Host Erik Fleming interviews printmaker Robynn Smith about Print Day in May, a worldwide community printmaking event, and paleontologist Gerta Keller about her book The Last Extinction, which emphasizes massive Deccan volcanism and its lessons for modern climate risk.
The episode also features a Moment of News, calls to support independent podcasting (patreon.com/amomentwitherikfleming, momenterik.com), and reflections on recent free-speech and legal stories.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:10 So today we have a couple of guests, a couple of ladies come on,
00:02:10 --> 00:02:14 talk about projects that they're working on.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:21 One is a celebration of art and the other is a scientist who,
00:02:21 --> 00:02:25 who, based on the research she's done,
00:02:26 --> 00:02:31 has some opinions about climate change and a few other things that's going on.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:37 So I think this is going to be an interesting show, very captivating,
00:02:37 --> 00:02:42 very open individuals that I had a chance to engage with.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:44 And so I hope you enjoy those interviews.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:55 You know, we are in a very interesting time as far as how we get our information,
00:02:55 --> 00:03:04 and so we need to support outlets that are trying to get you information,
00:03:05 --> 00:03:12 trying to counter, you know, the mess or the omissions that is happening.
00:03:12 --> 00:03:20 So I'm making my appeal not just to support this podcast, but to support other
00:03:20 --> 00:03:22 independent podcasters like me.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:32 So if you go to www.momenterik.com, you can show your support for this podcast.
00:03:34 --> 00:03:40 And I just encourage all to really start looking at alternatives.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:50 We've got one man who basically will control CBS and CNN as far as news content.
00:03:51 --> 00:03:56 And there's been major shakeups, even though the CNN deal is not final.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:06 Adjustments are being made. and at CBS, it's just total dismantling of the very
00:04:06 --> 00:04:10 news organization that brought us Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:17 So, and it's not going to get any easier. I think Nexstar just bought Tegna,
00:04:18 --> 00:04:25 so that's like 80% of the local affiliates that bring you news.
00:04:26 --> 00:04:32 So this is a very, very perilous time. And then we have an FCC chair who is threatening.
00:04:34 --> 00:04:41 You know, they're threatening broadcasters if they don't, and we have a president
00:04:41 --> 00:04:42 who's threatening to put people
00:04:42 --> 00:04:47 in jail who don't report the news the way that they want it reported.
00:04:47 --> 00:04:52 We've actually had a couple of people arrested for covering protests.
00:04:53 --> 00:05:03 So this is the time to send a message to the powers that be that we want our
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00:05:07 --> 00:05:14 And so the best way to do that is to support as many independent podcasters as you can.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:22 But again, go to www.momenterik.com And that's Erik with a K So that,
00:05:22 --> 00:05:25 you know, you can show support for this podcast,
00:05:27 --> 00:05:31 Anyway, now that I've got off my soapbox there Let me go ahead and kick this
00:05:31 --> 00:05:36 program off And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news With Grace G.
00:05:44 --> 00:05:49 Thanks, Erik. The Department of Defense confirmed that six airmen from Florida
00:05:49 --> 00:05:55 and Ohio died in a non-hostile KC-135 tanker crash while supporting ongoing
00:05:55 --> 00:05:57 air operations over Iraq.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:01 A federal judge quashed subpoenas issued by U.S.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:06 Attorney Jeanine Pirro against Fed Chair Jerome Powell, ruling that the investigation
00:06:06 --> 00:06:11 was an improper attempt to intimidate the central bank regarding interest rate policies.
00:06:11 --> 00:06:16 In the race to succeed retiring Illinois Senator Dick Durbin,
00:06:16 --> 00:06:20 Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton won the Democratic nomination and will
00:06:20 --> 00:06:23 face Republican Don Tracy in the general election.
00:06:24 --> 00:06:29 National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent resigned in protest,
00:06:29 --> 00:06:33 claiming that the three-week-old war in Iran was launched without an imminent
00:06:33 --> 00:06:36 threat and was driven by external political pressure.
00:06:37 --> 00:06:42 An immigration judge has denied the asylum claim of Liam Conejo-Ramos,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:46 the five-year-old boy whose detention during a Minneapolis immigration raid
00:06:46 --> 00:06:47 gained national prominence.
00:06:48 --> 00:06:53 Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays filed criminal misdemeanor charges against
00:06:53 --> 00:06:57 prediction market Kalshi, marking a major escalation in the state's crackdown
00:06:57 --> 00:06:59 on election-based betting.
00:06:59 --> 00:07:04 A fugitive killed by Dallas police for impersonating an officer was revealed
00:07:04 --> 00:07:07 to have been serving on the security detail for U.S.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:12 Representative Jasmine Crockett during her recent campaign. In the first federal
00:07:12 --> 00:07:15 terrorism trial targeting the Antifa movement,
00:07:15 --> 00:07:20 a jury convicted nine individuals for a coordinated military-style attack on
00:07:20 --> 00:07:24 an ICE detention center in Texas involving explosives and gunfire.
00:07:25 --> 00:07:29 A Boston judge issued a temporary injunction preventing the administration from
00:07:29 --> 00:07:34 ending temporary protected status for nearly 1 Somalis.
00:07:35 --> 00:07:39 And a federal judge blocked Health Secretary Robert F.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:44 Kennedy Jr.'s efforts to overhaul childhood vaccine schedules and appoint new
00:07:44 --> 00:07:46 members to a federal advisory committee.
00:07:46 --> 00:07:50 I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:57 --> 00:08:03 Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it is time for my guest, Robynn Smith.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:09 Robynn Smith is Professor Emeritus at California's Monterey Peninsula College,
00:08:09 --> 00:08:12 where she founded Print Day in May in 2007.
00:08:13 --> 00:08:19 She holds a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and two degrees
00:08:19 --> 00:08:27 from San Jose State University, MFA in Sculpture and Ceramics, and an MA in Painting.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:33 A printmaker and mixed-media painter, she has had solo exhibitions in galleries
00:08:33 --> 00:08:39 and museums from Australia to Iceland and in such American cities as Chicago,
00:08:39 --> 00:08:41 San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
00:08:41 --> 00:08:46 Her work can be found in public collections in Belgium, Canada, and the United States.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:52 Robin travels extensively for residencies and teaching opportunities and leads
00:08:52 --> 00:08:57 workshops at her own Blue Mouse Studios in Aptos, California.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:01 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:09:01 --> 00:09:04 on this podcast, Robynn Smith.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:19 All right. Robynn Smith, how are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?
00:09:20 --> 00:09:24 I'm doing great. Thank you so much. Well, I appreciate you getting up early
00:09:24 --> 00:09:29 to talk to me today, but I want to talk about this event that you're having
00:09:29 --> 00:09:34 called Print Day in May, and we'll get all into the details of that.
00:09:34 --> 00:09:41 But I really wanted to learn something about this because I had not heard about
00:09:41 --> 00:09:45 this event and it's been going on for a while.
00:09:45 --> 00:09:50 So I wanted to give you this opportunity to talk about that and maybe a couple other things.
00:09:51 --> 00:09:56 So when I start these interviews, I do a couple of icebreaker deals.
00:09:56 --> 00:10:00 It's the whole moderator in me, I guess. I don't know. But I tend to,
00:10:00 --> 00:10:02 or facilitator, I guess would be a better word.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:08 So the first icebreaker is what I call, well, what is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:12 And the quote is, art can save lives.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:16 It has the power to bring focus and joy.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:21 What does that quote mean to you? I think, to me, that's absolute truth.
00:10:22 --> 00:10:29 I've been an art educator my whole life, and so I have seen what art has done
00:10:29 --> 00:10:33 for children, for adults, for older people.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:40 And I'm a firm believer that people have to do what they love.
00:10:40 --> 00:10:48 If people did what they loved more often, I think we would have a healthier society.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:55 And I think that art is often what people love to do, the idea of making something,
00:10:55 --> 00:11:03 the idea of putting your whole being into this action of simply creating something
00:11:03 --> 00:11:07 is a very, very powerful thing.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:15 And watching people do that over decades has absolutely convinced me that that quote is true.
00:11:16 --> 00:11:19 So how long have you been an art educator?
00:11:20 --> 00:11:26 Well, I've been an artist, I suppose, all my life in that I was always interested in art.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:31 I went to art school at a young age, Rhode Island School of Design, got my degrees there.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:37 And as soon as I got out of graduate school, I started teaching instantly.
00:11:38 --> 00:11:45 So decades, I was going to say graduated, but actually retired from teaching
00:11:45 --> 00:11:51 at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California, in 2018.
00:11:52 --> 00:11:56 And I still continue to teach all over the world.
00:11:56 --> 00:12:00 I teach out of my studio in Aptos, California. I just got back from Massachusetts
00:12:00 --> 00:12:09 where I was teaching for a week at the ZMA's printmaking studio in Florence around Northampton.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:13 I'm going to New Zealand to teach in a couple months.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:15 So yeah, forever.
