks for listening to The Present Illness!
Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness
Credits
- Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
- Editing by Alyssa Burgart
- Music by Joseph Uphoff
- Social Media by Arghavan Salles
Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else.
This backlash that we're experiencing, you know, the feelings that you're experiencing, like it is the moral injury of being betrayed by our government, betrayed by people that are in our society, looking around and saying, Wow, I want the world to be a just place. And it is not. And that is this experience of like the world is broken, and I don't know what to do to fix it.
SPEAKER_01Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome back to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that's a little febrile and definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arga Von Salas, a surgeon scientist, and your friendly neighborhood doom scroller and residence.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Alyssa Berghart, an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like their EKGs, full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other. As a notory listeners, we often talk about tough topics. They can be intense and activating. So if you need to take a break, we totally understand.
SPEAKER_01A big thank you to everyone out there who is listening and some extra love to our subscribers and those who follow us on any of the various platforms. And a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from the mess that is the latest version of the Iran deal. I mean, let's hope this one sticks. I don't know whether to hope for that or not, to be honest, because um it's pretty terrible. It's pretty terrible for people who live in the US. It's pretty terrible for Iranians. Um, you know who it's really good for is the Islamic Republic of Iran. That's about it. Can you explain to our listeners why? Well, so there's a 14-point MOU memorandum of understanding that was leaked earlier this week and was, I believe, officially signed. Um, yesterday we're recording on Thursday, June 18th. Um, and it was signed at Versailles, which is kind of interesting for anyone who knows history because that's where the treaty that ended World War I was signed with unconditional surrender essentially from Germany at that point in time. And many have described this MOU as unconditional surrender by the United States. Of course, Trump and his team had said for a long time that they would only be okay with unconditional surrender from Iran. But in fact, they are getting, I think, more than they probably dreamed of out of this war.
SPEAKER_00I mean, to the point are you telling me that there was nothing about attacking Iran that has ever been in our benefit? Correct.
SPEAKER_01And it's so harmful. It's so harmful that somebody was joking that Greenland is now asking to be invaded so that they can also get such a good deal from the United States. So here are just a couple of bullet points. It's 14 things in the MOU, we're not going to talk about all of them because this is not our main topic today, but I'll highlight a couple things. So one is that there is apparently going to be a fund of $300 billion given to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Now, where that money is coming from is not totally clear. And there's different versions of that story. Some saying that it's going to be the Middle Eastern countries that are going to pay that money. There's no reason they would. Why would they do that? Um, I think it's going to be much like the ballroom that it's going to be US dollars, like our taxpayer dollars, in addition to the almost $100 billion we've already spent on a war that, mind you, Congress did not approve of and is very unpopular, that people do not support. We, and also, by the way, we killed thousands of Iranians and at least 13 US service members. Anyway, so $300 billion going to the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus money that has been held, the regime's money that has been held by the United States, is all going to be released back to them. That's estimated at somewhere around $25 billion. Um, folks may recall that in the JCPOA, which was the previous agreement that Obama had signed with Iran, that Trump has many times said was disastrous, the regime was given back $1.7 billion of their money, of their own money, $1.7 billion. And that even yesterday, Trump was still lambasting. Yet he's now giving them, it sounds like at least $25 billion that we have been holding in of their assets that we've been holding in the US. And then also this $300 billion on top of that. In addition, the folks in Iran had said that they were going to start charging for people to go through the Strait of Hormones. That is not something they did before. This uh memorandum, at least the version that I saw, leaves open the possibility that they can charge now for ships to move through the Strait of Hormose, not in the first 60 days after the agreement, but after that, it says it's up to them and Oman to decide what to do. Um, there is, anyway, lots of things that are, I don't want to spend too much time on it, but lots of things that are empowering, emboldening, and enriching the Islamic Republic of Iran, the government that the people in Iran have been trying so hard to get rid of. They are now coming out of this war with, you know, supposedly the best military in the world, right? And they're coming out ahead on almost every front. Oh, I should have mentioned also all the sanctions are being lifted. All the sanctions. Like that's in some ways, maybe that it will be economically beneficial to the people of Iran who have suffered greatly under these sanctions, but we've been asking for targeted sanctions against the regime for a long time. And not only are they not doing that, they're just lifting apparently all the sanctions. And those who care about this nuclear weapon idea, which is supposedly part of why this war was started, might be curious to know what's what's in the agreement about that. Nothing. Nothing. There's a a section about we will talk about what will happen with regard to nuclear weapons and also the maybe, but like maybe there was a pinky swear in Versailles, or like maybe there was, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they're not gonna do it, right? If they say they're not gonna do it, they're not gonna do it. It's fine. Um, there's also the question of the enriched uranium that supposedly was like part of the reason for the necessity of this war in the first place, because they had enriched this uranium. And for a while, Trump had been insisting that that uranium needed to be um seized in some way. And um yesterday he was like, I don't even know that it really matters all that much. Um anyway, in the MOU, it doesn't really say it says that they will discuss what will happen with the enriched uranium. So this MOU is um, oh, by the way, I should note that it includes a ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel has not actually agreed to. Um yeah, that's cool. A little side note. Anyway, this is supposed to set up a 60-day period, which can be extended if both sides agree, um, for them to hammer out these details about the nuclear weapons, the enrichment, getting the money transferred, all this stuff. So I don't know if I were a betting person whether I would bet that this is gonna hold. Um, but I do know that Trump is bored of this war.
