Talking iPINIONS: Recent Episodes
Anthony Livingston Hall
LeBron makes most stage moms look chill
But pressure will get his son killed
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 8 min 7 sec
Colleges ending legacy admissions is like governments ending tax loopholes. The rich will still game the system.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 10 sec
Forget Churchill
Zelensky is a wannabe Napoleon
who thinks NATO leaders
are generals executing his orders
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 30 sec
We are independent. But it seems we just don’t know how to quit the British. And I find that very vexing … indeed.
NOTE: This episode was originally published 7/10/2021
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 8 min 22 sec
Except that you didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that Putin’s strongman stunts were overcompensating for his congenital insecurities
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 21 min 06 sec
Except that, for Trump, getting indicted is like winning the political lottery.
Note: This episode was recorded June 15, 2023
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 11 min 20 sec
We appreciate the apology and the holiday
But what about the reparations
Note: this episode was originally posted in June, 2022
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 17 min 30 sec
If you climb to the roof of the world but you don’t post it on social media does that make you antisocial
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 8 min 35 sec
Don't be dumbAnti-wokeism is codefor White supremacy Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 9 min 33 sec
Racists now think they can
indemnify their racism
by fronting it with a Black face
like that of Clarence Thomas Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 16 sec
To honor British monarchyI’m reprising this commentaryOn American democracyBoth are now doomedBy hypocrisy Note: The episode was originally published on November 7, 2020Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min 53 sec
It’s unfair for biological mento compete against
biological women
even if those biological men
identify as women
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 9 min 40 sec
Fox News has made billions peddling lies and conspiracies. In doing so, it has done more to sow discord among Americans and undermine American democracy than enemies like Russia and China.
Fox may never face justice. But, thanks to Dominion, it’s finally paying a price.Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 9 min 55 sec
If Easter rituals bore you to distraction, you’re not alone. It’s purportedly the holiest holiday season for Christians. But, even since childhood, I always regarded it above all as the first beach holiday of the year. This sermon is redolent with that secular spirit. NOTE: This recording was originally posted on April 2, 2021.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 9 min 49 sec
Even eminent historians are warning that America is blustering its way towards another civil war. Except that this one is bound to be more like a circular firing squad – not just with neighbor fighting neighbor but with brother fighting brother … under the same roof. And all because millions of Americans are being ginned up by Trump’s autocratic propaganda. This, because he'd rather plunge the country into civil war than face justice for his crimes.Meanwhile, President Biden is sounding the rallying cry for America to lead the looming battle between the alliance of democracies and axis of autocracies. But he might want to heed that admonition about cleaning up the mess in your own backyard …
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min 20 sec
Western countries reacted to Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine by, among other things, banning Russian musicians, ballet dancers, and films. This has been one of the lesser known and, admittedly, less tragic consequences of that invasion. But it speaks volumes that no less a Russian than Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is finding that, even though they haven’t banned him, these countries deem him equally persona non grata.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 36 sec
To be fair, the ratings were not as bad as I expected. But that’s only because suspended animation prevailed as most viewers waited with bated breath for host Jimmy Kimmel’s next joke about that slap. For my part, I waited with baited breath only for the winner in the Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress categories to be announced.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 20 sec
To be fair, it’s not quite the canonization Jimmy Carter has earned during his post presidency. But George W. Bush is experiencing a reassessment of his presidency that is making his post-presidency seem very blessed indeed.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 7 min 40 sec
Harry and Meghan are going through a really bad patch. It’s bad enough that South Park just made them an international laughing stock by lampooning their royal hypocrisy and predicting, in its uncannily reliable fashion, the end of their fairy-tale marriage. But reports are that Charles told them they have until no later than his Coronation to pack their things and get out of their royal-funded Windsor cottage, Frogmore.
The latter bears elaboration. Harry and Meghan have been willfully pissing all over the British monarchy and betraying the trust of all members of the royal family. So evicting them is a no-brainer. But Charles is just inviting more pissing and betraying if, as is being reported, he cuts Andrew’s sinecure and kicks him out of his mansion. Because, rather than being relegated to Harry’s Frogmore hand-me-down, this “spare” might prefer exile in a place like Dubai, living off the largesse of royal friends.
Even worse, Andrew might feel he has no choice but to publish his own tell-all. And if Charles thinks Harry's Spare is damaging, Andrew’s is bound to be doubly so...
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 40 sec
Biden and Putin delivered dueling speeches to mark this fateful anniversary. Except that what they said had far more to do with political posturing for domestic audiences in the US and Russia, respectively, than with the war still raging in Ukraine.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min 09 sec
Given the way Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is genuflecting to White-supremacist MAGA trolls like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican Party can fairly be described by the idiom “Lunatics have taken over the asylum.”
Only this explains putatively sane Republican minorities like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott sounding more racist than Greene these days. This, in their craven and cynical attempt to challenge MAGA leader Donald J. Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 45 sec
For hundreds of years, Europeans explored, plundered, and colonized Africa. But decolonization offered the opportunity for Africans to reclaim not only their sovereignty but their right to self-determination. To say they have squandered it would be an understatement. But only that explains Pope Francis traveling there to save Africans from themselves.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 14 min 20 sec
White Australians are finally beginning to reckon with the historical fact that their ancestors did not discover Indigenous peoples. This, just as White Americans have been reckoning with the historical fact that theirs did not discover Indigenous peoples either.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 49 sec
He will never admit it. But I am convinced Tom Brady will spend the rest of his life ruing the day he decided to betray his wife and children to play football … for a 23rd season. This episode explains why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 18 sec
A key feature of the genocidal war Russia is waging in Ukraine is the United States announcing one installment after another of hundreds of millions (and sometimes billions) in military aid to Ukraine. But that’s the problem. Because everyone in Ukraine, military personnel and civilian alike, will tell you they could have won this war months ago if the United States had provided the amount and kind of aid Ukraine began requesting from day one.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 56 sec
Granted, the belief that famous people died in threes was always a silly superstition. But you’d be forgiven the belief that they are dying in droves lately.