00:12:16 --> 00:12:19 All right. So now the second icebreaker is called 20 questions.
00:12:20 --> 00:12:24 Okay. So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
00:12:26 --> 00:12:34 How about five? Okay. What do you think we should decide at the local or state
00:12:34 --> 00:12:36 levels versus the federal level?
00:12:38 --> 00:12:42 In terms of art making or anything? Anything.
00:12:42 --> 00:12:49 Well, I think on the local level, we have to respond to the people in these
00:12:49 --> 00:12:54 local communities and see what they are truly interested in,
00:12:54 --> 00:12:58 because the local level is the only place where people are going to be able
00:12:58 --> 00:13:06 to speak directly to those who can make the changes that are necessary in our lives.
00:13:07 --> 00:13:15 Okay. All right. So what happened in 2007 to inspire you to create Print Day in May?
00:13:16 --> 00:13:22 Well, that's interesting because it actually had to do with state-level politics.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:29 I was teaching at Monterey Peninsula College, which is a community college.
00:13:30 --> 00:13:32 We used to call them junior colleges.
00:13:33 --> 00:13:37 Then they became community colleges. And when I began teaching there in 1989,
00:13:37 --> 00:13:41 it was a community college that responded to the communities,
00:13:42 --> 00:13:45 sort of what I was just saying before. Well.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:52 I created a grassroots printmaking group. I ran the art department there,
00:13:52 --> 00:13:55 and we started a printmaking major.
00:13:56 --> 00:14:03 And printmaking is very communal because people can't usually afford to have
00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 the equipment that you need to make prints.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:11 So it becomes like ceramics, a very communal situation.
00:14:11 --> 00:14:19 And we had this very, very, very strong community of printmakers from all over
00:14:19 --> 00:14:23 the Monterey Bay area. We had young people.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:28 We had older people. We had college-age people because the community college was open to everyone.
00:14:28 --> 00:14:33 So people could take a class and get involved in this tremendous community that we had.
00:14:33 --> 00:14:38 We were doing exchanges all over the world. It was a very, very powerful group.
00:14:38 --> 00:14:45 And the state had yet another budget crisis and in their wisdom decided that
00:14:45 --> 00:14:52 people who already had BAs would be charged way more money to take classes and
00:14:52 --> 00:14:57 that people who had already taken a given class could not repeat that class.
00:14:57 --> 00:15:03 So none of this really affected the math department because you're looking at,
00:15:03 --> 00:15:06 you know, college-age kids who come in, they are going to get a degree.
00:15:07 --> 00:15:08 They need to take math and move on.
00:15:09 --> 00:15:15 But it tremendously affected the arts because we had a lot of people who were
00:15:15 --> 00:15:19 continuously taking art classes because you can't just, you know.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:25 Take a paint, one painting class and say, okay, now you can paint or one aerobics
00:15:25 --> 00:15:27 class and you're aerobicized.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:31 You know, you have to continue to take these things.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:38 And that's what built our community. So effectively, two-thirds of our community
00:15:38 --> 00:15:41 was being locked out of the community college.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:46 And because a lot
00:15:46 --> 00:15:50 of my people were lucky enough to have resources They
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 began to buy presses on their own To
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 form co-ops in the community And I
00:15:56 --> 00:16:01 was very proud of them But I was really worried I was going to lose all these
00:16:01 --> 00:16:08 people And so we decided to have a day That our diaspora would get together
00:16:08 --> 00:16:14 And all make prints at the same time in various studios all over the area.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:19 And this was pre-cell phones and not a lot of us had internet.
00:16:19 --> 00:16:23 And so we would call each other on the phone and say, what are you making?
00:16:23 --> 00:16:28 How's it going? So we decided to do it in May because that rhymes.
00:16:28 --> 00:16:30 Print day in May had a good ring to it.
00:16:31 --> 00:16:36 We decided to do it on the first Saturday in May to honor the Kentucky Derby.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:43 And we did it. And it was wildly successful in that everybody was happy.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:49 And we started thinking about ways that we could continue as a community outside of the college.
00:16:50 --> 00:16:57 And so we started to do this every year. And it became bigger and bigger and bigger.
00:16:57 --> 00:17:02 And I had a wonderful visiting artist program at the college.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 So whenever anybody would come in,
00:17:05 --> 00:17:08 teach a workshop, teach a class. I would tell them about it.
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 They would participate. Their people would participate.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:18 And the whole thing grew. And now we're in our 19th year and we're all over the world.
00:17:18 --> 00:17:24 So elaborate on that. How has how has it now in 19 years fully evolved?
00:17:25 --> 00:17:33 Well, at this point, it's still a very small kernel of us that are team print day in May,
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 but it really evolved through the
00:17:36 --> 00:17:39 internet and through social media because this was
00:17:39 --> 00:17:42 a time when social media
00:17:42 --> 00:17:50 was really a force for connection and good and it was a way to let people know
00:17:50 --> 00:17:59 that this was happening we started to get sponsors at a certain point where art supply stores,
00:18:00 --> 00:18:07 printmaking societies, etc., would give prizes to the prints that they liked
00:18:07 --> 00:18:14 the most that were posted and hashtagged on social media. And it just exploded.
00:18:14 --> 00:18:19 First, we, I'm kind of a geography nut, so I was like, wow, we've got,
00:18:19 --> 00:18:22 you know, 30 U.S. states. Let's get all 50.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:25 So then we made a concerted effort to get all 50.
00:18:26 --> 00:18:32 And it was a situation where I had a continuing supply of young people coming
00:18:32 --> 00:18:36 through the college and they were using their skills.
00:18:36 --> 00:18:39 Oh, I know how to build a website. Oh, well, build a website.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:44 Well, I know how to do social media. Well, let's do that. And so it just as
00:18:44 --> 00:18:46 a grassroots conversation.
00:18:46 --> 00:18:53 Project just started to mushroom. And when we got sponsors, we had access to
00:18:53 --> 00:18:57 mailing lists, and they had access to our mailing list.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:02 So there was never any money exchanged. It's completely non-transactional.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 And we just started setting goals. Like at one point, we said,
00:19:05 --> 00:19:08 hey, let's get all seven continents.
00:19:08 --> 00:19:14 And a scientist sent us penguin footprints from Antarctica, and we had Participation
00:19:14 --> 00:19:18 on all seven continents So at this point.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:24 It's hard to know exactly because so much of this is still through social media,
00:19:24 --> 00:19:26 which has its huge problems now.
00:19:26 --> 00:19:30 But it's still through that and our website. People register for the event.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:35 There's no money involved, but they register to help us to know our numbers.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:46 And we are estimating probably tens of thousands of people in about 100 countries do this every year.
00:19:46 --> 00:19:50 They set aside one day to do what they love to do,
00:19:51 --> 00:20:00 and we hope and believe that taking time out to do something that you love to
00:20:00 --> 00:20:04 do that doesn't hurt anyone, that is completely positive,
00:20:04 --> 00:20:09 lets us all breathe a little bit and think about what's right for the world.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:17 Yeah, that sounds like a beautiful experience and something that we need more of.
00:20:17 --> 00:20:21 But like I said, I'm new to this. So what is printmaking?
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 Or who qualifies as a printmaker?
00:20:24 --> 00:20:31 And why is it a distinctive individual? That is such a great question.
00:20:32 --> 00:20:39 And printmaking for our purposes is the act of taking a mark from one surface
00:20:39 --> 00:20:43 and through typically pressure of some kind,
00:20:43 --> 00:20:47 transferring that mark from one surface to another.
00:20:48 --> 00:20:55 Okay, great. So why not just paint it or draw it? Why go through this transfer process?
00:20:56 --> 00:21:04 Number of reasons. The first is magic. There is a particular ephemeral bit of
00:21:04 --> 00:21:10 magic that occurs when that transfer takes place. It's like alchemy.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:17 We as artists can direct it, But we never really know what's going to happen
00:21:17 --> 00:21:19 in that transfer process.
00:21:19 --> 00:21:25 So there's a sense of surprise. There's a sense of release of ownership and
00:21:25 --> 00:21:31 sort of collaboration with the process that is truly magical.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:37 And it tends to separate printmakers from other kinds of artists.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:41 Although many people like myself, I'm primarily, I started off as a painter
00:21:41 --> 00:21:44 and a sculptor and got into printmaking later.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:51 There's just a sort of wondrous thing that happens in that transfer of information.
00:21:51 --> 00:21:58 So printmaking on its, you know, sort of most base level is that,
00:21:58 --> 00:22:00 is the transferring of marks.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:09 Printmaking through history has been an art form that has allowed multiples to be made.
00:22:10 --> 00:22:17 Not very expensively, pretty much on the cheap, think the printing press.
00:22:17 --> 00:22:26 It disseminates information quickly and to a much larger group of people than a painting can.
00:22:27 --> 00:22:30 Where you do one painting, somebody sees it, great. You make a print,
00:22:31 --> 00:22:33 you can disseminate that information.