SPEAKER_00And so I do feel like there's a lot of decisions made based on like excitement and boredom.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I mean, I think he just doesn't have it in him. He's like, whatever, whatever. I mean, why else? I I cannot understand why else you would give so much to a country that isn't helping anyone. Like they're not helping their own people. I mean, by the country, I mean the leadership of the country. Like he's he's anyway, it doesn't make sense unless your only goal is let me be done with this. Give them whatever they want, let me be done with this. Um, of course, this is the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal, which I don't think he really wrote anyway. I think he just goes straight. But but what a great, great deal. Um, anyway, it's a slap in the face. It's a great deal for the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it's a slap in the face to those who live in the US and Iranians.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I guess we're just gonna have to hold our breath and see what happens, huh?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Honestly, I don't have a lot of confidence that this will hold. Maybe it will. I don't know. I don't know. But even if it does, it's it's really the worst, almost the worst case scenario for Iranians.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I just stand by the fact that it seems like this whole thing was a total waste of time, energy, money, and human life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but the strait is gonna be open now, Alyssa.
SPEAKER_00The strait was open before. What was so great is that the strait was actually open before. And that was so cool.
SPEAKER_01And we all know we're supposed to believe it's like a major accomplishment now that it's open again.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I guess now everyone in the world knows what the Strait of Hormuz is. So there's a geography lesson in that. Great. Yeah. Silver lining. Anyway. All right, my friend. What are we gonna talk about?
SPEAKER_01Um, well, it is Pride Month. It is happy pride. Happy Pride, happy pride to everyone listening. I've got my Pride Nails for people who are seeing this on video. Oh, very nice. Um, I always do, I think I need to do a post about actually all my pride nails. Every year, it's like one of my favorite things is doing fancy pride nails. Anyway, um I want to talk about a few things that have happened just in the last week that really highlight how pride is different now than like two years ago because of everything that's gone on with the federal government. And I want to start with a story that's local to us, which has to do with the San Francisco Giants. So the San Francisco Giants had Pride Night recently, um, earlier this week, and they had actually a gorgeous version of the San Francisco Giants hat, which I'm gonna look for because it's actually really beautiful. It has the SF logo, as per usual, but it's in rainbow colors. Um, and it's just it's a beautiful hat. The hat itself is black and then it's a white lettering with a rainbow over the top. Anyway, so it was optional for for players to wear this hat. Um most players wore the hat. A few players chose to put Bible verses, handwritten Bible verses onto their hats. This was a form of basically protest.
SPEAKER_00Against wearing a protest against pride. Correct. I see. It's interesting. There's like a bunch of gay stuff in the Bible, so they should probably like they should probably read the whole thing, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm not sure that they have. Okay. Um, I'm I'm not sure their focus is like really on the right thing here. Um, so one of the players whose name is Landon, I think it's Roop, R-O-U-P-P, um, said that it wasn't about hate at all. He said, It's just what I stand for and what I stand on. I believe in God. It's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy. That's just kind of something I believe in. And I stand firm in that. And I'm thankful we live in a country where, you know, we have the freedom to believe what we want and express what we want. And there were two other pitchers as well, um, who similarly had Bible verses on their hats. And one of them said, um, or actually, sorry, Roop also was asked how he'd explain to people who might be offended by his decision to write this on his cap. Um, he said that as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible. Again, wondering if he's read it, but um, God has blessed me in so many ways, and I don't think I'd be here right now if it wasn't for him. Um and so I think for folks who I don't know, it's this is a really hard one for me because I've been a Giants fan for a long time. And San Francisco obviously, maybe not obviously, but like it has historically been such a great place that is supportive of all kinds of people um across LGBTQ plus spectrum. And to see players in this city, I feel like this is the right thing for them to do. It tells me how far the Overton window has shifted in terms of what is considered normal and acceptable. Like I cannot fathom that this would have happened three years ago or five years ago. Like they would have been lambasted, I think, if they had tried to do this. Um and it's really upsetting to me to see that even in San Francisco, this is happening. I mean, I think too, maybe that's like a little bit of the West Coast elitism. Like we think that things are like in some ways better here, maybe, or more open here than in some other parts of the country. And yeah, even in San Francisco, that's just not the case. I want to share one more quote from this um other picture. He said, it's just something that I feel like about the hat. Um, this person didn't wear the the pride version of the hat. He just wore the traditional orange lettering on the black cap. He said, it's just that it's just something that I feel like I was forced to support when I don't morally support it. There wasn't hatred behind it. I think that's kind of something that's misinterpreted. I don't hate the LGBTQ community. It's just something I believed and talked with teammates and family, and they supported it.