The reality, of course, is that it’s just another feature of our interconnected world. Because, thanks to social media, we experience the deaths even of famous people we never met as if they were personal friends.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 59 sec
May the comfort and joy of just being with loved ones have far greater meaning than any gift you could possibly bring to them...
Note: This episode was originally published on December 23, 2021.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 6 min 17 sec
What does it profit a man, if he gains political power, but his country loses its soul..? Alas, for men like Bibi Netanyahuand Donald Trump, their profit is worth the country's loss.
Netanyahu began his "reign" by giving former President Jimmy Carter just cause to admonish him about turning Israel into an apartheid state. He now seems hellbent on vindicating Carter's admonition. Which clearly makes him condemning Trump for anything more hypocritical than righteous.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 47 sec
Given the way Western media are covering the protests raging across China, you’d be forgiven for thinking they portend revolutionary change. But they are just sound and fury signifying … relatively little. This episode explains why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min 42 sec
I know, you’re never supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth. But some of the most celebrated recipients of the world’s most prestigious award should have done just that. On the other hand, some of the people most deserving of this award never received it.
Note: This episode was originally recorded on November 20, 2021. I plan to republish it annually in homage to Chinua Achebe, one of my favorite novelists. Listen and you’ll understand why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 25 min 20 sec
It turns out reports of the death of American democracy were greatly exaggerated. Because voters not only rejected Republican calls for a Trumpian autocracy, but defied jack-booted MAGA thugs who tried to intimidate them against voting to do so.
Most affirming and reassuring in this respect, of course, was all the threats of election violence and chaos turning out to be much ado about nothing, and Donald Trump himself ending up the biggest loser.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min 27 sec
Search Veterans Day and the top results will be all about holiday shopping deals. But Congress intended this day to honor those who served in the Armed Forces, especially the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice. This episode is a forlorn reminder of that original intent.
NOTE: This episode was originally published 11/10/2021
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 6 min 36 sec
What could go wrong?
Well, nothing portends Twitter’s fate quite like Elon blaming “activists” for a potentially bankrupting drop in advertising revenue. I mean, how rich is that. Evidently this "free speech absolutist" is just learning the truth and consequences of free speech.
Having others put an albatross around his neck would’ve been challenging enough. But this twit has effectively tied an anvil around his own neck, jumped into the deep end of the social media pool, and is sinking fast…
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 23 min 02 sec
Football replaced baseball as America’s favorite sport long ago. But, try as the Dallas Cowboy have, they have yet to replace the New York Yankees as the team Americans most love to hate. The way their season played out this year explains why.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 55 sec
I’ve been in the vanguard of those hailing the transformative power of women in politics. I refer you in this regard to blog posts like “Women Make Better Politicians Than Men” October 14, 2010, and podcast episodes like “Men Should Be Barred from Politics,” December 27, 2020.
Nothing vindicates this proposition quite like the women leading the protests to overthrow Iran’s repressive regime. But boy, what price transformation?
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 12 min 20 sec
Tribalism has Republicans and Democrats turning America into a first-world banana republic. This is why the smartest and fastest way for any minority group to exercise political influence is to ensure that as many of its members as possible vote as one.
Miami Cubans, as a subgroup of the Latino minority, have been doing this to near perfection since the early 1970s – invariably casting their lot with the Republican tribe. So it does not bode well for traditionally Democratic but notoriously apathetic Blacks that Latinos across the country, most notably in California, are beginning to follow suit…
Note: Because a surprising number of you have asked, I always record my episodes on Thursdays to give my production team (aka Katherine) enough time to edit and publish on Saturdays.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 10 min 56 sec
People around the world have celebrated Christopher Columbus for centuries as the seafaring explorer who discovered America. In doing so, they blithely ignored the Vikings who preceded him, to say nothing of the Native Indians who greeted him.
This episode is my modest contribution to the cognitive dissonance afoot that should correct the historical record … in due course.
Note: This episode originally aired on October 10, 2021.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 7 min 40 sec
Remember how the Taliban ran US forces out of their country last year? Well, imagine the ridicule if Biden had held a treaty-signing ceremony at the White House in Washington to annex regions of Afghanistan as the world was watching that humiliation unfold. Because that’s the ridiculous nature of what Putin did in Moscow on Friday with his ceremonial annexation of regions of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, as impossible as it might seem, Putin found a way to turn American fugitive Edward Snowden into an even bigger useful idiot.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min
Remember how the Taliban ran US forces out of their country last year? Well, imagine the ridicule if Biden had held a treaty-signing ceremony at the White House in Washington to annex regions of Afghanistan as the world was watching that humiliation unfold. Because that’s the ridiculous nature of what Putin did in Moscow on Friday with his ceremonial annexation of regions of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, as impossible as it might seem, Putin found a way to turn American fugitive Edward Snowden into an even bigger useful idiot.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min
My affection for the queen was always tempered by my contempt for the Monarchy. As the “reprobate” son of a preacher man, however, I am all too mindful that this smacks of the Evangelical canard: hate the sin, not the sinner.
But I think you’ll find the explanation I offer for my inconsistency makes far more sense than the one Christians offer for theirs ever could.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 18 min 20 sec
My affection for the queen was always tempered by my contempt for the Monarchy. As the “reprobate” son of a preacher man, however, I am all too mindful that this smacks of the Evangelical canard: hate the sin, not the sinner.