00:22:33 --> 00:22:39 So there are many kinds of printmaking. There's commercial printmaking,
00:22:39 --> 00:22:43 which means, you know, your books, your magazines, et cetera, et cetera.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:49 And then there's fine art printmaking, where the artist is directing an image
00:22:49 --> 00:22:53 to be produced through a printmaking technique.
00:22:53 --> 00:23:00 And there are typically three large arenas where printmaking takes place.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:05 One is a relief print, which is like a woodcut or a lino cut,
00:23:05 --> 00:23:08 where material is carved away from a block.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:15 Ink is rolled onto the surface of that block, and you are printing from the top surface.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:24 There is a second category which is called intaglio or intaglio which is Italian
00:23:24 --> 00:23:25 for beneath the surface.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:30 This is where something is carved into a piece of metal.
00:23:31 --> 00:23:35 Acid bites the metal perhaps. There are many things like engraving,
00:23:36 --> 00:23:38 etching, collagraph, etc.
00:23:38 --> 00:23:42 And the ink is applied
00:23:42 --> 00:23:48 to the surface and then wiped away and it stays in those grooves so then you
00:23:48 --> 00:23:54 need the pressure of a press an etching press or some other kind of press to
00:23:54 --> 00:24:00 remove that ink from the grooves and onto your surface your paper.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:05 So that's a bit more complicated, involves a lot more equipment.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:14 Planar printmaking is just that. It's taking the ink from a flat surface to another flat surface.
00:24:14 --> 00:24:19 So screen printing, which is really important in disseminating information.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:24 Monotype. Stenciling. So those are the three categories.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:30 And typically printmakers try a lot of different things and settle into a few
00:24:30 --> 00:24:36 that they become enamored with and spend their entire lives often working with
00:24:36 --> 00:24:39 others in collaborative situations,
00:24:40 --> 00:24:42 doing this magical thing.
00:24:43 --> 00:24:47 Activity. Okay. So like, if I wanted to get a t-shirt made, that would fall
00:24:47 --> 00:24:52 under the screen printing form of printmaking.
00:24:52 --> 00:24:54 Yes. Yes. Yeah.
00:24:55 --> 00:25:01 And it was some, I can't remember, it was some little kit that they used to have.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 We didn't have to do the pressing, but
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 I remember that we had to pour like the
00:25:07 --> 00:25:11 the ink on top and then we would like
00:25:11 --> 00:25:15 apply it on the paper and stuff like that and
00:25:15 --> 00:25:18 and and like the other version where you say you carve
00:25:18 --> 00:25:22 it out that's that's almost like stamping yes
00:25:22 --> 00:25:30 yes uh-huh because if you stamp you are typically catching ink on the top surface
00:25:30 --> 00:25:35 of the stamp and using the pressure of your own hand your own body to stamp
00:25:35 --> 00:25:39 yes okay all right I'm not that slow. I'll be trying, you know.
00:25:40 --> 00:25:43 I mean, you know, I'm an old politician, so, you know, you have to explain things
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 to me, but I tend to get it.
00:25:46 --> 00:25:51 You said in modern times, printmaking has always been the medium of the people.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:57 Because multiples can be made for one matrix. It has been an effective tool
00:25:57 --> 00:25:59 to widely disseminate information.
00:26:00 --> 00:26:07 Give an example of that. Well, I would say calls to groups to come together,
00:26:08 --> 00:26:14 often in protest, if they do not have the ability through a newspaper.
00:26:15 --> 00:26:19 Newspapers printing right there. But that would be more organized.
00:26:19 --> 00:26:24 If you're looking at, I mean, you look at today and you're looking at handbills
00:26:24 --> 00:26:31 on telephone poles, calling people to participate in a No Kings protest, for example. all.
00:26:31 --> 00:26:35 That is printmaking right there. We've got a proud history.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:42 Okay. So when is Print Day in May this year, and why will it be unique this time around?
00:26:43 --> 00:26:47 Well, Print Day in May is always the first Saturday in May.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:52 So it falls on different dates, and it takes place around the world.
00:26:52 --> 00:26:55 So it's actually a little bit more than 24 hours.
00:26:55 --> 00:27:00 It starts somewhere in the South Pacific, and then it moves across the Pacific
00:27:00 --> 00:27:05 into Asia and Europe and comes back around to the United States and Hawaii and
00:27:05 --> 00:27:08 then ends again somewhere in the Pacific.
00:27:08 --> 00:27:13 So it's kind of like watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve because,
00:27:13 --> 00:27:17 you know, I wake up in California and people are just putting away all their
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 stuff from, you know, somewhere in Asia.
00:27:20 --> 00:27:28 So people who are very interested can sort of follow that wave across the world
00:27:28 --> 00:27:32 by looking at our social media sites and our website.
00:27:32 --> 00:27:39 People can blog and post on their own to our website or through social media, or they don't have to.
00:27:39 --> 00:27:45 They can just sit in their kitchen and stamp away and know that they are doing
00:27:45 --> 00:27:49 that with tens of thousands of other people all across the world.
00:27:50 --> 00:27:54 So it's really good for extroverts. It's good for introverts.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:57 It's good for professionals, it's good for people who.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:03 Want to get somebody into the medium and show them something special.
00:28:04 --> 00:28:08 So that happens this year on May 2nd.
00:28:09 --> 00:28:18 And Print Day in May, as it has gotten to be so large, it has really begun to
00:28:18 --> 00:28:21 reflect what's going on in the world.
00:28:21 --> 00:28:28 I think starting in 2020, that was our most poignant Print Day in May to date
00:28:28 --> 00:28:36 as people were isolated and took the opportunity to make prints still in their own studios,
00:28:37 --> 00:28:40 really with nobody else, but to make connection.
00:28:41 --> 00:28:50 And we got so much, you know, so many people just expressing how important it was to them.
00:28:50 --> 00:28:57 You know, I think during the pandemic, A lot of people got into crafting, which is great.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:01 You know, the art supply stores actually made a lot of money during that time.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:05 And people, you know, got into quilting and embroidery and stuff.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:09 But artists had a really hard time making things.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:17 Because for us, our work is an expression of our lives. And our lives were so disrupted.
00:29:18 --> 00:29:22 I don't know any artists who just said, Hey, this is great. More studio time.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:29 I mean, really, we were, many of us were paralyzed. And so Print Day in May came at a time.
00:29:30 --> 00:29:35 When a lot of artists felt like they needed an excuse, they needed a reason
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 to get up and make things.
00:29:37 --> 00:29:41 And we gave it to them. We provided that.
00:29:41 --> 00:29:47 And we got all kinds of testimonies about people making prints in memorial to
00:29:47 --> 00:29:52 their friends and loved ones, their families who had died, memorials to their
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 lives that had been so disrupted.
00:29:55 --> 00:30:00 So it was a very, very poignant print day in May.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:09 And then in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, we added a page on our site
00:30:09 --> 00:30:10 that was prints for Ukraine.
00:30:11 --> 00:30:15 And people, there was an outpouring of printmaking that year.
00:30:15 --> 00:30:19 We saw tons of yellow and blue,
00:30:19 --> 00:30:29 sunflowers everywhere, and we posted ways to get involved in support for Ukraine
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 monetarily, and people responded to that.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:37 So that was another really poignant print day in May.
00:30:37 --> 00:30:42 And this year, you know, we never know, but I suspect we're going to see a lot
00:30:42 --> 00:30:49 of political work and that printmaking will go back to its roots on that score this year.
00:30:49 --> 00:30:52 I'm hoping that that is the case, and I suspect it will be.
00:30:53 --> 00:30:58 Yeah, yeah. And that's a valid point because, you know, it's almost like.
00:30:59 --> 00:31:04 People use this and use that medium to like chronicle history,
00:31:05 --> 00:31:06 which I think is really, really keen.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:14 But it's something about you collaborating with another event,
00:31:14 --> 00:31:16 I think, like in New Zealand or something.
00:31:16 --> 00:31:18 I think that was where I was kind of going.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 Yes, well, I'm glad you asked.
00:31:23 --> 00:31:28 Yes, there is a wonderful festival of printmaking called Printopia,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:29 the Printopia Festival.
00:31:30 --> 00:31:34 And this is its fifth year. It happens every year in Auckland,
00:31:34 --> 00:31:39 New Zealand. And it is a true celebration of printmaking.
00:31:40 --> 00:31:46 And this year, they've asked the Print Day in May team to collaborate.
00:31:46 --> 00:31:53 And so I'm going to New Zealand. And I'm going to give the keynote address about Print Day in May.
00:31:53 --> 00:31:59 To hundreds of people in New Zealand. I'm going to be teaching a workshop a
00:31:59 --> 00:32:03 couple days later, and then I'm going to travel around the North Island and
00:32:03 --> 00:32:05 do a couple of other workshops.