SPEAKER_00I don't hate the LGBTQ community. I'm just not particularly curious about your civil rights or your right to exist or your right to safety. But yeah, whatever, man.
SPEAKER_01And I and I will not even do the smallest thing to support your human rights, which is to wear a hat that has rainbow colors on it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, also, like, if you don't want to wear the hat, no one's gonna make you wear the hat. And like, maybe just shut up. Maybe don't make it about you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but also I just don't I this morality thing, I don't morally support it.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean? As a professional ethicist, I really think the word morality is getting thrown a lot these days in ways that don't seem particularly connected to um valuing each other as human beings.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's that that's very clear, right? Because how could you morally oppose other human beings' human rights? That's not a moral position to take whatsoever. I'm upset that this happened, but I'm also upset that the manager was like, that's fine. You all can put these Bible verses on your hats. And also, like these folks who are insisting this had nothing to do with Pride Night, whatever, they're not putting Bible verses on their caps all the time. They chose to do it on this specific night. And then they want us to think like it had nothing to do with it. I mean, it's completely alienating. It costs you nothing to not do that. To just tell people they're accepted. Anyway, so that happened, which again is not something that I think would have been fathomable a few years ago, and it's um it's yeah, very upsetting that it happened at all this year. And it's not the only thing. So we had that. Um last weekend there was, of course, the terrible UFC spectac spectacle that happened at the White House. Um, you know, we all saw for weeks the arena going up and the seating and the lawn and everything. It's complete desecration of the White House.
SPEAKER_00It's really a good thing they tore down the you know, rose garden. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the rose garden's paved over. It looks like the patio of like a McDonald's or something. It's ridiculous. Um I mean it does. Have you seen it? That's what they got the umbrellas. Who needs plants? So they had the UFC, everything. I didn't follow it that closely, to be honest, because I was enjoying the Knicks having one, and that's what I cared about last weekend. Um, and one of the fighters, after having won his match, made some comments that got clipped and shared a lot on social media. Now, I don't know this person, I don't know any of these people. Um, his name is Josh Hokett. I don't know if that's how it's pronounced, H-O-K-I-T. And so he finishes his match.
SPEAKER_00Is he one of the like fighter people or? Yeah. Like, so he wins his match. I'm not into sports ball for like anyone who's like listening. Like, I don't really. It's not my it's not my strength.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I wouldn't tell you anything about how a UFC match is fought. Like, but I was really good at playing sports when I was young, but I've never been into like watching them. Yeah, I don't think either of us miss much on this one. So they they have a match, this guy wins, fine, good for him. He's making some comments after his match, and Joe Rogan is involved in whatever way, but he's standing next to this guy. I yeah, I don't, again, I did not follow that closely. So Joe Rogan's there, and this guy has the microphone, and he apparently, prior to the clip that I'm about to share with you, he thanks or praises the the president, and then um apparently disparages the wife of another fighter, and then or the mother of another fighter, and then um, and then he says this. Oh, and sorry, and then he thanks Jesus and then he says this.
SPEAKER_04And lastly, Michelle Obama is a yeah, am I right America?
SPEAKER_01There's a giant grin on Joe Rogan's face. Disgusting.
SPEAKER_00So he's he he thanked Jesus, and then he said, Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right America? Did I get that right? It's a normal thought process, right? I mean, it's it's it's it's shameful rhetoric, it's absurd, and I don't know who this person is, but he he sounds like he's maybe been hit in the head a few too many times.
SPEAKER_01I think that's probably right. And there is a long-standing racist trope about black women um not being feminine enough, and so calling them men is an insult um in that way of saying you're not you're not womanly enough, um, you're too strong, you're too whatever. Um, and so it's it's a misogynistic comment to make, it's a trans-misogynistic comment to make, it's a transphobic comment to make, you know, it's and misogynist. Yes. It's multiple levels of bigotry he accomplished and just those intersectionality at its best. So, you know, congratulations, Josh, on being the the extra special bigot of the day.
SPEAKER_00It's um well, it this is the other thing that's happening too, right? Liz, like we talked about um I can't think of his name, the guy from Texas where he was accused of being trans, like the whale or ego. You can it's so fascinating how um so many folks, you know, especially on the right currently, um, are so insistent that like gender isn't real, you know, like it's or that that it's so that uh gender binary is reality and it's so important and it and it has to be defended because because what are we gonna do if you guys like expand it? And what if I want to be a cat though? So, you know, this whole concept of like using using sex and gender as a weapon, um, you know, as a verbal weapon in in these cases, you know, really belies how firmly committed people are to hating LGBTQ people. You know, obviously we're having so much specific hatred against uh trans people and non-binary people, but you know, it's obviously the homophobia is ramping up, you know, and we're and we it and this is the other thing too, is like it's not like it's been a great time to be gay for a very long time, you know. I don't think that there's ever been some like utopian period in America where like everything was fine, not even in the recent past.