But I think you’ll find the explanation I offer for my inconsistency makes far more sense than the one Christians offer for theirs ever could.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 18 min 20 sec
Everyone expected the competition between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to become the next British prime minister to be pioneering. But it turned out to be pioneering in ways no one expected.
Meanwhile, nothing has betrayed the British hallowed sense of tradition quite like the ruling Conservative Party forcing Britons to abide four different prime ministers over the past six years. So perhaps it’s perversely fitting that the latest one began her premiership this week by marking the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who embodied that tradition…
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min
Everyone expected the competition between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to become the next British prime minister to be pioneering. But it turned out to be pioneering in ways no one expected.
Meanwhile, nothing has betrayed the British hallowed sense of tradition quite like the ruling Conservative Party forcing Britons to abide four different prime ministers over the past six years. So perhaps it’s perversely fitting that the latest one began her premiership this week by marking the death of Queen Elizabeth II, who embodied that tradition…
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min
There seems little doubt that Charlene is proving more than Prince Albert bargained for. The millions she cost him after she became the most famous runaway bride in history was bad enough. But she topped that by forcing him to pay many millions more by becoming his runaway wife.
No doubt Charles thinks Diana was a difficult wife. But Albert would say she was a tamed shrew compared with what Charlene is putting him through…
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 16 min 05 sec
My blog is replete with commentaries attesting to my belief that women make better leaders than men. They range from “Cracking the Political Glass Ceiling: First Woman to Become President in South America,” December 12, 2005, to “International Women’s Day: ‘Men Should Be Barred from Politics’, March 8, 2019.
But nothing vindicates my contention quite like the way America’s most powerful man, President Joe Biden, and woman, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reacted to Chinese President Xi Jinping threatening war if Pelosi visited Taiwan. Because, while Biden cowered, Pelosi showed real profile in courage.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 03 sec
No, that's not a typo. Ayman al-Zawahiri was the leader of al-Qaeda, not ISIS But you’d be forgiven for wondering why killing him is even worthy of mention, let alone this episode. After all, every time there's breaking news these days of a terrorist attack anywhere, it’s invariably the terrorizing deed not of al-Qaeda, but of its demon spawn, ISIS.
What’s more, former President Trump effectively declared America’s war on terror over years ago after he killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. I duly rebutted and mocked his boast in “ISIS Caliph al-Baghdadi Is Dead. Beware the Next Matryoshka Terrorist Leader…,” October 27, 2019.
But I hope you’ll forgive this admittedly perverse analogy. Because, just as there’s no denying the indelible impression a first major crush leaves, there’s no denying that which a first major terrorist attack does. Zawahiri figured prominently in the latter on 9/11; and he haunted America’s consciousness ever since…
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 17 min 03 sec
It is self-evident that nuns physically abusing school kids the way priests sexually abuse altar boys means none of them can believe God exists. Because they know no God would allow them to abuse innocent children in his name the way it seems they’ve always done.
Even so, I commend Pope Francis for the humility inherent in making pilgrimages of penances to beg forgiveness for the systemic sins Catholics have committed. This, especially wearing the institutional shame of the whole world knowing that something is very rotten in the Catholic Church. And, as the proverbial fisher of men, this pope knows better than anyone that this rot is from the head down
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 15 min 20 sec
President Biden may not know it. But everyone in Washington thinks he’s a lame duck. So it behooves him to do something dramatic to disabuse them of that thought. As any crisis often does, the war in Ukraine offers him an opportunity to do so in historic fashion.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 13 min 20 sec
Much is being made about how the Republican Party has become little more than a political cult dedicated to Donald J. Trump. But the Supreme Court is rivaling that party in this respect. And fears abound that it will take another civil war to save America from their dystopian devices. Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 22 min 19 sec
We are independent. But it seems we just don’t know how to quit the British. And I find that very vexing … indeed.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 8 min 22 sec
The European decolonization of Africa ended over 50 years ago. Yet nothing betrays Africa as still the white man’s burden quite like African leaders bemoaning about a war now raging in Europe preventing them from feeding their people in Africa.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 17 min 50 sec
We appreciate the apology and the holiday. But what about those reparations…?
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 17 min 30 sec
Trump gave me cause to make this pithy observation in a blog post on December 22, 2020:
"None of Trump’s children (think Ivanka) or children-in-law (think Jared) can have any real love or respect for him.'
Ivanka vindicated my observation with her testimony this week before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. And Trump vindicated it when he reacted to her testimony by throwing her under the bus, which really should have surprised nobody, least of all Ivanka.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 19 min 46 sec
We always express thoughts and prayers for those affected by these shootings. And some of us really mean it. But, mass shootings in America have become so commonplace, the most noteworthy thing about this one might be that it interrupted the media's saturation coverage of the war in Ukraine.
And yes, I am cynical enough to think that treasonous Republicans already have another shooter lying in wait. This, to go on a rampage to detract media coverage from hearings on their Jan. 6 insurrection, which the congressional committee plans to hold during prime-time sessions beginning on June 9.