00:32:05 --> 00:32:11 A few of my colleagues are coming as well and doing talks and workshops.
00:32:12 --> 00:32:15 So we're extremely excited about this.
00:32:15 --> 00:32:20 And, you know, in part because, wow, we're going to New Zealand.
00:32:20 --> 00:32:25 I mean, what could be cooler than that? But also it means that everybody at
00:32:25 --> 00:32:29 the festival is making stuff on print day in May.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:36 So we've got hundreds more people and then people that they will tell about the event.
00:32:36 --> 00:32:39 And I think our participation will mushroom.
00:32:39 --> 00:32:41 You know, we're kind of trying to take over the world here.
00:32:43 --> 00:32:47 I understand. Well, in order to take over the world, you've got to have people
00:32:47 --> 00:32:51 to participate. So how can someone participate in print day in May?
00:32:52 --> 00:32:58 Well, probably the easiest thing to do is to go to printanmay.com.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:01 It's very simple. We have a register button.
00:33:02 --> 00:33:08 And by registering, you can get newsletters, which happen a few times a year.
00:33:09 --> 00:33:15 And you actually have access to a database of thousands of printmakers all over
00:33:15 --> 00:33:19 the world. So if you're going to India and you want to, you know,
00:33:20 --> 00:33:27 connect with a printmaker in some city in India, you can do that by being a print AMA registrant.
00:33:29 --> 00:33:35 So that's really helpful for us because we like to know how many people in the
00:33:35 --> 00:33:38 world are doing this and where our reach extends to.
00:33:38 --> 00:33:42 So register at printama.com.
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 You don't need to. You can just make a
00:33:45 --> 00:33:48 print and you can go to our website and
00:33:48 --> 00:33:51 look and see what's happening as the blog comes in
00:33:51 --> 00:33:55 and you're seeing where people are printing all over the world if
00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 you're in you know if you're involved in social media you can
00:33:58 --> 00:34:05 do that you can post on our sites we have a print day in may print makers group
00:34:05 --> 00:34:13 that people are a member of on facebook all year because it's it's really helpful
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15 for techniques. I just learned this.
00:34:15 --> 00:34:17 Do you want to know how to do this? Who's teaching where?
00:34:17 --> 00:34:20 So that's just a wonderful communication tool.
00:34:21 --> 00:34:27 You can also post on our actual page and on Instagram. You can see what's going
00:34:27 --> 00:34:30 on. And you can hashtag our sponsors.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:35 And we've got about two dozen sponsors. And those sponsors will look at the
00:34:35 --> 00:34:40 hashtags right after Print A&M and award prizes to people.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:48 Right now, the Edinburgh Printmakers, a wonderful, wonderful print shop in Scotland.
00:34:49 --> 00:34:54 They are awarding a residency at their studio for people to come and work.
00:34:54 --> 00:35:00 We've got Cranfield Colors in Wales that are, they are giving away ink.
00:35:01 --> 00:35:04 Zia Mays Printmaking in Massachusetts, where I was just teaching,
00:35:05 --> 00:35:10 they are giving away classes for people to take to learn how to make prints.
00:35:10 --> 00:35:14 So it's a win-win situation.
00:35:14 --> 00:35:18 Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. But the Edinburgh sounds real nice,
00:35:18 --> 00:35:24 you know, just just to travel and go to school. That's that's a pretty cool prize.
00:35:24 --> 00:35:30 All right. So, like I said, this is this is a political show.
00:35:30 --> 00:35:33 So I got to ask you some questions. And you kind of touched on one question
00:35:33 --> 00:35:39 already when you're talking about the history of the origin of print day in May.
00:35:39 --> 00:35:46 It was a state decision that impacted whether people could participate in the arts or not.
00:35:48 --> 00:35:53 And so the 2026 federal budget is proposed by the Trump administration,
00:35:54 --> 00:36:00 aims to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Assistance
00:36:00 --> 00:36:02 for Arts Education Program.
00:36:02 --> 00:36:07 So what impact do you think that will have on the arts community in the United
00:36:07 --> 00:36:13 States? Well, that's been, you know, one of our biggest fears ever since I started teaching.
00:36:14 --> 00:36:21 You know, our budgets have fluctuated wildly, but it has always been terrifying
00:36:21 --> 00:36:28 to think that somebody could come into office and end arts funding in the United States.
00:36:29 --> 00:36:34 And, of course, we're there. It's going to have an enormous impact if this happens.
00:36:34 --> 00:36:36 I mean, I was really scared.
00:36:37 --> 00:36:43 The loss of NPR and thinking, how am I going to exist in the world without NPR?
00:36:44 --> 00:36:49 And somehow it's still holding on, even though it's been under such tremendous attack.
00:36:49 --> 00:36:56 So of course, we hope that with whatever the Trump administration does and whatever
00:36:56 --> 00:37:00 Congress does or does not do, to save arts.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:09 We hope that people will find ways to continue to provide support for the arts.
00:37:09 --> 00:37:19 But, you know, the chipping away is so profound that in the end,
00:37:19 --> 00:37:25 you know, with one giant thing like no more, you know, NEA.
00:37:25 --> 00:37:30 I mean, of course, that means no more state arts budgets because it trickles
00:37:30 --> 00:37:36 down to the states, local situations, art education for children.
00:37:36 --> 00:37:38 Art education for adults.
00:37:38 --> 00:37:47 It's a profound loss because one of the things people don't realize is it's
00:37:47 --> 00:37:54 not only personally important for people to take place or to take part in making art.
00:37:55 --> 00:37:59 It actually is a way that people learn how to make decisions.
00:38:00 --> 00:38:06 It's problem-solving. It's creative problem-solving and critical thinking.
00:38:06 --> 00:38:14 And when a population loses those abilities, they don't come back easily.
00:38:14 --> 00:38:20 And my husband taught middle school for 30 years so we sat in the hot tub every
00:38:20 --> 00:38:27 night and for 30 years talked about what we saw as a systematic destruction
00:38:27 --> 00:38:33 of education in this country and it has come to roost. Subsequent.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:41 Generations don't know where to start. If you lose it, they don't even know it's there.
00:38:41 --> 00:38:44 So how do we get that back?
00:38:44 --> 00:38:48 How do we get that drive back? How do we get those skills back?
00:38:48 --> 00:38:57 We used to have Silicon Valley recruiters come to our college for people to
00:38:57 --> 00:39:02 work in their graphic arts areas, in their animation areas, and so on.
00:39:03 --> 00:39:07 And they always said, we don't care what their computer skills are.
00:39:07 --> 00:39:11 We can teach them computer skills. What we need is we need thinkers.
00:39:11 --> 00:39:14 We need creative problem solvers. So we're going to the art department.
00:39:14 --> 00:39:19 We're not going to the computer science people. and that says it all right there.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:28 Yeah and and I got a follow-up to that but I want to briefly tell you oh well it's a confession.
00:39:29 --> 00:39:32 So when I was in the legislature we started
00:39:32 --> 00:39:35 a Mississippi version of fame right the
00:39:35 --> 00:39:38 it was called the Mississippi School of
00:39:38 --> 00:39:41 the Fine Arts and it was it was
00:39:41 --> 00:39:44 a tremendous idea but having
00:39:44 --> 00:39:47 been a legislator a few years at that moment I
00:39:47 --> 00:39:50 I said I've got a problem with
00:39:50 --> 00:39:53 us doing that so I am the only person on record
00:39:53 --> 00:39:59 when they actually created the school to have voted against it oh and my argument
00:39:59 --> 00:40:04 on the floor were and you should have seen it Robynn it was amazing it was like
00:40:04 --> 00:40:09 you had folks quoting Shakespeare and singing and And, you know,
00:40:09 --> 00:40:10 it was just like they were all these people.
00:40:10 --> 00:40:14 I was like, wow, look at all this artistic talent we have in the legislature
00:40:14 --> 00:40:16 alone. They could teach classes, right?
00:40:16 --> 00:40:23 Yeah. But I got up and I said, if we do this, this is a commitment.
00:40:25 --> 00:40:32 I can't support something that I know this body in a couple of years is going to abandon.
00:40:33 --> 00:40:38 And so my thing is, is that I want you to prove me wrong.
00:40:38 --> 00:40:42 I'm going to vote against it, but I want you to prove me wrong.
00:40:42 --> 00:40:48 And I swear to God, two years later, there was a bill in the appropriations
00:40:48 --> 00:40:51 to cut the funding, to shut that thing down.
00:40:52 --> 00:40:57 And I got up there and I railed on him. I said, I reminded him I was the only one to vote against it.
00:40:57 --> 00:41:01 And I said, it's because of this very bill right here. I said,
00:41:01 --> 00:41:08 you didn't prove me wrong by bringing this bill up, but I want you to prove
00:41:08 --> 00:41:11 me wrong and vote against this bill and fund this school.
00:41:11 --> 00:41:14 Now that we've made this commitment, we've got to support it.