SPEAKER_01But I mean, it was it, it's shocking to see that said at the White House. Remember, this was on the lawn of the White House, and there were cheers. I mean, they didn't pan to the audience in the clip that I saw, but if you hear it, I mean, there are some people cheering.
SPEAKER_00It was not a deafening silence.
SPEAKER_01Oh, sure, indeed. And then, like I said, you have Joe Rogan there like smiling that big grin. No reason to give him a benefit of the doubt, to be honest. But the reaction afterward, as you can imagine, a lot of people have been upset. And um, even people you might not expect were calling for um the president to denounce this. I mean, it was his event. It was held for his birthday. He was there. Um, it will surprise no one listening to this to know that he has not denounced it in any way. I mean, remember, this is the guy who posted a meme or like a video of Michelle and Barack Obama with their faces made to look like monkeys. So um I wasn't certainly wasn't expecting him to say anything. Uh JD Vance has his. I mean, nobody who was involved in organizing these this event, aside from Dana White, who um is I don't know his official position within the UFC, if he's CEO or whatever, but um heavily involved in UFC did in some way denounce the comment. But um certainly not the president or anyone from his administration when this is the former first lady that they're talking about. Um and then there's the people who are like I guess this is what I found. Surprising is the people who are like, Oh, I thought the left liked transsexuals. Why are you all upset? And they use that word too, transsexuals. There's just lots of lots of weird things being said. And again, you're right. It's not like there was a period ever where people weren't saying things like that, but it is so normalized now because our own government doesn't believe that trans people have a right to exist and is openly racist about so many things. Um, so that was the the mask is off for sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, going back to the um baseball example, the Major League Baseball said that this was a violation of their rules for players to write on their caps. And JD Vance quote tweeted their post and said, We don't have to do this anymore. Trump won the election. It's unclear, right, what he's talking about, but certainly not in support of the LGBTQ community. That's obvious. Alyssa's got her eyes closed.
SPEAKER_00She can't teach us. I just hate it all so much. You know, America has always been full of a lot of mythology. Um but it's like, you know, when I think about, you know, all of this is happening, of course, it's like it's the 250th anniversary in a couple weeks of you know, the founding of this country, liberty and justice for all. I mean, my goodness, we all had, I don't know, did you have to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day when you were a little kid? Me too. Me too. Every day, every day. Under God. Uh indivisible is what I kept hearing, but uh apparently not. We're so far away from our ideals. I mean, we're like they're they're in another stratosphere. They're in, I don't know where they are.
SPEAKER_01We're not even heading in their direction. I mean, it's just racism baked into every single thing that they do and say. Um, and and intentionally, I mean, they are making these policy decisions. They are choosing the websites that they've removed, honoring people from the past, military leaders, et cetera, who were black or other people of color. Um anyway, so yes, intentionally, purposefully moving away from the ideals of the country as we head into this 250th anniversary. Um, and the last example I wanted to bring up that also just happened, I mean, this is all happening all the time, that just happened this week is is a man who is traveling with his two young daughters on a road trip, stops somewhere, takes them into the women's bathroom so that he can help them pee, wash their hands. And a man, white man, for what it's worth, comes along and is starts yelling at this guy about how he, why he's in the women's bathroom and calls the cops to report that this man is in the women's bathroom with his two young daughters. One of the girls is so upset she starts crying.
SPEAKER_00And this story on You and I watched you and I watched this video together, and and we'll put a we'll put a link to it in the show notes. But like these are like these are girls that are very, very little. I mean, they have their faces blurred out in the in the video, but they look like they're probably like, you know, three, four years old, maybe.
SPEAKER_01Certainly younger than 10. I I couldn't tell. I mean, one of them very little. One of them in the original video that the man himself posted, the faces aren't blurred. I I thought maybe five or six, but I don't know. Anyway, little for sure.
SPEAKER_00The point is that when you are a parent and you are traveling with your children, and like I my kids are a little bit older now, but like when they're little, I mean, this is a big deal. And I used to always take my son into the women's restroom with me when he was little because I'm not sending my five-year-old into a men's bathroom. And in fact, even when he got to the age where he really didn't want to go into the women's bathroom anymore, like I would stand outside the men's bathroom at like rest stops or, you know, any place that we would go, and you always worry because, like, I'm sorry, the people that I'm worried about are in the men's bathroom.