Contact:
ipinionsj@gmail.com
Length: 32 min 26 sec
The remarkable thing is that, even though they keep telling what has been plain for all to see, their books always become bestsellers. This episode explains that phenomenon and what it portends.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 14 min 24 sec
Germany professes a “special duty” to prevent genocides, and we all understand why. But Germany remained conspicuously AWOL as genocides raged across Asia and Africa, and we all understand why. Except that Germany is still remaining effectively so even as genocide is raging in its own backyard in Ukraine. History will record that it placed greater value on receiving Russian oil and gas than on saving Ukrainian homes and lives. Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 25 min 16 sec
If Easter rituals bore you to distraction, you’re not alone. Pope Francis is holding ceremonies to mark Holy Week in a practically empty St. Peter’s Square for the second consecutive year. You might think this merely reflects travel and other Covid-19 restrictions. But it’s also a metaphor for growing disillusionment with organized religion worldwide.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 9 min 49 sec
Remarkably, some Western leaders think asking their citizens to pay more for gas is too great a sacrifice to support Ukrainians who are dying to protect the democratic freedoms we all cherish. All I’m asking you to do is to make a call…
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 20 min 57 sec
Far from being religious, I am an avowed apostate. So listener beware...
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 9 min 44 sec
Forgive me if this title seems like the opening of a bad joke. Of course, if you’ve listened to episodes 67 and 68 - both on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine - you know how seriously I take this topic. If you haven’t, well, I highly recommend them. But this episode too will make that crystal clear.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 19 min 03 sec
In last week’s episode, I bemoaned the fratricidal wars still raging between Russians and Ukrainians in Europe and Ethiopians and Tigrayans in Africa, respectively. But the latest battle in America’s culture war, which erupted this week between woke academics and museum curators in New York over the fate of a statue of former president Theodore Roosevelt, is a worthy diversion.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 16 min 10 sec
Trust me, I appreciate what it takes to avert your gaze from the war in Ukraine to pay a little attention to the one in Ethiopia. But, given our shared humanity, I hope you find this episode was worth the diversion.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 18 min 15 sec
Like me, you’ve probably heard the aphorism “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” a million times. Well, beware, because never before in our lifetime has that failure portended more dire consequences than a redux of World War II now playing out before our eyes.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 23 min 56 sec
A day to get the best deal on cars and mattresses - ever?
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 6 min 48 sec
However, if you have to wait for this day to read on social media about how much you’re loved, you might want to find a new lover.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 8 min 10 sec
Everyone is saying this post-season featured the most exciting playoff games in NFL history. But it also featured some of the most vexing controversies, including one highlighted by the racism that stems from America’s original sin – slavery.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 22 min 57 sec
Rich folks have been gathering annually for 50 years for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Their mission has been to continually shape the global political and economic agenda – purportedly for the general welfare.
But, unless you’re a white, rich man, their agenda probably has not served you all that well…
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 20 min 57 sec
Southerners triggered the Civil War (1.0) because they wanted to own Blacks as slaves. Now Republicans seem hell-bent on triggering a civil war 2.0 because they want to deny Blacks the unfettered right to vote.
So forget civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, because it’s abolitionists like Frederick Douglass who must be really rolling over in their graves…
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 25 min 54 sec
Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association vote on the annual Golden Globes. But after reports exposed them as little more than a cabal of venal white supremacists, Hollywood A-listers rushed to disassociate from their awards show. This previewed its doom.
Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences vote on the annual Oscars. But the problem is that their association makes the Hollywood Foreign Press Association look diverse and progressive by comparison. So are virtue-signaling Hollywood A-listers going to disassociate from the Oscars too…? Ha!
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 10 min 32 sec
Is it just me, or are famous people dying in droves these days? Because not so long ago, their deaths came in such intermittent and limited number that I used to play the morbid game about the deaths of famous people coming in threes.
More to the point, social-media networks have turned the expression of condolences on these occasions into little more than a trite and often narcissistic ritual. That’s why, to disassociate from the maddening crowds who participate, I paid tribute to only four of the scores who died in 2021.
Fatefully, though, as I was preparing to record my tribute to Desmond Tutu, news broke that Sidney Poitier had died. And, if you’ll pardon the expression, I felt a divine inspiration to kill two birds with one stone.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 30 sec
May the comfort and joy of just being with loved ones have far greater meaning than any gift you could possibly bring to them...
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 6 min 17 sec
It seems the parents of every Black I know have instilled the adage that we have to be twice as good to be considered half as good as our white counterparts in every field of human endeavor. And so it’s very disheartening when Blacks find that systemic unfairness persists even after abiding by that adage.
This came to mind as I watched the Formula 1 season come to a very controversial end on Sunday. Because it was self-evident that organizers decided to pervert another adage, namely that if their white driver could not beat Black Lewis Hamilton, then they would simply rob him.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 52 sec
Adele is back, and sounding better than ever. But the increasing popularity of dead artists might explain why her album sales are down by nearly 75%.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 16 min 13 sec
Tucker Carlson is the new face of Fox News. But, like Donald Trump, he’s just a performing monkey. Feed him a few headlines, which are like ripe bananas, and he goes off. For example, picture that fake look of shock and disbelief he puts on so readily as he reads to the camera: “People are telling me Kamala Harris is the first transgender VP.” Because, on Fox News, anything goes.
More to the point, though, Carlson and Trump are just useful idiots for Rupert Murdoch. And this Aussie interloper seems more hell-bent on destroying America from the inside than Vladimir Putin is on doing so from the outside. This is why I am so stupefied that everyone – from fellow CEOs to political leaders – still treat him like a respectable member of the American establishment.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 31 min 07 sec
I know, you’re never supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth. But some of the most celebrated recipients of the world’s most prestigious award should have done just that. On the other hand, some of the people most deserving of this award never received it.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 25 min 20 sec
Search Veterans Day and the top results will be all about holiday shopping deals. But Congress intended this day to honor those who served in the Armed Forces, especially the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice. This episode is a forlorn reminder of that original intent.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 6 min 36 sec
Joe Biden promised America Rolaids-like relief from the four years of chaos and dysfunction Donald Trump’s presidency wrought. But, given the chaos and dysfunction that have characterized Biden’s presidency to date, you’d be forgiven for feeling, well, heartburn.
