Author: Pigweed and Crowhill

The boys drink and review Sweet Baby Banana by DuClaw, then discuss two short works by Tolkien.

In this latest installment of their “shortcut to the classics” series, Longinus joins Pigweed and Crowhill to review these very interesting stories.

Niggle is a quiet little man who would like to spend his life on his grand work, which was a painting of a tree. His neighbor, Parish, keeps interrupting him with irritating requests. Niggle reluctantly helps Parish, but fails to prepare for a long journey, and is caught unawares when the day comes.

The story can be interpreted as an allegory about death, Purgatory, and the beatific vision. It also touches on the legacy of a man and his art, and role of artists as subcreators.

Farmer Giles is a much sillier story about a simple man who becomes the unlikely local hero that scares away a giant and defeats a dragon, with the help of a magical sword and a talking dog.

These stories illustrate two different elements of Tolkien’s writing: philosophical seriousness, and light, silly writing.

Pigweed wanted to expose the sprouts to some real music, so they went to hear the symphony. Pigweed was enthralled by the soprano, but was confused by her bio. She insists that people use confusing pronouns, and associates her music with anti-colonialist silliness and other liberal talking points and advocacy. The woke BS is working its way into everything, and P&C are sick of it.

P&C drink and review an Irish Stout from Nashville, then discuss five topics in five minutes each.

1. Self love on Valentine’s Day. What do you think of someone who sends her love to herself on Valentine’s Day? P&C think that’s ridiculous. Love is outwardly directed, not inwardly.
2. Brandon and the Chinese Balloons. Was this the most embarrassing thing for the U.S. in decades? We showed the whole world that we’re indecisive and incompetent and that we overreact when we’re caught with our pants down. A total embarrassment.
3. The non-binary soprano. Pigweed took the sprouts to an orchestral performance to expose them to some genuine art. The soprano was wonderful. But … it was a they/them, and the program was full of all kinds of confusing gibberish.
4. Liberal tells. What words or phrases immediately tell you that someone is a liberal? Undocumented immigrant. Always talking about gender. Everything is explained by hate or bigotry. Safe spaces. Decolonization. Problematic. Personal pronouns. Dog whistles. Privilege. Racist. Sexist. Homophobe. Transphobe. Triggered.
5. Beer fasting. You think beer fasting means giving up beer. But P&C are traditionalists. They’re going to give up everything except beer for a few days, to see what it was like for the Paulaner monks in the old days.

P&C drink “Watch out for Bears” brown ale from Calvert Brewing, then discuss the history of Singapore.

It starts with the East India Company, which wanted a port in this strategic location between the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca leading into the Bay of Bengal. Commerce between China and India, and then later to the Suez canal, had to come through this area.

Singapore was controlled by the British for a time but was captured and brutalized by the Japanese during WWII. After a post-war effort to join greater Malaysia failed, Singapore became independent, and then started on an absolutely stunning transformation.

At first, the population of Singapore was incredibly poor, and many of them were addicted to opium. Lee Kuan Yew became prime minister in 1959 and led the country to become one of the richest, most advanced, most educated countries in the world.

But it’s a weird mix of capitalism and dictatorship. It’s a lovely place, but not “free” by western standards.

Lee Kuan Yew might be the only example the world has ever seen of the benevolent philosopher-king dictator.

P&C drink and review Cold Snap White Ale from Sam Adams, then discuss their trip to the Maryland Live Casino.

Although P&C generally frown on gambling, they wanted to see what a casino is really like. So they went to see for themselves on the weekend of the NFL division championships.

Unlike the casinos in Vegas, which are beatiful, with stunning art and fancy displays, and lots of entertainment close by, the Maryland Live Casino was just gaudy, noisy, and flashy.

This was not a casino James Bond would visit. Not classy. Not elegant.

Your favorite beer-drinking high-rollers each bet the stunning sum of $20.