SPEAKER_01That's correct. And so, what's been disturbing to see? So, first of all, it is totally inappropriate to call the police because a man is taking his daughters to the bathroom. Like, let's just start with that to be clear. And then, second of all, the reaction online has been, as always, I don't know why I'm surprised, very disturbing to see. There are people who are actually earnestly arguing that this man should have asked some random woman to take his daughters into that bathroom. That is outrageous. Instead of him taking them in there. By the way, there was no one in the bathroom when he took them in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, this is what's so dumb. And like the in the video, the man who's like so belligerent and he's like on the phone, and he's like a real Karen. What's the boy word for a Karen? Chad. A Chad. He's a Chad. Um, and it's so embarrassing to see this grown-ass man. He's like yelling in the phone or speaking with a stern and intense voice into the phone. And then this young man is older, by the way.
SPEAKER_01He's like maybe in his late 50s or something. He's older.
SPEAKER_00But like this in this video, this young dad is literally holding his child up to wash her hands. And this man on the phone with the police is like, yeah, and he's just taking his sweet time. And I was like, well, you know, it does take actually full 20 seconds of scrubbing with the hands to effectively wash them. And children are disgusting. Like, I love them. They're adorable. I love taking care of children as a pediatric anesthesiologist. They're just little fomides. They're just, they're just always got their fingers up their noses and they're like always touching stuff. It's gross. They need a full hand wash. Okay. So, yes, this man, this dad is taking his sweet, appropriate time washing his children's hands after they have literally gone to the bathroom. So it just the whole thing is it's it's embarrassing and it is outrageous that this man is like behaving this way, this uh non-parent man, and he's like, My wife is waiting to go to the bathroom. It's like, well, okay, so she's waiting to go to the bathroom, but okay.
SPEAKER_01But also, she can go to the bathroom. She can't. She feels she can't go to the bathroom because there's a guy washing his kids' hands in the bathroom. Does she live in a house with a man? It seems like she does. Is she not able to manage?
SPEAKER_00Not very nice, man.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's what I saw. The man she lives with is not very nice. Maybe that's why she doesn't feel comfortable going into a bathroom where there's a man. Right. Because she thinks they're all like her husband.
SPEAKER_01I'm just saying. I mean, it's very possible. But I just think there's been so much, and we talked about it in our bathroom episode, there's so much panic about what's going on in public bathrooms, which is honestly so weird. Like, once again, why are people spending so much time thinking about other people's genitals? But also, how did it come to this? Like, this is just a guy, this is just a dad taking his girls to the bathroom. Apparently, you can't do that anymore either. Like, that's how far they're taking this campaign that targets trans people. But now they're like, no, a dad can't take girls into the girls' bathroom.
SPEAKER_00Men are not okay.
SPEAKER_01A lot of people are not okay in this moment. I mean, that's part of the problem. A lot of people are not okay. People are not making enough money to survive the prices of everything rent, church, property, groceries, gas, everything has gone up. Of course, because of intentional choices made by our our administration. And then we've got this massively increasing wealth inequality with Elon Musk having just become, by net worth, the first trillionaire. And yet we have people who can't even afford shelter.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, and I think I saw that uh like over 700,000 children have lost their school lunches. Like that's kicked into effect.
SPEAKER_01That's great. I mean, there's a lot for people to be angry about, and I think it's hard for them to know where to put that energy, who to take it out on. And what our government and what Republicans or conservatives have done is to give them targets. Here, here's who you should point your anger at. You should point your anger at black people, you should point your anger at trans people, you should point your anger at gay people, you should point your anger at women who have the audacity to want to have control over their own bodies. So that's, I think, you know, what's happening, right? Like people are upset, rightfully so. They're not given meaningful actions they can take about it. The government is like, oh, you know who's at fault? It's not Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Donald Trump. It's those other people. It's the immigrants, right? So they're giving them targets to focus their anger on instead of focusing. Imagine if we all united collectively and said, hey, what's going on with this capitalist hellscape that we're living in? That is the real reason we're all suffering so much. And why don't we redistribute this wealth? Why don't we tax the rich at the rates that they really should be taxed at, comparable to the rates at which the rest of us are taxed at? But they keep folks distracted with all this hate. And it divides us to your point about indivisible in the in the Pledge of Allegiance. It divides us and it keeps us fighting each other instead of fighting the handful of people at the top who have all the money, the power, and the influence and who set the rules that the rest of us have to live by. Well, you know, I was gonna talk about aliens, but I just no, no, I've changed my mind.
