Author: Crowhill

P&C try to take the measure of a very unmeasured man

The boys drink and review 1621 Brewery’s East Bound and Brown Indian Brown Ale, then look back on Donald Trump and assess his good and bad qualities.

Now that we have some distance, what can we learn about the Trump phenomenon?

The boys recommend two bird’s eye view perspectives to govern how we view Trump. First, there is “Donny from Queens.” Second, there is the observation that the right takes Trump seriously but not literally, while the left takes him literally but not seriously.

The boys review a few lists of accusations against Trump and try to parse them according to those two rules.

They might not be what you’ve been told. Sometimes the origins or phrases are shrouded in mystery.

The boys drink and review Sweet Baby Swirl, a chocolate peanut butter white stout, by DuClaw, then discuss various common phrases of dubious origin.

Close but no cigar. The whole nine yards. At the drop of a hat. Pushing the envelope. Best foot forward. Spitting image. In the nick of time. Pudding time. Beyond the pale. Jump on the bandwagon. Get off your high horse. Living high on the hog. Mad as a hatter. Toe the line. Crossing a red line. Dressed to the nines. Up to scratch. The bees knees. Apple of my eye. Therein lies the rub. Okay. Cat got your tongue. Turn a blind eye. Bit the bullet.

P&C review and comment on these sayings and try to probe possible origins.

The boys delve into this mysterious, dramatic and somewhat frightening text.

P&C drink and review Sweet Baby Jesus, a chocolate peanut butter porter from DuClaw, then discuss the last and possibly weirdest book in the New Testament.

The Book of Revelation is often compared to a drug-induced hallucination. It’s anything but. It’s a very structured, organized book that ties together many prophetic themes from the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament tradition.

Many themes in pop culture come from this book. The beat, and the mark of the beast. The mysterious number: 666. The four horsemen of the apocalypse. Themes about Babylon, and the whore of Babylon. Plagues. Bowls of the wrath of God.

P&C go chapter by chapter and explore the major themes of the book and some of the possible meanings of the text.

The overall message is that just as Jesus conquered through suffering and death, Christians are called to the same fate, and will conquer in the end.

When do they help and when do they hurt?

P&C drink and review Union Brewing’s Steady Eddy IPA, then discuss quotas.

Quotas have become part of the landscape in many parts of our society. University admissions. Hiring. Political appointments.

The boys believe that quotas undermine the accomplishments of the people they are designed to help.

President Biden promised to choose a black woman as vice president, and then made the same promise for his first SCOTUS nominee. Is that good for the country?

P&C expose the hypocrisy of the left in pretending to want racial, ethnic and sexual diversity on the court while opposing nominees like Janice Rogers Brown or Miquel Estrada.

The NFL has also entered the game of racial and sexual quotas for coaching positions, leading to ridiculous and counter-productive measures for football.

Why do we dream, and is there anything to be learned from our dreams?

P&C drink and review Zelus Beer Company’s “Light Into Dark” Porter, then discuss dreams and dreaming.

Why do we sleep? What’s the benefit of spending so many hours in an unconscious, vulnerable state?

Where do dreams come from? Are they messages, or just a rehash of the day’s events?

The boys review theories from psychoanalysts and from modern science, and discuss what we’ve learned about dreams and dreaming with modern technology.

They review the four stages of sleep, and when we’re most likely to dream.

The boys also discuss common dreams and their alleged interpretation, which raises the question, are dreams a mechanism for getting messages from our subconscious? Is it healthy to pay a lot of attention to your dreams?

Suburbs and shopping malls seemed to go hand in hand

P&C drink and review an amber ale from Guinness, then, with special guest Longinus, discuss mall culture.

Longinus gives a quick history of the development of suburbs and malls. Shopping centers evolved into department stores, and the next step was malls. They were mostly to serve the growing suburbs.

Malls started popping up all over the place. Investors got involved, and malls were built as investment vehicles rather than to serve actual communities.

The boys review Patches, What if, Nightfall, and Breeds There a Man

P&C drink and review a homebrewed Black Saison, then — with special guest Longinus — continue their “shortcut to the classics” series with a review of some of Isaac Asimov’s short stories.

Asimov was an amazingly prolific and wide-ranging author. This is just a taste of his impressive body of work.

Patches — The conflict and contrast between individualistic humans and a collectivist entity that seeks to liberate humans from their quarrels and conflicts.