00:41:15 --> 00:41:19 And the bill died. And so we still have the Mississippi School for the Fine
00:41:19 --> 00:41:26 Arts. But, you know, it's just that that's the scary thing about government
00:41:26 --> 00:41:29 funding for something that is essential, right?
00:41:30 --> 00:41:35 Yes, I understand that. So my follow-up question is, in this political climate
00:41:35 --> 00:41:40 that we are in, why is it important to celebrate and support the arts?
00:41:40 --> 00:41:46 Well, I think it's more important in some ways than ever, because people are
00:41:46 --> 00:41:50 looking around and feeling and seeing despair,
00:41:51 --> 00:41:58 feeling like their way of life is just going down the drain.
00:41:59 --> 00:42:02 And I think that...
00:42:03 --> 00:42:08 It's really important for people to have hope, and it's become almost impossible
00:42:08 --> 00:42:11 to have hope in politics.
00:42:11 --> 00:42:17 So we've got to look elsewhere, and people have to have their own strength.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:24 They have to have the strength to think for themselves and to make their lives work for themselves.
00:42:24 --> 00:42:30 And the arts is a place where people begin to gather that strength,
00:42:30 --> 00:42:34 begin to understand who they are and what is important to them.
00:42:34 --> 00:42:43 I mean, singing a song, you know, that is a, these days, that's an act of resistance.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:52 You know, I heard David Byrne's performance, I went to a performance of his in New York in October.
00:42:53 --> 00:42:58 And this is right about the time when, you know, we were all just feeling like,
00:42:58 --> 00:43:01 wow, there is, you know, how are we going to get through this,
00:43:02 --> 00:43:05 you know, not even a year and look at what's gone on.
00:43:05 --> 00:43:11 And there was so much joy in that room. It was at Radio City Music Hall.
00:43:12 --> 00:43:16 And my husband and I coming from California had been noticing,
00:43:16 --> 00:43:20 and I'm from New York originally, we'd noticed in our whole week there prior
00:43:20 --> 00:43:24 to this performance that people in New York were so nice,
00:43:25 --> 00:43:28 like over the top, wonderful to each other.
00:43:28 --> 00:43:33 People were saying, hello, you go get your egg on a roll at a kiosk in the morning,
00:43:33 --> 00:43:36 and you're talking to the young woman who's making your breakfast.
00:43:37 --> 00:43:41 And, you know, we were like, wow, what's going on in New York? This feels amazing.
00:43:41 --> 00:43:47 So there's David Byrne. And at one point, about halfway through the performance,
00:43:47 --> 00:43:51 he stops and he's talking to the audience and he says, so today,
00:43:51 --> 00:43:56 he says, love and kindness are acts of resistance. assets.
00:43:57 --> 00:44:02 And I felt like that's what's been going on in New York all week.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:07 And everybody, just the whole audience, started hugging each other.
00:44:09 --> 00:44:16 So that kind of joy in times like this, it's what connects us to our humanity.
00:44:16 --> 00:44:21 And we've got to be connected to that humanity or we go down the toilet with them.
00:44:23 --> 00:44:29 Yeah, so that leads me to my final question. Finish this sentence I have hope
00:44:29 --> 00:44:34 because Because the world is a beautiful place.
00:44:36 --> 00:44:46 And we've got to be able to see through the ugliness I'm looking out the window You know,
00:44:46 --> 00:44:49 it's blue sky There's trees That's a
00:44:49 --> 00:44:52 beautiful thing So we've got
00:44:52 --> 00:44:56 to be able to personally each one of us connect
00:44:56 --> 00:44:59 to the beauty of the world and
00:44:59 --> 00:45:02 the arts lets us do that and printmaking lets
00:45:02 --> 00:45:11 us do that yeah all right so Robynn Smith i i i thank you i thank you for what
00:45:11 --> 00:45:17 you do i thank you for the vision and the collaboration you were able to gather
00:45:17 --> 00:45:22 to make this print day in may not only exist but to be successful you,
00:45:22 --> 00:45:27 Go over again how people can get involved and also how can people get in touch
00:45:27 --> 00:45:32 with you as far as, you know, speaking engagements, teaching classes,
00:45:33 --> 00:45:35 the whole nine yards. Very good. Thank you.
00:45:36 --> 00:45:42 First of all, www.printdayinmay.com. That will give you all the information
00:45:42 --> 00:45:46 you need about getting involved in the project.
00:45:46 --> 00:45:54 And it will give you a way to contact us through our Gmail, printama at gmail.com.
00:45:55 --> 00:46:01 And we answer, I answer just about every email.
00:46:01 --> 00:46:05 There's a small team of women and we are very committed. We answer everything.
00:46:06 --> 00:46:14 My name is Robynn Smith. It's R-O-B-Y-N-N. And you can go to robynnsmith.com and
00:46:14 --> 00:46:20 that will get you right to me It'll show you my portfolio of works that I make,
00:46:21 --> 00:46:23 painting, printmaking, drawing.
00:46:23 --> 00:46:29 There's a link to Print Day in May to the page, and there's a way to contact
00:46:29 --> 00:46:35 me directly. There's also an events page on my website, which is mostly up to date.
00:46:35 --> 00:46:42 And I do encourage people to contact me with any questions regarding the event,
00:46:42 --> 00:46:50 Or certainly, if you would like me to participate in an event of yours, give me a shout out.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:55 Absolutely. All right. Well, Robynn Smith, again, thank you. Thank you for this.
00:46:55 --> 00:46:57 And thank you for coming on the podcast.
00:46:58 --> 00:47:01 Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. All right, guys.
00:47:01 --> 00:47:03 And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:47:21 --> 00:47:28 All right, we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Gerta Keller.
00:47:28 --> 00:47:35 Gerta Keller is a professor of paleontology and geology emeritus in the Department
00:47:35 --> 00:47:42 of Geosciences at Princeton University, where she has been a tenured faculty member since 1984.
00:47:42 --> 00:47:48 She has placed over 260 scientific publications in international journals and
00:47:48 --> 00:47:53 is considered a leading authority on catastrophes, mass extinctions,
00:47:53 --> 00:47:59 and the biotic and environmental effects of impacts and volcanism.
00:48:00 --> 00:48:05 In recent years, her work has received increased recognition and continues to
00:48:05 --> 00:48:12 make waves in the mainstream media, including a widely circulated profile in The Atlantic.
00:48:12 --> 00:48:17 She is the author of the book, The Last Extinction, The Real Science Behind
00:48:17 --> 00:48:19 the Death of the Dinosaurs.
00:48:20 --> 00:48:24 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:48:24 --> 00:48:27 on this podcast, Gerta Keller.
00:48:37 --> 00:48:43 All right, Gerta Keller. How you doing, ma'am? You doing good?
00:48:43 --> 00:48:47 I'm doing good. Thank you. Well, I'm honored to have you on.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:52 You know, the average has been that every guest that I've had on is smarter than me.
00:48:52 --> 00:49:02 And I definitely think that you would qualify in that because you are a paleontologist
00:49:02 --> 00:49:04 and a geologist. Is that correct?
00:49:05 --> 00:49:08 Yes. Yes. I like dinosaurs.
00:49:09 --> 00:49:16 And, you know, I know that I know what an earthquake is and what causes it. But that's it.
00:49:16 --> 00:49:19 That's that's all you're going to get out of me. I'm not you.
00:49:19 --> 00:49:22 You can explain it a lot better than I can. Yeah.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:28 So he wrote this book called The Last Extinction. So we're going to talk.
00:49:29 --> 00:49:33 Most of the discussion is going to be about that. But I want to pick your brain
00:49:33 --> 00:49:34 on a couple other things, too.
00:49:34 --> 00:49:39 But before we do all that, I do what we call icebreakers. icebreakers.
00:49:39 --> 00:49:44 So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:49:44 --> 00:49:50 And the quote is, we are the first generation to feel the effect of climate
00:49:50 --> 00:49:54 change and the last generation who can do something about it.
00:49:54 --> 00:49:56 What does that quote mean to you?
00:49:56 --> 00:49:59 I think that's a very good quote.
00:50:01 --> 00:50:05 I wish I had thought about it, but I did not.
00:50:07 --> 00:50:15 We are the first generation, and the last one indeed.
00:50:15 --> 00:50:22 In fact, I think the last one is probably the worst one, and that's the one
00:50:22 --> 00:50:28 that is really hitting a lot of scientists, particularly.
00:50:30 --> 00:50:39 And in many ways, it's increasingly so just in a few years.
00:50:40 --> 00:50:50 Because for all this time, I have worked on climate change and extinctions, as extinctions.
00:50:51 --> 00:50:58 And I've had a lot of fights, or at least disagreements.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:08 And lastly, the impactors, I call those impactors because they believe,
00:51:09 --> 00:51:14 essentially, that an impact hit earth.
00:51:15 --> 00:51:22 And then it killed everything, caused the mass extinction, and everything else.