Of course, Trump was to blame for practically all the chaos and dysfunction that beset his presidency. But in Biden’s case, one senator, namely Joe Manchin, bears most of the blame.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 28 min 20 sec
Yet, stupefyingly, Barbados still retains many vestiges of British colonialism…
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 12 min 09 sec
No doubt you’ve noticed the “friendly skies” aren’t so friendly these days. That’s because sky rage is one of the prevailing side effects of Covid lockdowns. And a mask mandate is invariably the fuse that sets that rage alight.
But you know we’re living in a world gone mad when Facebook is suspending me for posting a prayer for Colin Powell, while allowing rightwing nuts to peddle conspiracies and human smugglers to promote their trade.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 24 sec
Trump-appointed judges are foiling President Biden’s attempts to reinstate all the rules President Obama implemented to fight climate change that President Trump then made such a show of rolling back.
That, of course, is troubling enough. But this month's “enormous” oil spill off the coast of southern California reminds everyone that Biden is fighting the dystopian force Trump still presents – not just to save democracy, but to save the planet.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 30 sec
People around the world have celebrated Christopher Columbus for centuries as the seafaring explorer who discovered America. In doing so, they blithely ignored the Vikings who preceded him, to say nothing of the Indians who greeted him.
This episode is my modest contribution to the cognitive dissonance afoot that should correct the historical record … in due course.
Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 7 min 48 sec
If former President George W. Bush had any reason to fear one of his loved ones getting killed, America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan would have been more like the 40-day war his daddy waged in Panama. Moreover, think of the opportunity costs inherent in all America lost fighting plainly unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11. And this, simply because the CEOs and politician - who sit atop America’s military industrial complex - had vested interests in having the loved ones of other Americans continue to fighting those wars.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 24 min
Microsoft, Apple, Google, et al. decided years ago that doing business in China means checking personal conscience, corporate principles, and democratic values at the border. Now it seems they’ve decided the same applies to doing business in Russia. Which clearly makes them little more than tools of these authoritarian governments.
But, with their willingness to sacrifice everything for their bottom line, it can only be a matter of time before big tech companies are doing the bidding of authoritarian governments even to the detriment of democratic ones.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 12 min 12 sec
From the birth of this nation, miscegenation laws made sex between whites and blacks not only taboo but illegal. But this did not stop middle-aged white men from slinking out in the middle of the night to have sex with young black women. Of course, on slave plantations throughout the South, these nocturnal forays were pursuant to a presumed entitlement to rape.
The point, though, is that interracial sexual attraction simply could not be denied. The motley hues that compose race in America today is a testament to that. And even though other countries, like England, did not enact laws banning interracial marriages, their prevailing customs effectively did the same.
This is why it speaks volumes that we are still grappling with this natural attraction to this day. Because a direct line can be drawn between the middle-aged white men mentioned above and middle-aged white women who are slinking away to black countries to have sex with black men.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 50 sec
We’ve all seen the despairing images. I hope this episode provides insight.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 42 min
Nobody could have predicted that the wannabe dictator of a relatively insignificant country in the Caribbean would end up being a veritable king among pawns in the Cold War chess game between the United States and Soviet Union.
Well, I’m predicting that the wannabe dictator of a relatively insignificant country in Europe will end up being the king among pawns in the Cold War II chess game now playing out between the United States and China (and its Iago Russia).
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 20 min 40 sec
Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles starred in the main events of these Games. But China and Russia loomed menacingly, and in equal measure. More to the point, though, events to date have seen China and Russia triumph as much as they have seen Osaka and Biles fail. But the way the United States has underperformed will probably be the most enduring story of these Games.
This is a fairly detailed account of how it all happened, and what it all means – complete with recitations of real-time comments I posted on news sites like The New York Times and BBC. And, with all due respect to Osaka and Biles, I cover the role other Olympians like Ahmed Hafnaoui of Tunisia, Flora Duffy of Bermuda, Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica, Novak Djokovic of Serbia, and Sydney McClaughlin of the United States, as well as the specter doping, played.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 51 min 02 sec
Haiti was the first Black independent nation in the new world. Therefore, you might have expected a who’s who of Blacks worldwide to be among those attending the funeral of its assassinated president, Jovenel Moïse, in Cap-Haïtien yesterday. This, just as a who’s who of whites were among those who attended the funeral of America’s assassinated president, John F. Kennedy, in Washington, DC, in 1963.
Yet it’s a reflection of how marginalized and disrespected Haiti has become that you’d have been hard-pressed to recognize a single face among any of the foreign delegations. Indeed, it speaks volumes that America thought the occasion only warranted its relatively unknown US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, leading a delegation of even lesser knowns to show its respects.
Even so, nothing justified this universal snub quite like the attendees having to flee for their lives less than an hour into the funeral service when gunfire erupted outside the church. The US delegation made a beeline for the airport, leaving Haitians to the funereal devices that now govern their way of life.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 25 min 05 sec
Augusta National shrewdly trademarked Jim Nantz’s famous phrase “a tradition unlike any other” to hail the annual Masters golf tournament. But there’s no denying that the quadrennial Olympics is far more worthy of that praise.
The problem is that so much civil unrest and public debt have occasioned the modern Olympics that host cities invariably end up feeling like the giddy teenager who partied too much, and woke up with an olympian hangover.
No doubt we all remember the protests that scarred the 2016 Rio Olympics. But Brazilians could point to the poisoned chalice the 2004 Athens Olympics turned out to be for the Greeks. After all, the debt hangover from those Games not only triggered the EU financial crisis of 2010, but austerity measures to service that debt have many once-proud, middle-class Greeks now living like favela-dwelling Brazilians.