P&C drink and review a homebrewed stout, and along with special guest John Wayne Jew discuss how diversity, equity, and inclusion don’t mean what you think they mean, or what they should mean.

They start with an effort to find the good things in DEI. But they don’t get very far.

DEI is a social and moral catastrophe. It hides behind words that sound virtuous and pleasant, but it twists and distorts those words into something unrecognizable.

“Diversity” only applies to a very narrow range of issues: race, sex, and who you fancy. There’s no effort to have diversity of opinion, of religious views, or personality traits, or any of the thousands of ways that humans can be distinguished.

“Equity” is a classic bait and switch. Americans all believe in equality of opportunity, but equity means equality of outcome, which is a horrible mess. “Equity” justifies letting people out of jail because of their race, irrespective of whether they’re guilty.

There’s something similar with “inclusion.” The DEI proponents are only interested in including certain groups and certain ideas. They don’t want to include conservatives.

P&C drink and review Cream Team, a cookies and cream milk stout, then discuss “advances” in reproductive technology.

Ectolife is working on creating an artificial womb, where babies can be grown in a production facility. There’s been some success with mice, and they want to extend the tech to humans.

The goal is to alleviate some of the pain and risk inherent in childbirth, and to help couples who are unable to reproduce naturally.

It would eliminate premature births, miscarriage, c-sections, and all sorts of complications in pregnancy. The system would also report on genetic abnormalities, and possibly allow doctors to correct them — or even correct inherited diseases.

It can go even further. You might be able to choose some of your baby’s characteristics, like eye and hair color, strength, intelligence, height, etc.

But there are criticisms.

If babies are so easily created, will they be less valued?

There’s also no real connection between the mother and child.

It seems like a slippery slope. How far does this go?

Every human that has ever born came from a woman’s body. How will these babies be different?

How will this affect our perception of women?

The boys drink and review Crowhill’s Henry IV homebrew, then discuss possible causes of the recent uptick in gender confusion.

Just recently — all of a sudden — we’re getting an epidemic of people with gender dysphoria. Why? What’s causing this?

We’re told that the only possible explanation is that this has always been true — that sex is not binary — but that truth has been suppressed by the patriarchal tyranny.

P&C think there are lots of other possibilities, including …

1. Microplastics.
2. Environmental toxins that are interfering with reproduction / sexual systems.
3. This is nature’s way of responding to overpopulation.
4. Loss of fathers.
5. Liberal social policies in the schools.
6. Decline of religion.
7. Mass hysteria / social contagion.
8. Social media, narcissism and attention-seeking.
9. Feminism.
10. Mixing the sexes in more and more social settings.
11. Trans is the new punk. It’s all about rebellion.
12. Redefining men and women in the face of reality.

The boys drink and review a chai latte stout from Schlafly, then discuss out-of-dates ads.

You’ve probably seen the headlines. The basic concept is “ads that are not acceptable today.” But why are they unacceptable?

In some cases, the old ad is playful, and we’re too uptight to go along with the joke.

In other cases, there were cultural assumptions in the past, or a different understanding of the science, that don’t apply today. Does that make them offensive?

Some of the ads are just plain creepy, but in some cases, the very act of finding something wrong with the ad seems to implicate the critic, not the ad.

Overall, maybe we just get offended too easily these days.

The boys drink and review Stone’s Delicious Double IPA, then discuss rights.

What is a right? We hear it all the time, but when do we stop to think about it, what does it really mean?

Do rights depend on someone granting us a right, or do we have rights by nature?

The idea of natural law goes back to the Greeks, and has a long history in the west. But what is it based on?

In the Christian world, the natural law was received as a body of unwritten rules depending upon universal conscience and common sense, ascertainable by right reason.

How does natural law relate to legal rights?

John Locke promoted the idea of Life, Liberty, and Property. How does that work with “cultural relativism,” or the idea that we get our rights from the government?

The Declaration of Independence asserts we have rights from our Creator. Do rights depend on God?

And what about enumerated vs. unenumerated rights.