What if — A married couple on a train meets a man with a device that can show them what would have happened if the circumstances of their life had been different.

Nightfall — A planet with constant sunlight from six suns faces the prospect of total darkness, which is predicted to have devasting psychological effects on the population.

Breeds There a Man — The essential, genius scientist in a Manhattan Project-like venture is going insane because of a strange theory about how humanity is being regulated and controlled by mysterious forces.

Words change, but these changes come with an agenda

P&C drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Red, then find that they can’t communicate. The words they try to use have taken on new and confusing meanings.

Orientation. Diversity. Identity. Transition. Reassignment. Privilege. Trigger. Equity. Tolerance. Pronouns. Even the rainbow.

The new definitions of these words are intended to force you to think in a different way — to adopt a particular view of the world, and of your neighbor.

The boys don’t like it.

A brief history, plus some fun Irish facts and humor

The boys drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Stout, then celebrate March 17th.

They do a quick review of Irish history, starting back in pre-history, through the Celts, Caesar, St. Patrick, the Vikings, Brian Boru and the English occupation, and up to modern times. They ask why is Ireland divided north and south, and wonder about the demise of the IRA.

They also discuss the two spellings of whiskey, the potato famine, St. Patrick’s Day customs, Irish beer, and how much Irish blood Pigweed and Crowhill have in them.

What is suffering, and why does God allow it?

The boys drink and review Cigar City’s White Oak Jai Alai IPA, then discuss suffering.

Does suffering disprove the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly good God? What is the nature of suffering, and why does it exist? What is the proper response to suffering? Why do Catholics “offer it up” when they experience suffering?

Would humans be capable of enjoying a world without suffering? Don’t we need obstacles to overcome?

Finally, the boys discuss transhumanism, and how there might be a future in which men have been altered to eliminate all suffering.

Companies pretend to care to distract us from their misdeeds

P&C drink and review Pilsner Urquell, then discuss how businesses are using wokeness as a smokescreen to pretend to be virtuous.

The boys discuss what “woke” means, then review some of the work of Vivek Ramaswami.

Corporate wokeness is all a magic trick. They keep our eyes on woke BS to keep our attention away from their misdeeds. “Never mind that we use Chinese slave labor. Look at the rainbow flag on our LinkedIn profile!”

Wokeness has become a substitute for religion and traditional morality for many companies. It’s filling a gap created by the secularization of society.

Does this ancient Chinese text have any relevance today?

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s latest IPA, then discuss Sun Tzu’s classic.

It’s an ancient book that might date back to the 6th century BC. It came out of a time when Chinese intellectuals were classifying and organizing things — including warfare.

While it’s explicitly about war, it’s often re-interpreted and re-applied as a general commentary on strategic thinking.

The Art of War is relevant to things in the news right now, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Are we living in a simulation? What does that have to do with God?

The boys drink and review another Pastryarchy offering from DuClaw, Irish Cream Dessert Stout, then wonder whether we’re living in a simulation, and whether it matters.

From Descartes’s skepticism to Nick Bostrom’s famous paper, P&C review some of the top arguments for why our world might not be what we think it is.

If simulated humans can have first-person experience, we are almost certainly in a simulation. Or are we? There are interesting arguments both ways.

Then the boys discuss how the simulation question relates to the God question. Does the possibility that we are in a simulated universe shed any light on God’s existence?

Is this a good heuristic for questions about God’s existence? That is, if you ask such and so question about God in the real world, how does that compare to an analogous question in a simulated world?

If the alarmists are right and we have to act, what should we do?

The boys drink and review Still Holidazed and Confused from Hysteria Brewing, then discuss how to save the planet.

P&C decide to buy in to climate alarmism (for purposes of the show) and discuss what we’d have to do to save the planet. What would have to change? If radical change is necessary, what would it look like?

Most of the normal suggestions are simply window dressing — polishing the brass on a sinking ship.

If you really wanted to make a significant change, P&C give you some ideas.

Food science is notoriously unreliable, and food fads are even worse

The boys drink and review a “lazy beer,” then discuss food fads.

Is it better to “eat local”? Are farmed fish less healthy than wild caught? Are “free range” chickens happier and healthier than others?

Unfortunately, many of these things are so imprecisely defined that they’re meaningless.

Pigweed and Crowhill both agree with many of the goals of the people who promote some of these food fads, but when you look into them, they tend to fall apart under scrutiny.