Beer and Conversation Podcast

The boys drink and review Sam Adams winter white ale, then smoke their pipes and discuss the origin and history of smoking.

When you sit around the fire, you don’t want the smoke coming your way. It’s annoying. So who came up with the idea of intentionally breathing smoke into your lungs?

People in Africa, the near east, and in China did smoke some cannibis-like weeds, but smoking really took off when Columbus brought tobacco from the new world.

The whole world loved the stuff and tobacco became a key crop in the Americas.

The boys discuss the interesting history of smoking.

Join us for a deep dive into this fascinating topic.

The boys drink and review a Kolsch from Sky Blue Brewing, then discuss the influence of an old sociology paper by Cloward and Piven.

These 60s-era “intellectuals” lamented that not enough eligible people had signed up for welfare benefits. They proposed overwhelming the welfare system by deploying an army of activists and troublemakers to (1) get more people to sign up for benefits, and (2) riot, demonstrate, protest, and generally cause trouble.

The goal was not to get more wealth to the poor, but to cause the welfare system to fail, create a crisis, and force the federal government to institute a new system.

Their proposed “solution” was called “guaranteed minimum income,” which is an idea so stupid you have to be an intellectual to believe in it.

Their overall proposal seems to define the basic playbook of the left, which is to cause disorder and crisis, destroy the current system, and replace it with socialism.

Cloward and Piven believed the only way for poor people to get their way is to riot, set fires, and cause trouble. Incremental change is not enough. There has to be a revolution.

Join us for a deep dive into this fascinating topic.

P&C drink and review a Heinken Zero, then discuss some holiday themes.

Contrary to popular opinion, Columbus didn’t show that the world was round. Every educated person knew the world was a globe. Columbus mistakenly believed the world was smaller than it is, and that it would be an easy trip from Europe to Asia.

His mistake led to the discovery of the Americas, but it took a long time before Europeans decided to colonize the new land.

The Pilgrims were late to the game. There were already Spanish and French settlements in the Americas. But the Pilgrims were among the earliest English settlements, and were very influential in the development of the United States.

The boys discuss, and wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

The boys drink and review two imperial stouts, then discuss the possible relationship between Tylenol and autism.

RFK Jr. has announced a relationship between pregnant women taking Tylenol and autism in their children.

There is some evidence for that claim, but there are a lot of confounding issues as well.

Is autism really on the rise? It seems so, but some people say it’s just that we’re detecting it better these days — although that doesn’t seem to account for the severe cases, which are also supposed to be on the rise.

If it is on the rise, why? Is it something we’re eating, something we’re injecting into our bodies, or maybe the way we’re cooking?

What do we do with all the anecdotal evidence from parents that their child’s autism came on suddenly?

It seems as if the health establishment is not taking this as seriously as they ought to be.

The boys drink and review Lost Rhino’s Marzen, then discuss conversion therapy.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on a ban on “conversion therapy,” which is alleged to cure people of unwanted sexual attractions.

Is this a ban on free speech? Is SCOTUS going to tell therapists what they can and can’t say to their clients?

Some people don’t believe that their homosexual attractions align with their Christian faith, and they’d like to lessen or eliminate those attractions.

Nobody goes to therapy to be affirmed. The whole therapy industry exists because people have thoughts or feelings they want to change. Why should we exempt this particular kind of change?

The boys tear apart the silly arguments of the left. Tune in, and let us know what you think.

P&C review La Chouffe, a strong Belgian Blonde ale, then discuss changing ideas about the self — what it is, and how we think about it.

In the ancient world, your “self” was more tied to your community and group.

Augustine updated the sense of self as a reflective, moral agent. You don’t just think, you think about what you’re thinking.

In the Protestant Reformation, the self took center stage. It was all about your own spiritual experience.

Decartes takes a huge step with the mind-body split. There’s a “you” that’s separate from the body. Our soul is a ghost in the machine of the body.

John Locke introduced the concept of the blank slate. You (or society) can affect who you become. That idea has lost a lot of its lustre as we’ve realized how much of our self is genetic.

Is the self continuous over time? Is it an internal story: “I’m this kind of person”? Do some people have a stronger sense or perception of self than others do? Or is the self an illusion? Some contemplatives say they can transcend the self.

The modern sense of self puts a huge burden on the individual. Everyone has to define what’s good and decide for themselves what gives their life meaning and purpose. Is part of the reason we have so much depression and suicide?

The boys drink and review Forgotten Lore American lager from Nepenthe, then discuss food stamps.

A lot of people were concerned that the recent government shutdown was interfering with the funding for food stamps (SNAP), but it brought up another issue. People started to wonder how we got to the point that one in eight Americans are getting food stamps.