SPEAKER_00I've changed my mind. Um, because I do want to do an episode on design and the ways that the government is using design, but because we've been talking about pride and like how just obnoxious things are, I do think it's a worthy time to talk about rainbow washing and how you know we've really seen, just like we've seen with um with Pride, you know, it wasn't that long ago where like suddenly it became this thing where like you saw the corporatization of Pride, you saw Pride festivals starting to get sponsored by bigger organizations, um, more products being sold to all of us, uh, June really being used as a time to sell a lot of rainbow things, um, which I love a rainbow. So um, but it is something where, and then we've subsequently seen this with uh Juneteenth, where you know, most of us hadn't really didn't know anything about Juneteenth, didn't have a deep connection with it, and now it's become something that's become corporatized. And here's a Juneteenth sale, you know. So it's like the way mixing what you were talking about about capitalism and the way that it interplays with um, you know, important social issues. And so rainbow washing is when an corporation is basically saying that they're supporting prize, saying that they're supporting LGBTQ people, um, and primarily using that as a way to sell stuff. What I think is valuable to understand is that there's a bunch of these corporations that are simultaneously selling rainbow stuff to all of us and donating a lot of money to politicians and organizations that are pushing this anti-LGBTQ, anti-trans legislation, anti-uh you know, rights for LGBTQ people. These corporations want us to believe that they are good and want us to not look too closely at their behaviors. And the point, right, is to you we want to buy things because we think it's gonna make us happy. We think it's gonna make us it's it's in alignment with our values. And so when an organization is then on the back end doing all sorts of actions that are in opposition to our values, it's really important for us to know about them. It's just very we've talked about a number of things that all sort of are interacting in this space, which is like living in a capitalist society, being told, like, don't look over here, look over here, be upset at these people. Um, you know, the intersectional injustices that we're witnessing in opposition to LGBTQ people, black people, um, women. We cannot be secure in any of the things that we thought we could count on. I think that um we certainly had a number of years where it felt like things were changing. There were more rights, there were more protections, um, and we're clearly in a huge backlash against that now. And I think we have to stand up for the people in our communities, we have to stand up for each other um and can and insist um that things are better. We have to insist that people are treated with dignity and respect and um not cave to all of this divisive, horrible, harmful rhetoric that's coming from all sides.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I also, you know, thank you for bringing up Juneteenth because we're recording June 18th, and we're also seeing, you know, so many specific instances of anti-black racism that are in the news like constantly. Um and folks may have followed, for example, the case of um, you know, we're not we're not gonna talk about this in-depth today, but the case of Rick Chow, um, who shot 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack Felton in the back as Cyrus was running away because Rick uh Mr. Chow had suspected Cyrus of stealing some water from his convenience store on the surveillance video. For what it's worth, you can see Cyrus taking the water and then putting it back. It does not appear that he took any water, not that.
SPEAKER_00If you steal water, you still shouldn't get shot in the back. You don't you shouldn't have an extra judicial extrajudicial execution for taking water. Correct.
SPEAKER_01And so uh for folks who aren't familiar with that case, so Cyrus puts the water back, picks up his backpack, which he had been asked to leave at the front door, he picks it up on his way out, and then Rick and his wife and his son all starts to follow Cyrus, who's again 14 years old. I I should say, uh, for folks who don't know Cyrus, Cyrus is black. Um, and Cyrus, I don't know what they said, we don't have audio on the video, but Cyrus is obviously concerned and starts running. Um and apparently runs so fast that he even loses a shoe. And um probably because he thought he was gonna get shot. And he did. And he did, which Rick Chow said was self-defense. This is what they argued in court that it was self-defense. He feared for the the life of his son, supposedly. Um there was a gun that had fallen out of Cyrus' backpack. Uh, Rick Chow said that it was pointed at them. Again, he was shot in the back. I just want to make clear. I don't know how you point a gun at someone and get shot in the back. Anyway, so the point is this the the verdict came out recently after the trial, and Rick Chow was not held accountable for having killed this 14-year-old child by shooting him in the back. And um and we've had just this week, the um police in the Sibi killed a one-year-old boy because they thought maybe maybe some diapers had been stolen. And um it is it's fucking terrible. It is sickening. I don't know what to say. I mean, I'm saying all this because I don't know what to say. I don't I don't know I guess I just want to say that I I see it and I I f I also feel it. I feel it deeply, even though I'm obviously not a black person, but like how can we have empowered white supremacy to such a degree that we went from, you know, Juneteenth became a holiday after George Floyd's murder when it seemed that there was a changing tide, which there was temporarily a changing tide, and there was a greater recognition of anti-black racism all over this country, briefly. And now even as we try to celebrate Juneteenth, we're seeing it seems like maybe it's just my algorithm, I don't know, it just seems like even more anti-bla black racism and violence against black people and specifically black children. And I don't know how so many people are either okay with it or just um not paying attention to it. I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess what I'm saying is all this stuff put together, I don't know what it's gonna take for us as the people in this country to go out in the streets or