Alas, measure for measure, Covid-19 seems bound to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics … unlike any other in this respect.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 25 min
We are independent. But it seems we just don’t know how to quit the British. And I find that very vexing … indeed.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 8 min 29 sec
President Bill Clinton first declared June “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999. Since then, despite the official interregnum of the Bush and Trump years, the LGBTQ community have used that declaration to celebrate their increasing liberation. And most notable are gay pride parades and cruise trips that make Mardi Gras and “The Love Boat” look tame, respectively.
Unsurprisingly, their liberation has not been welcomed universally. Alas, nowhere less so than where I hail from down in the Caribbean, where locals gained infamy for greeting gay cruise ships as if there were carrying a mix of latter-day conquistadors and lepers.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 19 min 27 sec
It is self-evident that smoking cigarettes is far more hazardous to your health than drinking alcohol. But America’s ill-fated attempt to prohibit drinking means it will never attempt to prohibit smoking.
Yet, smoking has become variously illegal and taboo in so many places, smokers must be experiencing what life was like for drinkers during Prohibition. But you need only look at the way cigarette litter competes with plastic debris – everywhere from sidewalks to coral reefs – to know that the absence of smoke does not mean the absence of smokers. And too often their hazards manifest in the wildfires their cigarette butts ignite.
This is why the planting-trees initiatives Nobel Laureate Wangarai Maathai pioneered remains necessary to help us breathe in so many respects.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 07 sec
Revelations in the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War gave Americans just cause to distrust their government like never before. But then came, among other things, Watergate, Iran Contra, WMDs, and, coming full circle, the “Afghanistan Papers.”
Nevertheless, no amount of cynicism could have prepared any American for the distrust former President Trump caused every time he opened his mouth. But then came, among other things, revelations in Bob Woodward’s book about Covid-19. Because they gave Americans just cause to believe the man was a genocidal megalomaniac and government officials little more than his kakistocratic flunkies.
Yet, remarkably, instead of being treated like a pariah from sea to shining sea, millions of Americans treat him variously like a cult leader and a de-facto president of the United States.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 27 min 49 sec
Nothing reflects the fracturing of democracy and erosion of civil society quite like political debate on Cable TV; nothing that is, except the comments section on most news and social-media sites.
It is truly a remarkable thing to witness people – who speak the same language – become utterly incomprehensible to each other. And the funny, sad, and ominous thing is that the key to understanding in each case is being in a Republican or Democratic echo chamber – that now defines and reinforces partisan views on everything from abortion to sports.
I’d say Americans would be well-advised to learn from the Babylonians – who got too big for their britches with their Tower of Babel, or from the Romans – who bit off more than they could chew with their hegemonic empire. But the forces conspiring to test the fate of democracy are so unique that nothing compares. So, with a Civil War II looming, I can only say God help America.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 27 min 10 sec
It seemed the whole wide world of sports was cheering for Phil Mickelson to win the recent PGA Championship. But I don’t mind admitting that I was also thinking about Tiger Woods. Remember him…?
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 12 min 18 sec
It’s a curious thing to see corporations like Apple defiantly champion civil liberties in America only to obediently help government authorities squash them in China. But that is precisely what they’ve been doing for decades without any hint of compunction or hypocrisy.
Yet what is truly remarkable is that those corporations can credibly assert that they are only following down the primrose path the US government set in its dealings with China. In other words, it’s not just US corporations but the government itself that is continually bending over backwards to do business with China on its terms.
Is it any wonder, then, that China is telegraphing its intent to wield the kind of power and influence throughout the twenty-first century that America wielded throughout the twentieth - only with a decidedly autocratic style?
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 28 min 58 sec
Truth be told, Joe Biden couldn’t do worse on the foreign policy front than Donald Trump if he tried. As it happened, though, he practically cured all the damage Trump’s policies caused by signing a series of Executive Orders during his first days in office.
For a foreign policy team hailed as the best in decades, however, there have been some surprising errors – of commission and omission.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 33 min 11 sec
Every basketball fan worth their salt has debated picks for all-time NBA greats. And no doubt 99.9 percent of them have included LeBron James on their team. That’s why Dr. J was branded everything from hater to heretic for daring to exclude LeBron from his.
As it happens, though, I agree with Dr. J. But, as Paul Harvey might say, listen now for the rest of the story.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 54 sec
The inconvenient truth is that, despite increasing alarms, Earth is not hanging in the balance. This was thrown into reassuring relief just last year. That’s when only a few months of Covid lockdown resulted in clean air and water not seen in years.
This is why I’ve always championed environmental efforts that focus more on respecting, protecting, and conserving Mother Nature than on new technologies to combat climate change. Not to mention the manifest truth that the best way to reduce pollution is to reduce poverty.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 26 min 50 sec
When the judge read the verdict, it seemed all of America exhaled a collective breath of relief. But, within hours, reports of another white cop killing yet another Black man made that relief all too brief.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 9 min 38 sec
The infamous killing of George Floyd shocked the world. But it just reflected the reality of the relationship between white cops and Black men in America.
Most Americans see that reality, vent outrage, and demand better training for white cops to save Black lives. I see that reality, vent outrage, and implore Black men to do what is necessary to save their own lives.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 30 min 59 sec
The men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments played out over the past few weeks. But chances are the only “March Madness” you watched of the women’s stemmed from a viral video showing how the NCAA was treating them like second-class athletes.