00:51:23 --> 00:51:29 But most of that, almost everything, is not quite true.
00:51:29 --> 00:51:35 And much of it is not true at all. Yet, so many people believe it,
00:51:36 --> 00:51:38 and still today believe it.
00:51:39 --> 00:51:48 So, I think that I would sum up that basically, that yes, we should talk.
00:51:50 --> 00:52:01 Particularly on not so much, perhaps, more of climate change than perhaps on the impactors.
00:52:01 --> 00:52:05 Yes, ma'am. Well, we're going to get into that because, you know,
00:52:05 --> 00:52:09 when you say the impactors, growing up I was one of those kids.
00:52:09 --> 00:52:12 But we're going to dive into that a little more.
00:52:13 --> 00:52:22 The next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions. So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:52:22 --> 00:52:30 1 and 20. I'm not quite understanding what you mean, an answer between 1 and 20.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:35 Just give me a number in that range. Okay.
00:52:36 --> 00:52:38 How about 15? Okay.
00:52:39 --> 00:52:45 When you think about the challenges our country faces, what gives you hope? Okay.
00:52:46 --> 00:52:55 That is a difficult one, because I used to have more hope only just a few years ago,
00:52:56 --> 00:53:03 when I visited Switzerland all the time, because that's where I'm from originally.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:17 And just two years ago when I was there I was looking for my usual mountains, the Alps,
00:53:17 --> 00:53:27 the High Alps and the problem was that the glaciers had melted and there was
00:53:27 --> 00:53:34 literally nothing the rocks not just the rocks, but the sediments,
00:53:35 --> 00:53:39 everything had started tumbling down.
00:53:40 --> 00:53:46 And in fact, there were falls, rock slides everywhere.
00:53:46 --> 00:53:52 A lot of people got killed because a lot of them believed, well,
00:53:52 --> 00:53:57 they were always living in the mountains, and it was always beautiful and nothing ever happened.
00:53:59 --> 00:54:03 Now it all came down, and that's what's happening in Switzerland,
00:54:03 --> 00:54:07 and it happens virtually the world over.
00:54:08 --> 00:54:18 So that is a remarkable situation, which is, I can tell from my siblings in Switzerland,
00:54:19 --> 00:54:24 they don't believe it, that this can happen or could happen. Yeah.
00:54:25 --> 00:54:29 All right. So let's get into the book.
00:54:30 --> 00:54:36 The emphasis of your book, The Last Extinction, explains how the dinosaurs really
00:54:36 --> 00:54:39 became extinct and the journey you went on to prove that.
00:54:39 --> 00:54:44 So I was brought up to believe that a big giant asteroid hit the Earth,
00:54:45 --> 00:54:51 and the effect of the crash created an environment which killed them off.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:58 So why is that wrong? It's only wrong in part.
00:54:58 --> 00:55:04 The wrong part is that everyone, the impactors,
00:55:05 --> 00:55:14 believed that it was exactly 66 million years ago and nothing else happened
00:55:14 --> 00:55:17 other than that before or after.
00:55:17 --> 00:55:22 What is wrong here is that we have found that.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:29 I've studied this now since the 1970s.
00:55:30 --> 00:55:39 And what we found was wrong is literally that the story is that,
00:55:40 --> 00:55:43 yes, an asteroid happened, but it didn't.
00:55:44 --> 00:55:57 It happened 200 years earlier. And at that time, it actually didn't kill many species.
00:55:58 --> 00:56:00 There wasn't much that was going on.
00:56:02 --> 00:56:06 And life just went on as usual.
00:56:07 --> 00:56:11 Climate was normal, and that was it.
00:56:12 --> 00:56:21 But nobody would believe it because an asteroid had to have killed all the dinosaurs.
00:56:21 --> 00:56:28 And the dinosaurs were killed a lot before that asteroid hit. Okay.
00:56:30 --> 00:56:33 So, like you said, you've been doing this for four years. So,
00:56:34 --> 00:56:36 what led you down this path?
00:56:37 --> 00:56:41 Four years. Say that again? Forty years. Yes, ma'am.
00:56:42 --> 00:56:46 What led you down this path to reach your conclusion?
00:56:48 --> 00:56:54 Because it was a word that I had never heard before called volcanism.
00:56:56 --> 00:57:00 Volcanism, yes. Volcanism, yes, ma'am. So kind of explain how did you get to
00:57:00 --> 00:57:05 this point where you realize the asteroids didn't do it, but this Volcanism did.
00:57:05 --> 00:57:17 Well, that's because after 2020, and even before then,
00:57:18 --> 00:57:24 I've studied with my collaborators and friends.
00:57:24 --> 00:57:30 We've studied essentially throughout the world, particularly through Mexico,
00:57:30 --> 00:57:34 because that's where the impact happened.
00:57:35 --> 00:57:44 As well as virtually we started to go absolutely throughout the world and checked with everything.
00:57:45 --> 00:57:46 And...
00:57:47 --> 00:58:00 By about 25, I found that I knew about Deccan volcanism.
00:58:01 --> 00:58:04 That means simply volcanic eruptions in India.
00:58:05 --> 00:58:11 And it is massive. There are 2 meters of lava flows.
00:58:12 --> 00:58:18 And they just came one after another. sometimes in short terms,
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 other times in longer terms.
00:58:22 --> 00:58:29 And there were a lot of people that had studied them, including from France,
00:58:29 --> 00:58:36 from other countries, as well as, of course, India.
00:58:36 --> 00:58:39 The problem here was that.
00:58:41 --> 00:58:48 Could only study these not on volcanism, because that's not what I usually do,
00:58:49 --> 00:58:57 but rather can they find that there is any truth in the mass extinction and
00:58:57 --> 00:59:00 how it happened at that time in India?
00:59:02 --> 00:59:08 And that's where we found first that, yes, there are a lot of dinosaurs throughout
00:59:08 --> 00:59:12 India, and yes, they got killed.
00:59:13 --> 00:59:22 They got killed sometimes just in parts, slower parts, so it did not matter.
00:59:22 --> 00:59:29 But then at some point, it was so that massive volcanic eruptions,
00:59:30 --> 00:59:36 that means just lava is pouring out, and lava means simply hot rocks.
00:59:36 --> 00:59:43 And so I started working in India and we found that.
00:59:44 --> 00:59:54 These lava outpourings were absolutely rapid fast and going over a thousand
00:59:54 --> 01:00:03 kilometers of flows and it was absolutely amazing I got this from,
01:00:04 --> 01:00:09 my collaborators in India who were doing oil drilling,
01:00:09 --> 01:00:14 and that's how I got the data from that.
01:00:15 --> 01:00:23 And they helped me for now, by now, about 15 years, we collaborated on these.
01:00:25 --> 01:00:28 So, what we did find, though, is
01:00:28 --> 01:00:38 that we discovered that there also are microfossils in these lava flows.
01:00:39 --> 01:00:50 And these microfossils actually died, had died out with all except one species
01:00:50 --> 01:00:53 that survived and still is surviving today.
01:00:54 --> 01:00:57 That's the only species that was surviving.
01:00:58 --> 01:01:02 So that's essentially how we got into it.
01:01:02 --> 01:01:07 And then from then on, I worked more on India.
01:01:07 --> 01:01:17 And these kinds of many more different kinds of sciences that I began at that time. Okay.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:21 You mentioned in the book that the
01:01:21 --> 01:01:26 hardest people to convince about a new scientific theory are scientists.
01:01:26 --> 01:01:32 You also stated that it was even harder because you are a female and most scientists are male.
01:01:32 --> 01:01:41 So do you think it was misogyny or rigidity that made it harder for your research to be accepted?
01:01:43 --> 01:01:51 Reason that I had major problems was with the impactors, because they could not believe.
01:01:53 --> 01:01:59 That there was volcanism in India to begin with.
01:01:59 --> 01:02:07 That was a no-no, even though they eventually had to change some of that.
01:02:08 --> 01:02:16 It still didn't work, because the impactors had their own ways,
01:02:16 --> 01:02:19 and it was always the same, the same story.
01:02:20 --> 01:02:30 And that essentially is, It wasn't rigidity on my part, it was their rigidity, completely.
01:02:30 --> 01:02:39 On my part, I was always looking with my collaborators, we were always looking
01:02:39 --> 01:02:43 for what is really happening in every step.
01:02:44 --> 01:02:49 We are not looking for what was wrong.
01:02:49 --> 01:02:53 We were looking what we could find out.
01:02:53 --> 01:03:02 Yeah, you were basically following the trail of the cookie crumbs, as laymen would say.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:05 You were following the evidence.
01:03:06 --> 01:03:10 Right. Yeah. I like the cookie crumbs. Okay.
01:03:11 --> 01:03:17 So one of those impactors was this guy named Luis Alvarez.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:23 And I came away from the book with the impression that you weren't a big fan of Mr. Alvarez.