The boys drink and review Delicious IPA from Stone, then discuss skills they wish they had learned.

Everybody has to make choices about how they spend their time, and some skills require a lot of work to acquire. Pigweed and Crowhill talk about things they wish they could do, but have never applied themselves to.

Things like …

• Being handy, or a gearhead,
• Whistling well,
• Getting comfortable with the Celsius scale,
• Learning the metric system,
• Budgeting,
• Tying lots of cool knots,
• Learning other languages,
• Dancing,
• Playing the guitar, or the piano,
• Charming fabulous women,
• Swordfighting,
• and other fun stuff.

The real question is, if they really wanted to learn these skills, why didn’t they?

The boys drink and review Kostritzer Schwarzbier, then discuss homelessness.

When we talk about “the homeless,” we have to make some distinctions. Some people with no home have a job, a car, and are making do … they just don’t have a place to live. They live in their car and shower at the gym.

Others are drug addicts or have mental illnesses. It’s a mistake to lump them all into the “homeless” category.

Homelessness is closely associated with drug abuse, mental health issues, street camping, open drug use, and property crime.

There are different philosophies on how to address this. One is called “housing first.” Another is “treatment first.” Many policies are based on permissiveness and perpetuation of the drug-addled life on the street.

Good policies require people to have skin in the game and demonstrate responsibility. Accommodating drug addiction and facilitating a vagrant lifestyle is sold as compassion, but it’s not the solution.

The boys drink and review Erdinger’s Weissbier Dunkel, then discuss developments in artificial intelligence.

Our first experiences with artificial intelligence were things like “playing the computer” on the Atari, or spellchecker. Checking grammar involved an extra layer of computation that had to take context into account.

Another level of computer-assisted information is what you see on Amazon — “customers who bought this also bought…” — or on Spotify — “people who likes this song also liked ….”

How will AI affect sports? Do we want computers calling balls and strikes? Do we want first downs and fumbles determined by artificial intelligence?

Just recently the tech geniuses have developed AI engines that can write books and provide the illustrations.

How long before AI is writing screenplays and creating computer-generated characters to act out the script? When will we have AI judges in the courts?

The boys drink and review Pigweed’s latest robust porter, then welcome John Wayne Jew to the show to help review “this month in woke.”

The plague of wokeness is out of control.

We’re seeing university struggle sessions where if any of the students disagree with a teacher’s liberal agenda, the student has to issue a written apology and submit himself to lectures from the teacher and other students.

Teachers can be jailed for failing to use a student’s preferred pronouns.

In Virginia, the schools slow-walked informing students they were national merit scholars because it wouldn’t be “equitable” to give the smart kids a leg up.

With control of the government, the schools, scientific establishments, the media, Madison Avenue, and Hollywood, the left is often pushing the boundaries of crazy, and mostly getting away with it — with ridiculous results.

Every day there’s another story about lunacies on the left. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you may be a victim of racism.

The woke Biden administration is going to drop millions of dollars on AI to find “microaggressions,” but they won’t pay any attention to the straightforwardly racist aggression from Joy Behar.

The word “field” has been designated too racist and triggering.

The boys end the show with a simple summary of what “woke” means.

With special guest Longinus (a vegetarian), the boys drink and review a small beer, following a recipe from George Washington, then discuss vegetarianism.

Sometimes vegetarianism is inspired by religious beliefs, and sometimes by secular ethics and questions of health. There are also issues about environmental issues and sustainability.

There are different types or levels of vegetarianism, including veganism, lacto and ovo vegetarianism, pescetarianism, raw vegans, etc.

Some claim that vegetarianism is more healthy and better for the planet.

Pigweed asks how vegetarianism squares with the history of our species. Cooking and eating meat was a huge step in our evolution and facilitated the development of our large brains.

And what about eating bugs? The geniuses at Davos seem to want us to do that.

Crowhill believes the future of meat eating is lab-grown meat, and that once we perfect that, vegetarianism will be irrelevant.