Most notably, it showed the food and training facility the NCAA provided for the women, which looked like they were hastily arranged for migrants at a border camp. This, especially when it then showed the food and training facility the NCAA provided for the men, which looked like a buffet on a five-star cruise liner and a LA fitness room, respectively.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 24 min 55 sec
If Easter rituals bore you to distraction, you’re not alone. Pope Francis is holding ceremonies to mark Holy Week in a practically empty St. Peter’s Square for the second consecutive year. You might think this merely reflects travel and other Covid-19 restrictions. But it’s also a metaphor for growing disillusionment with organized religion worldwide.
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Length: 9 min 49 sec
Would you embrace someone who vows as an article of faith that you must convert to his religion or perish in Hell? Why do you suppose so many Jews do?
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 12 min 48 sec
Chris Rock once famously joked that only gays and women watch the Oscars. That was politically incorrect to be sure, but he had a point – not just about the Oscars but all entertainment award shows. Because, unless you’re interested in their red-carpet fashion shows, none of them give you much reason to watch.
Oh, did I mention credible claims that they’re all rigged…?
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 19 min 02 sec
Aung San Suu Kyi was once as revered as saintly leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. Therefore, it is a stunning measure of her fall from grace that she is now as reviled as tin-pot dictators like Pol Pot and Idi Amin.
Listeners have accused me of giving away too much in these show notes. So I’ll end by noting that this episode shows how I was damning Suu Kyi when no less a person than former President Barack Obama was still (literally) embracing her.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 22 min 54 sec
Vernon Jordan was generally recognized as the most influential politician in Washington, DC. This, even though he was never elected to any political office.
For me, though, his rosy reputation had one glaring black spot.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 9 min 06 sec
I mean, really, am I the only one who finds the routine failure to do so a viral mess, literally?
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Length: 6 min 39 sec
When Donald Trump famously boasted he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any support, you probably thought that was just Trump, well, being Trump. Except that, when Republicans supported him even after he incited a MAGA mob that threatened their lives, they proved him more right than even he could have possibly have imagined.
But district attorneys across the country have been chomping at the bit to prove to citizen Trump that it’s not up to ignorant supporters and craven politicians to make him pay for his high crimes and misdemeanors. And the ball is now in their court now.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 14 min 22 sec
It is true that no player is bigger than his sport. If Tom Brady leads the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to victory on Sunday, however, he will come closer to being so in football than even Michael Jordan ever was in basketball.
But I fear another Super Bowl championship, especially in his first season with a new team, will give sports writers just cause to hail Brady as the greatest professional athlete of all time. This is why I’m praying Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs chop him down to size.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 8 min 12 sec
Chances are that the tragic blunders associated with the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina are what you remember most about the presidency of George W. Bush. I submit, however, that the karmic benefits associated with the Millennium Challenge Account for African Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (aka PEPFAR) should be mitigating factors in history’s judgment of his presidential legacy.
And perhaps nothing will seal that legacy in this respect quite like having the first Black first lady of the United States shower him with PDA every time they appear together on the world stage.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 27 sec
Donald Trump spent much of his presidency behaving more like the leader of a political cult than the leader of the free world. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that the whole world breathed a collective sigh of relief at high noon on January 20. Because that’s when, like a proverbial messiah, Joe Biden took the presidential oath that exorcised in an instant all the demonic forces Trump had come to personify.
No doubt Biden will do much to restore America. But beware that Trump's presidency said far more about America than Trump.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 30 min 32 sec
Watching surreal and dystopian events unfold in America these days, it’s easy to imagine them aping the fall of the Roman Empire and the American Civil War – combined. But, if that’s too ominous for you to contemplate, this episode is for you. Consider it a little oasis in the vast wasteland of Trumpism is leaving in its wake.
That said, when you think of sweatshops, you probably think of child labor in factories across Asia, where Nike and other Western companies manufacture their expensive athletic shoes.
But sweatshops abound on football fields across America, where colleges exploit mostly poor and uneducated players to generate billions. This, in exchange for an educational degree that, for 99.9 percent of them, is not even worth the paper it’s written on.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 14 min 59 sec
The world watched in shock and horror on Wednesday as President Trump incited thousands of his followers to storm the US Capitol.
He inaugurated his presidency on its steps with a speech fulminating against American carnage. Therefore, the irony cannot be lost on anyone that he’s ending it with carnage not seen there since the British burned the capital in 1814.
America has always been seen as a shining city upon a hill, offering a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. But Trump has spent the past four years breaking every light that made that city shine. No doubt, for him and his “Proud Boys,” it was lights out on Wednesday.
I maintain, however, that President Biden will need only four months to effectively repair all that Trump has broken in this respect over the past four years.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 05 sec
This is an accompaniment to the article from The iPINIONS Journal:
https://www.theipinionsjournal.com/2020/12/brexit-done/
Boris Johnson declares “deal in our time”
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 2 min 24 sec
Men have been making a mess of politics since time immemorial. So it might seem natural to expect women now to clean it all up.
But the only hope for (man)kind is for this role reversal of the sexes to take place, and the sooner the better.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 13 min 57 sec
It’s arguable that Lewis Hamilton is as popular a sports figure outside America as Tiger Woods. Yet relatively few Americans know his name, and even fewer follow his sport, Formula One racing (F1).
This talk continues the quixotic quest I began on my blog 13 years ago to give him and F1 the recognition they’re due. Because Hamilton is not only doing for FI what Woods is doing for golf, but also doing for racial justice what Colin Kaepernick tried to do.
Of course, like all sports stars, Hamilton has his flaws. But the only one I find unforgivable is his own quest to be knighted by the queen of England.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 14 min 41 sec
Like the institution of Slavery, America’s treatment of the poor remains an indelible stain on its character and a damning charge against its soul. But the abiding irony is that, just as American abolitionists provided a measure of redemption with respect to the former, American charities are providing the same with respect to the latter.