01:03:23 --> 01:03:29 What about Alvarez that taught you about the impact of politics,
01:03:30 --> 01:03:35 media manipulation, and popular opinion on scientific research?
01:03:36 --> 01:03:39 Alvarez had his own opinion.
01:03:40 --> 01:03:43 He had, there was really...
01:03:46 --> 01:03:53 His own view at all times. There was only one time that it was different.
01:03:53 --> 01:04:03 And that one time is when I decided I was not going to work on the Alvarez type story.
01:04:03 --> 01:04:10 I would wait for five years because I believed he was wrong what they were saying.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:15 And I decided I would do something completely different.
01:04:15 --> 01:04:26 And so I worked on an impact, but an impact that happened some 60 years ago.
01:04:27 --> 01:04:33 And that is when Alvarez stepped in.
01:04:33 --> 01:04:45 And in fact, he told me that He invited me with a large group of his most famous
01:04:45 --> 01:04:50 collaborators and scientists there,
01:04:51 --> 01:04:54 and I was the only woman invited,
01:04:54 --> 01:04:56 which is the usual thing.
01:04:56 --> 01:04:59 And he asked me.
01:05:01 --> 01:05:08 I was supposed to give, I was the only one to give a talk and I did give my
01:05:08 --> 01:05:13 talk and he liked it a lot but before the talk,
01:05:15 --> 01:05:22 I actually was free enough to ask some questions of what they had talked,
01:05:23 --> 01:05:26 namely Alvarez was giving these Jewish children.
01:05:28 --> 01:05:35 About how the mass extinctions occurred, how everything, the dinosaurs got killed and everything.
01:05:35 --> 01:05:40 And I would say, but this is not quite right.
01:05:40 --> 01:05:44 It happened completely different.
01:05:45 --> 01:05:52 And then everything, the whole room, everything would be in silence until Alvarez
01:05:52 --> 01:05:59 would then stop and continue it.
01:05:59 --> 01:06:12 I expressed it as like I was a bird that dropped into a rock or whatever,
01:06:13 --> 01:06:14 fell into something.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:20 And then there was just total silence.
01:06:20 --> 01:06:28 And after that, Alvarez could talk again without ever saying anything else.
01:06:29 --> 01:06:41 And at the end of my lecture, he was silent, and there were about 30 people in the room.
01:06:42 --> 01:06:44 They never said a word.
01:06:46 --> 01:06:51 And everyone was waiting to see what Alvarez would say.
01:06:51 --> 01:06:59 And so finally he said, this talk with Gerta Keller was very good,
01:07:00 --> 01:07:06 that the impact, that we know now that the impact happened, but an earlier one,
01:07:06 --> 01:07:11 that it was a much earlier time.
01:07:11 --> 01:07:16 And so now they knew that there were actually what I called comet showers.
01:07:18 --> 01:07:25 And so he liked that, but nothing else. Yeah, I definitely understand that.
01:07:26 --> 01:07:34 So in the South, you were trying to pick an allegory of how you were a disruptor.
01:07:34 --> 01:07:37 So in the South, we say a fly in the buttermilk, right?
01:07:38 --> 01:07:44 It was pretty obvious. It was like, okay, that's not really how it's supposed
01:07:44 --> 01:07:47 to look, but it's in there.
01:07:48 --> 01:07:54 But I guess what I was trying to find out was that you talked about in your
01:07:54 --> 01:07:58 challenges, you talked about because Alvarez, so for the listeners,
01:07:58 --> 01:08:05 Alvarez was one of the scientists with the Manhattan Project or as a young, young guy.
01:08:05 --> 01:08:12 And he kind of made his name, you know, with he made something with hydrogen
01:08:12 --> 01:08:15 that I think he got a Nobel Prize for whatever.
01:08:15 --> 01:08:20 So by the time that you had encountered him, he was real popular and he was
01:08:20 --> 01:08:22 pretty well established.
01:08:23 --> 01:08:30 And so basically, whenever he got on TV or, you know, whenever the elected officials
01:08:30 --> 01:08:35 would talk to him, they would listen to him as opposed to somebody like you.
01:08:35 --> 01:08:39 And so what I was trying to ask you was, did you learn anything from that?
01:08:39 --> 01:08:48 Did you see anything, I guess, similar now than what you were dealing with?
01:08:48 --> 01:08:51 I guess this was like in the 1980s that this was happening?
01:08:52 --> 01:08:57 Yes. Yes. At that point, middle 1980. Okay.
01:08:59 --> 01:09:14 Yeah. Well, yes, I was in my early 30s, so, of course, I was young, and I...
01:09:16 --> 01:09:22 I was always the kind of person who wanted to tell the truth,
01:09:23 --> 01:09:28 and that was a problem, because Alvarez has his own truth.
01:09:31 --> 01:09:39 And I had questioned my husband, who was a mathematician at the time,
01:09:40 --> 01:09:46 should I or should I not accept this invitation to talk?
01:09:47 --> 01:09:59 And he said, you're strong enough, you should do it and see what happens. well.
01:10:00 --> 01:10:04 Did, and it was okay, because Alvarez,
01:10:05 --> 01:10:14 in the end, he basically wanted my story for the comet shower,
01:10:15 --> 01:10:17 because that had never happened before.
01:10:19 --> 01:10:25 And so he needed that story,
01:10:25 --> 01:10:38 and he had asked me and some of his other fellow scientists that I would write
01:10:38 --> 01:10:40 essentially this story.
01:10:41 --> 01:10:48 And I had said I would under certain circumstances,
01:10:48 --> 01:10:58 and those were that I would not touch on the impact story of Alvarez,
01:10:58 --> 01:11:01 because I did not believe it.
01:11:01 --> 01:11:11 So, the next day, there was a talk by Alvarez at the Denver Museum,
01:11:11 --> 01:11:20 and he announced that And there is a new member now in his team,
01:11:21 --> 01:11:30 Gerta Keller, who formerly did not want to work with him, but now was on board.
01:11:31 --> 01:11:37 At the same evening, I had phone calls from my other collaborators,
01:11:37 --> 01:11:41 from other collaborators saying, Gerta, what happened to you?
01:11:41 --> 01:11:45 Why did you change your mind on Alvarez?
01:11:45 --> 01:11:48 And I was furious.
01:11:49 --> 01:11:55 And so I called one of Alvarez's other guys.
01:11:57 --> 01:12:04 And said, I am stopping this. I will not do anything.
01:12:04 --> 01:12:07 I have nothing to do with Alvarez.
01:12:08 --> 01:12:12 And then he went back and forth.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:19 And yes, I eventually, I did accept to give a talk, but that was it.
01:12:20 --> 01:12:29 Yeah. All right. So, in the book, you state that the Earth has had five extinction events.
01:12:29 --> 01:12:33 Are we in the middle of the sixth extinction event?
01:12:33 --> 01:12:36 Yes. Okay.
01:12:37 --> 01:12:41 And that's a big deal. Yeah, yeah.
01:12:42 --> 01:12:49 A very big deal. It's an amazing extinction event.
01:12:49 --> 01:12:57 And yes, the sixth one, of course, is the one that we are just trying to figure
01:12:57 --> 01:13:03 out whether we can make it through and how we are going to make it through.
01:13:03 --> 01:13:17 And one of the things that I would say today is that I worked on these extinctions in events,
01:13:17 --> 01:13:20 including the recent ones.
01:13:20 --> 01:13:33 For a long time, I thought it would take quite a lot of years before we reach the fifth extinction.
01:13:34 --> 01:13:37 Then, very quickly, it changed.
01:13:39 --> 01:13:45 And the reason it changed, it was because climate changed.
01:13:46 --> 01:13:50 Wasn't Deccan volcanism that was the problem.
01:13:51 --> 01:13:56 It was actually our own problems, because.
01:13:58 --> 01:14:10 Basically throughout all these years from the late 70s, we knew that climate was changing.
01:14:10 --> 01:14:16 But the first time in 1980, actually,
01:14:17 --> 01:14:24 there was an idea, and more than an idea, actually,
01:14:25 --> 01:14:34 belief that we had to do something to do some mitigating of what happens with our climate.
01:14:34 --> 01:14:37 But nothing happened.
01:14:37 --> 01:14:41 Not in 1980, and nothing happened until 2000.
01:14:42 --> 01:14:53 Every time there was a belief that, yes, we had to do something now.
01:14:53 --> 01:15:01 And each time we had some other things to do, including Trump later on,
01:15:02 --> 01:15:12 I can mention that one now, because after all, he wasn't caring what climate change was.
01:15:12 --> 01:15:14 In fact, he never believed there was climate change.
01:15:15 --> 01:15:25 And so the problem was that nothing has happened and nothing has happened to this day.
01:15:27 --> 01:15:34 No mitigating of climate, in fact, probably more than ever, less than ever.
01:15:34 --> 01:15:45 So what did your research teach you or teach us about greenhouse gas and climate change?
01:15:46 --> 01:15:52 And I guess, you know, you've written this book about the last extinction.