go to DC or like how do we express non-consent, I guess, or opposition to everything that's being done with our tax dollars and in our names that's harming our neighbors. I don't know, I I would like to know an answer, but I know it's unknowable, but i I just keep coming back to that. Like how much outrage can we have and then not take action? I wish I knew. I know. And people say, like, oh, there's no point in whatever posting about things or you know, it's social media activism, whatever. I mean, I don't know what what else am I supposed to do? Genuinely, like, what else am I supposed to do? Yeah, I can call my congresspeople, whatever. They're not gonna do anything about this guy in Mississippi who shot a one-year-old, knowing he shot into a car for folks who don't know that story. So uh this woman went to Walmart with her friend and her one-year-old Cohen is his name, K-O-H-N. And they they leave Walmart with a pack of diapers. Now, uh somebody from Walmart called the police. The um things I'm seeing online are saying that she they had pre-paid for the diapers and had a digital receipt, like they had ordered online and then went to pick up from store. Um, but anyway, somebody at Walmart thought that they were stealing these diapers, which is again, you don't get killed for stealing diapers in this country. You're not supposed to get killed for stealing diapers in this country, even if that's what they had done. Anyway, so they walk out and then um they get in the car, and the mom of this one-year-old holds up her baby. She, I saw her talking about it. She holds up her babies to make sure they can see she has a one-year-old in the car. And the c the police say that they were driving toward the police. Um, eyewitnesses say they were not. Eyewitnesses say they were driving away. And they shot several shots into the car. The driver, who was the mom's friend, was severely injured and the baby was killed. And what's happened to the policeman who did this? Well, he's been put on administrative leave. Anyway, I just um sorry, this has been a real downer. Um, I I don't know. I guess I feel like awareness is the first step, like that we do need to make sure people know about these things that are happening every day in this country. Because you've got a whole bunch of people here who are pretending like everything's great. We did it. America is great again. And um, I'm like, when?
SPEAKER_00When what when did that happen? When when was this mythical time in the past when everyone was treated with dignity and respect? I mean, and that's the thing too, right? Is like, you know, as you mentioned, you know, tide turning towards a a greater recognition amongst particularly white Americans that black people have had an exceptionally hard time. And no, it actually hasn't been great. Um, people starting to understand how important it is to recognize the dignity and value of all different kinds of people and not centering white people and centering white supremacy. And all that meant was that you had a, and I don't mean to, I'm not trying to minimize how good it was that there was this understanding, but it wasn't like, oh, now my eyes are open. This just started being an issue. It's like, no, this has been an issue for a very long time. It was invisible to many of us and kept invisible for lots, you know, on purpose to keep us, keep us buying stuff, um, keep us docile. And this this backlash that we're experiencing, you know, the the feelings that you're experiencing, like it is the moral injury of being betrayed by our government, betrayed by people. People that are in our society looking around and saying, wow, I want the world to be a just place. And it is not. And that is this experience of like the world is broken and I don't know what to do to fix it. And that I just want to name it's the moral injury that we are experiencing as a country. Um, and certainly there are some people in our country who are experiencing it more than others. And and have historically as well. Yeah. And so um, you know, yes, awareness is is part of it. But it, you know, one of the things that I I mean, you and I joke, we're like, we don't know, is anybody listening to this show? And you know, the people that I that I hear from in my real life who who are listening are like, hey, you guys are talking about stuff that I would not have known about. I am more aware. You're filtering it in a way that I'm able to tolerate it, in a way that I would not have been able to go out and look for that information. And I think that's something that you and I are trying to do here. We're gonna keep doing it. Um, and we're gonna keep trying to find ways for our listeners to take those kinds of take actions, like whatever those actions are. Um your capacity to act on any given day may be different. There's gonna be days where you've got a lot of energy and a lot of feelings of being able to intervene and being able to have a lot of energy out. And there's gonna be days when that is really hard and the the best you can do is to sort of put your, you know, get out of bed and put your clothes on. And some days that that might even be hard. You know, and so I just want to I think we have to be really careful about not getting into this sort of like drop in the bucket idea, like, oh, it's just a little bit, it doesn't count, it doesn't matter. But it actually is gonna take millions and millions of people being like, absolutely not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's how you end up with you know um meaningful change. Um but yeah, it's this is not it's not a great time. I just gave my girlfriend um a magnet that says, What a fucked up time to be alive. It's got a kitten on it, it's got a kitten on it. Just naming it, you know. Um yeah. So I don't know. It's not like a satisfying, it's not like gonna be a satisfying, like, yay.
SPEAKER_01We did it. You mean we didn't solve racism and homophobia and transphobia today on our little podcast? We didn't fix it all.
SPEAKER_00That would have been really cool though. Well, so we have now depressed our entire audience. They're crying, they're they're feeling sad. I mean, I'm also depressed myself. You depressed yourself. Okay, well, maybe I should do my joy first then, and then you can do that about it. So we're gonna we're gonna do take two and call me in the morning because we have to do it, even if the news is absolutely abysmal. We still have to do, we have to look for places where we can get some joy.