In fact, no people in the history of mankind have practiced the proverb ‘charity begins at home and spreads abroad’ quite like Americans. This talk hails the efforts of just two of them who are doing abroad in Malawi what so many do at home in America.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 22 sec
No person on this planet gets under Donald Trump’s skin quite like Barack Obama. This is why nothing would drive him crazier than being trolled for showing the same kind of fecklessness he trolled Obama for showing. But this was undeniably the case with their bungled attempts to get rid of President Maduro in Venezuela and President Assad in Syria, respectively.
Also, given that Trump is now a certified lame duck, this talk includes a swan song on his dystopian presidency. But I hope you’ll forgive my diogenesian tone. After all, I duly scoffed at the very notion of anyone voting for him in “Trump for President? Don’t Be a Sucker! April 8, 2011, and when the unthinkable happened, I sounded the alarm in “WTF: President-elect Donald J. Trump?! America. What. Have. You. Done?” November 9, 2016.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 24 min 41 sec
The phenomenon of female teachers having sexual relationships with their students is foremost about child abuse. Which is why it upends so many conventional presumptions - about everything from women as nurturers to women as inured to the basic instinct for sexual conquest, especially of children.
Yet female teachers are rivaling pedophile priests (and Boy Scout leaders) when it comes to sexually abusing young boys.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 10 min 33 sec
Just years ago, reports on migration to Europe gave the impression that Africans were threatening a 21st-century version of the colonization Europeans perpetrated in Africa throughout the 19th. In reality, Europeans were treating African migrants like the mother who wants nothing to do with the bastard child who shows up at her doorstep as a teenager. Not to mention the migrants who die trying to establish that umbilical cord of obligation.
But today, media focus on other global events - like the US presidential election and Covid-19 - is such that you’d never know African migration remains every bit as vexing for Europeans and humbling for Africans as it was back then.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 18 min 11 sec
For years now, the Catholic Church has been defined as much by sex-abuse scandals as by worldwide charities. But simmering conflicts between abdicated Pope Benedict XVI and reigning Pope Francis – on issues like married priests, same-sex marriages, and even pedophile priests – threaten a holy schism that would make those scandals and charities seem irrelevant.
After all, sectarian tensions between Benedict's conservative and Francis's liberal acolytes could blow the Catholic Church asunder.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 20 min 11 sec
Arguably, the stress the US presidential election induced rivals the fear the Covid pandemic has this year. But, while we have to wait for a vaccine to allay the latter, I can think of no better way to alleviate the former than a talk on the fairytale lives of the British royal family.
However, if you are a fan of royalty, I feel obliged to warn you to listen at your own risk.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 19 min 53 sec
Saying this is the most important presidential election of our lives is probably the oldest cliché in the history of American politics. But there’s no denying that, for obvious reasons, this was the case in 1800, 1860, 1960, and 2008; and is also the case in 2020.
Ironically, nothing demonstrated this quite like trying to get a Nigerian friend to talk about his country’s #EndSARS protests, only to have him deflect to talk about this US presidential election.
This is why no citizen worth their salt should let it go by without participating. But, if you’re still trying to decide whom to vote for, you are probably just too stupid to vote.
This is also why today's talk focuses more on the importance of voting early and in person than on the reasons why it’s better to vote for Joe Biden than Donald Trump.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 17 min 17 sec
Reports abound about the way President Putin is manipulating President Trump as a useful idiot to sow chaos, confusion, and civil strife in the United States. But all the norm busting, law breaking, and race baiting Russia is masterminding pale in comparison with the seeds our own social media companies are sowing for our destruction.
Given how the 2016 presidential election threw this foreboding dynamic into stark relief, the eve of this 2020 election seems a critical time to sound yet another alarm. Contact:
anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 22 min 59 sec
Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson headline a litany of entertainers who killed themselves trying to live up to the famous personas they themselves created, respectively. This is why I am so heartened that Lady Gaga appears to have come to her senses before it's too late. This talk pays homage to her epiphany.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 7 min 32 sec
What a week! And that's saying a lot given the norm-busting chaos that has unfolded every week of the Trump presidency.
But this one began with everyone panning President Trump for his bullying fact-free performance during his debate with Joe Biden. It ended with Biden leading the nation in wishing a speedy recovery to Trump, his wife Melania, and a metastasizing number of his COVID-defying sycophants who have all now tested positive.
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Length: 12 min 01 sec
The world of tennis has seen many pretenders to Serena's 20-year reign come and go. This episode explains why Naomi Osaka is the most promising of them all.
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anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 15 min 20 sec
Legal commentators hailed her as the female Thurgood Marshall. It was intended as a compliment. But too many of them failed to realize the cultural phenomenon that was the “Notorious RBG”. This episode pays tribute to all she was and presages the political warfare her death portends.
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Length: 11 min 26 sec
The Trump Presidency has spawned a cottage industry of books. This episode explains why reading each one is like a junkie getting a fix.
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Length: 13 min 03 sec
The Talking iPINIONS podcast is the inevitable complement to my BLOG, The iPINIONS Journal - Commentaries on the Global Events of Our Time, which I launched in 2005.
As with my commentaries, my talks will be on topics that run the gamut and span the globe. I am all too mindful that practically everyone with a smartphone has a podcast these days. But I hope you will find my podcast like an oasis of reasoned and informed commentary in a desert of visceral snark!
Please check back every weekend for a new episode.
Contact: anthonyhall279@gmail.com www.ipjn.com
Length: 2 min 16 sec