Food stamps started out as a relatively modest program to distribute surplus food to people who could use it. The original program ended during World War II, but it was resurrected for the “war on poverty” under Lyndon Johnson. As with most government programs, it’s grown ever since.

In the early days of the program you had to purchase the stamps. In 1977 they abandoned the purchase requirement, and now it’s just a giveaway.

And boy are we ever giving it away.

P&C discuss.

The boys drink and review Raison Dêtre, a Belgian brown ale from Dogfish, then discuss the Charlie Kirk assassination and his legacy.

Charlie Kirk was an amazing man. He could go into enemy territory and take on all comers. When he took questions from a crowd, he would invite the people who disagreed with him to the front of the line.

Is there anyone like that on the left?

What did the Charlie Kirk assassination say about America? What did it say about the right and the left?

Who will be Charlie’s successor? How has his death changed the conservative movement?

The boys drink and review a Helles lager from Sam Adams, then discuss the Mississippi miracle. They’ve moved from the bottom to near the top in reading.

How did they do it?

They abandoned the failed modern educational ideas, like whole language, that have been destroying education for decades, and went back to phonics and strict standards.

Modern ideas confuse how a proficient reader reads with how beginners learn. It was a comical error.

People become proficient by learning and internalizing the basics. Later they don’t need the basics anymore, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t need to learn them. Modern methods try to take a shortcut, and it doesn’t work.

Mississippi went back to the basics and pulled off a miracle.

The boys drink and review a supercharged pumpkin ale and wonder what people mean when they say we should abolish ICE.

If we assume they haven’t gone completely into a “no borders” position, then how do we make sense of this?

We have borders, and we have rules for who can cross them. Somebody needs to enforce that. If it’s not ICE, who’s going to do it?

This is, once again, one of those cases where the left is reacting emotionally and hasn’t thought the thing through.

If they’re upset about ICE tactics … okay. We can have reasonable discussions about that.

But somebody needs to enforce our immigration laws, and that means that in some cases people need to be deported.

What do the “abolish ICE” people actually want?

With special guest Longinus, P&C drink and review Samuel Adams’ Jack-O Pumpkin Ale, then wonder why dragons show up in so many cultures around the world.

Spanning the east, the west, and the Americas, the boys discuss dragon stories — what they have in common and how they diverge.

• Are they always mean?
• Do they always hoard treasure?
• Do they always want to eat virgins?
• Were they all sea serpents?

What they have in common is a monster that represents chaos.

In the west, people believed in actual dragons for a long time, then modernism set in and killed the dragons. Tolkien and other fantasy writers revived them. Now we have dragons all over the place again.

Jordan Peterson often repeats a theory — based on evolutionary psychology — for why dragons developed.

With special guest Longinus, the boys drink and review Southern Tier’s imperial pumpkin ale, then — to celebrate Halloween — review a series of scary stories from Shirley Jackson.

In this episode we dive into the eerie, unsettling world of Shirley Jackson. Best known for The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House, Jackson was a master of psychological tension, small-town menace, and the dark corners of everyday life. The boys discuss several of her short stories — how she creates unease without gore, how she uses ordinary settings to expose cruelty and conformity, and why her work still feels so disturbingly relevant today.

Here are the stories we cover.

• Flower Garden
• The Daemon Lover
• The Renegade
• The Witch
• The Tooth
• The Lottery

The boys drink and review Jailbreak’s Citra Lady Friend then discuss the implications of a million year old skull from China.

P&C start with a review of the prevailing views on human evolution, including the “out of Africa” hypothesis.

A little while ago, scientists in China found that a find from a few decades ago was older than expected, and more modern than expected.

It’s become common for headlines to claim that “this changes everything” — but maybe this one does.

How does this million year old skull fit into the picture?

The boys discuss.

The boys drink and review Lord Baltimore from Key Brewing, then wonder whether Maryland really needed 700 new laws.

What is the relationship between the citizen and the state? On one side you have the anarchist, who wants no government. Then you have the libertarian, who believes “that government is best that governs least.” On the extreme left you have people who want the government involved in every decision, regulating everything the citizen does.

Maryland leans in that direction.

Wes Moore and the Democratics in Annapolis recently passed 700 new laws. Some of them are reasonable. Some are ridiculous. But did we really need all of them?

P&C discuss and comment on some of the specific laws.

The boys drink and review one of Crowhill’s homebrews, then wonder about the fact that you can purchase curses on Etsy and Fiverr.

What the heck? How should we view this?

Recently, the feminist magazine Jezebel paid some witches on Etsy to curse Charlie Kirk. Shortly afterward he was assassinated. Megyn Kelly made a big deal about it.

Did the witches score?

C’mon. Do we really believe in curses?

P&C try to back up and examine the concept of curses, the demonic, evil force, and how to parse all of this.