SPEAKER_01Um because that's how we keep going, by the way. Not just because it's you know, we want to feel good, but like we cannot live mired in the awful, or else we will never take action, right?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So, this is what I want to tell you about. Um, so this is a little bit of anesthesia culture for folks who have never had the glory of being in an operating room. Um, we have to label our drugs. You have to put these like special little stickers like on your syringes, you like drop your syringes of drugs, they all have to be labeled. We have to put the date, our name, um, the medication, what's the concentration of the medication, whatever. There's all these legal things we have to do. And to make it easier to do all the labeling, for you know, 30 plus years, there have been these little stickers that are color-coded that they say, like there's a yellow one that says propofol, and it's got a little space for you to put the concentration and you put your stuff. I saw this person, um, I believe this art was submitted to one of our anesthesia journals. I'll have to double check because I saw it on social media. But somebody has taken all the different colors and they made this really, really cool like portrait of a of a woman in a scrub cap. Um, and it's all made of these stickers. And so it's like a very creative collage because a lot of us are not using these stickers anymore. We have these machines that will print the colored sticker and like, you know, it's more whatever. It they don't mess up. They it always puts the correct date and time. But but a lot of our operating rooms still have these laying around. And so somebody used this to make this really cool art, and I thought it was really neat. So I'm gonna share that with you. Um, and then the other thing that I saw was there's a a woman who um has some sort of a chronic illness and has a lot of um, you know, those little like amber colored drug containers, like you go to the pharmacy, you get some some medication, you know, and it's annoying. If you have like a monthly medication, you have like it's like so many of these stupid bottles. So she has cut them into these super thin slices and then attached them all together to make these like super cool, super weird, almost biologic looking um sculptures. Um, and you can tell that there's like uh different sizes of, you know, there's different sizes of tube tubes that the medicines come in. And so she's like sliced them all really thin and made these like giant sculptures. So I'll put pictures of those as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_00Um I want to re- I'm like I like to I like reusing things.
SPEAKER_01I think that's yeah, I love I mean I I have those bottles that I don't I I don't need them, but I I just feel terrible throwing away plastic. So I often hold on to things that I have no use for because that makes me feel too bad to throw them away.
SPEAKER_00Other people had the depression. We have uh climate collapse.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. And uh me holding on to these pill bottles is gonna prevent it for sure. Um well, okay, I want to share with you my TikTok has been doing me right lately. Um it doesn't always, but it has been doing me right lately. I want to share with you a song um just part of it that came across my algorithm um just yesterday. But it also anyway, I'm just gonna play a little snippet and I'll put a link in the show notes. Are you ready? Anyway, it goes on for a while. It's very good, it's a high production value, also. Um, so I I encourage anyone who's in the perimenopause time of their life to watch it, or if you're living with someone who is, there were multiple men I saw in the comments being like, oh, I I learned a lot from this video. Anyway, um yeah, that's the that's that one. There's also another one I'll put in the in the show notes. It's a dentist. It's really funny. He's singing Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know. Okay. And he's um he's singing it though, he's changed some of the lyrics. He's singing it to a patient who he did a lot of work for and it wasn't covered by her insurance, and now she's gone on to another dentist. And so he's talking about how he's never gonna get paid for the work that he did on tooth number three because Blue Cross isn't gonna reimburse him. It's really good. Like the guy's so crazy. He's playing the guitar and he's singing, and he clearly wrote their lyrics. It's it's really good. Uh anyway, I will put a link to it. Because at first, when it started, I was like, what is this? And I thought he was just gonna sing the original song. And I was like, that's kind of mean. That song, like sung to a former patient, is like pretty mean. But he he changes the lyrics in a way that it's actually really funny. He's like, I hope, did you tell her that you like you know how there's that part um where she's talking about, did you tell her you totally told me till you die, but you're still alive? You know, that part of the song. He's like, Did you tell her the new dentist that you told her you were gonna floss that tooth until you die? Until you die. But I'm still alive. You know, like anyway, it's all about it's all about dentistry. And it's very well done. So I'll put a link to that. Sounds very creative. Yes, it's very creative. Um, so I'll put a link to that as well. And I think that's it for this week's episode. Sorry I was a bit of a downer this week. Perhaps it is the perimetopause of it all. I don't know. Um, if you didn't like what you heard, this has been the emergency meeting podcast, which is by the Tate Brothers. If you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to the present illness, leave us a review, and tell other folks who might enjoy the show.
SPEAKER_00Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at The Present Illness and stay on top of all of our TPI-related news.
SPEAKER_01We will be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs.
SPEAKER_00Until then, agitate, hydrate, take a nap. We'll see you next time on The Present Illness. Production by Argivon Salas and Alyssa Berghart, editing by Alyssa Berghart, social media by Argon Salas, original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. Please take your medical questions to a qualified professional. This podcast is our hobby and it does not represent the opinions of our employers or anyone but ourselves.