01:15:52 --> 01:15:59 So what about the demise of the dinosaurs are more relevant now as we are,
01:15:59 --> 01:16:02 as you say, in this new extinction event?
01:16:02 --> 01:16:12 Well, the dinosaur extinctions are relevant because it's the first time in 66
01:16:12 --> 01:16:18 million years that we actually had the evidence,
01:16:18 --> 01:16:24 the real evidence that there was something really bad happening.
01:16:25 --> 01:16:31 Yes, eventually it was taken volcanism, but first it was, of course, Alvarez.
01:16:33 --> 01:16:38 And Alvarez has never changed his mind.
01:16:38 --> 01:16:45 So now though we can go back, we know all about the dinosaurs,
01:16:46 --> 01:16:47 we know all about those stories,
01:16:48 --> 01:16:56 but now we need to go back and see what can we do to make some changes in our
01:16:56 --> 01:17:02 own lives so that we will not be the next dinosaurs.
01:17:04 --> 01:17:07 And basically what you're saying in your research,
01:17:07 --> 01:17:11 our growth as a population,
01:17:11 --> 01:17:23 our explicit use of fossil fuels and all that equated or equates to the cataclysmic
01:17:23 --> 01:17:27 volcanic explosions that took place millions of years ago.
01:17:27 --> 01:17:35 We've been able to replicate that from a man-made perspective as opposed to
01:17:35 --> 01:17:36 what happened naturally.
01:17:37 --> 01:17:40 Yes. Okay. That's correct.
01:17:41 --> 01:17:47 We could do that, well, largely based on Deccan volcanism.
01:17:47 --> 01:17:51 And those volcanic eruptions, by the way,
01:17:52 --> 01:18:03 they had gone on for at least 700 years, but in a slow way.
01:18:03 --> 01:18:09 Sometimes nothing would happen for hundreds of thousands of years,
01:18:09 --> 01:18:13 and sometimes they would go more rapidly.
01:18:14 --> 01:18:20 Once it really started, the end when it started was 66 million years ago,
01:18:21 --> 01:18:25 actually when it ended 66 million years ago.
01:18:28 --> 01:18:33 And we'll go back to Deccan volcanism. First of all,
01:18:34 --> 01:18:40 the eruptions in India are, there is about what we can see even today,
01:18:40 --> 01:18:46 3 meters of volcanic rocks.
01:18:46 --> 01:18:51 And it's flow after flow, always the same, flat.
01:18:53 --> 01:18:57 And it's something that nobody really could believe.
01:18:58 --> 01:19:01 Even what was this?
01:19:02 --> 01:19:12 And once we started studying that, with Indian colleagues, the French colleagues, few in the U.S.
01:19:12 --> 01:19:18 At that time, because in the U.S. it was still the impactors and nobody believed
01:19:18 --> 01:19:24 in anything cataclysmic that has to do with Deccan volcanism.
01:19:27 --> 01:19:30 So coming back to that
01:19:30 --> 01:19:33 then it was really almost a
01:19:33 --> 01:19:36 meeting of the mind to bring this
01:19:36 --> 01:19:46 all together and find out more about it and of course the dinosaurs we knew
01:19:46 --> 01:19:56 for a long time that they were all over the place by the thousands But when the Deccan volcanism,
01:19:56 --> 01:19:58 not just the Deccan volcanism,
01:19:59 --> 01:20:06 when the eruptions became more and more,
01:20:06 --> 01:20:19 then all you can see in India is that there were dinosaur eggs that never hatched.
01:20:21 --> 01:20:29 You can find thousands of them. And the reason was that in the end,
01:20:29 --> 01:20:36 they could not hatch because the volcanic eruptions were toxic,
01:20:36 --> 01:20:43 but it wasn't the toxicity that killed the baby dinosaurs.
01:20:43 --> 01:20:48 Dinosaurs, it was that they could not get out of the shells.
01:20:49 --> 01:20:57 The shells simply became very hardened, and so they died because they never got out of it.
01:20:58 --> 01:21:07 And that is actually, in many ways, is really the reason why we don't have dinosaurs.
01:21:08 --> 01:21:12 Most of them simply died, almost all of them.
01:21:13 --> 01:21:21 Yes, ma'am. You said that these ideas, that living things evolve and that continents
01:21:21 --> 01:21:24 move, are obvious to us today.
01:21:24 --> 01:21:29 But it took decades before the theories that explained them were accepted by
01:21:29 --> 01:21:35 many of the most respected and highly trained members of the scientific establishment.
01:21:35 --> 01:21:43 Yeah, there are American elected officials that say what you are espousing is heresy.
01:21:43 --> 01:21:48 How much of an impact can that line of thinking from those elected officials
01:21:48 --> 01:21:57 have on funding further research into either what you're doing or some work
01:21:57 --> 01:21:59 some of your other colleagues might do?
01:21:59 --> 01:22:09 Well, I have not had many problems when it came to NSF funding.
01:22:09 --> 01:22:16 The problem was what NASA's funding was.
01:22:17 --> 01:22:27 Because all the funding that happened by Luis Alvarez and cohorts and many other people,
01:22:27 --> 01:22:36 they basically needed this impact story because of funding,
01:22:37 --> 01:22:39 and NASA funded them.
01:22:40 --> 01:22:46 So one of the things, well there are a number of things here of course because.
01:22:47 --> 01:22:56 The story is even today is still the same for the impactors they have never
01:22:56 --> 01:22:59 changed They will never change.
01:23:00 --> 01:23:05 On the other hand, NASA has given up 50% of the funding.
01:23:07 --> 01:23:14 Means today there isn't much money there, especially not for the impactors anymore.
01:23:15 --> 01:23:24 And consequently, for me, it looks like it's a wonderful part,
01:23:24 --> 01:23:37 even at the end of the day, that we can actually, we no longer have all these stories coming out.
01:23:37 --> 01:23:43 Except, of course, there are still the films and everything that will go on forever.
01:23:44 --> 01:23:49 But actually, the scientists are no longer, the impact scientists are no longer
01:23:49 --> 01:23:53 much there because they no longer have the funds.
01:23:54 --> 01:23:59 Yeah, and, you know, the reason why I ask that question, because we've,
01:23:59 --> 01:24:03 there's actually, I don't know if you've even heard of this,
01:24:03 --> 01:24:06 but there was actually a museum, and I want to say it was in Kentucky.
01:24:07 --> 01:24:13 It was either in Kentucky or Tennessee where there was a museum that actually
01:24:13 --> 01:24:19 tries to show that human beings and dinosaurs were existing at the same time.
01:24:19 --> 01:24:22 It's all based on religion, right?
01:24:22 --> 01:24:27 Yes. And so a lot of those people...
01:24:27 --> 01:24:31 Grew up around that kind of thinking, they're now elected.
01:24:32 --> 01:24:37 And so when you talk to them about evolution, when you're talking to them about
01:24:37 --> 01:24:40 climate change and all that stuff,
01:24:40 --> 01:24:45 they have that, they're more rigid, I think, than the impactors you talk about,
01:24:46 --> 01:24:50 because their argument is totally against science.
01:24:51 --> 01:24:56 So in a culture where you have to deal with that, how do you navigate that?
01:24:56 --> 01:25:03 How do you get around people that just, you know, they just won't accept the science?
01:25:04 --> 01:25:12 I've been in that situation for many years when I worked with the impactors,
01:25:12 --> 01:25:20 trying to convince them that what they were doing was not quite what they thought they were doing.
01:25:20 --> 01:25:24 And it I
01:25:24 --> 01:25:28 had there is a story in my book that
01:25:28 --> 01:25:32 is talking about these
01:25:32 --> 01:25:41 impactors they were all religious fanatics unfortunately there was a bunch there
01:25:41 --> 01:25:50 that actually knew more of the science but they had become it was So basically,
01:25:51 --> 01:25:52 how shall I say?
01:25:54 --> 01:26:03 I think the best story I can say is we were about five people other than 300 people in the room.
01:26:04 --> 01:26:08 So five of us were on the non-impactor side.
01:26:08 --> 01:26:19 And every time the rest of them would come and say,
01:26:20 --> 01:26:30 they would clap on the little table in front of them and yell.
01:26:32 --> 01:26:36 Believe in the impact. We believe in this. We believe in that.
01:26:36 --> 01:26:47 It was like a revival meeting all the way, and we couldn't believe this.
01:26:47 --> 01:26:51 Then one of my friends and colleagues,
01:26:52 --> 01:27:01 he is, I found out later, he is actually one of the religious revivalists,
01:27:01 --> 01:27:05 that is, his mother was one of them.
01:27:06 --> 01:27:10 And he grew up in that culture.
01:27:11 --> 01:27:17 And so he got up, knowing that he is a non-impactor,
01:27:17 --> 01:27:28 he got up and he gave the most amazing lecture he exactly like the revivalists.
01:27:30 --> 01:27:35 He would make this story. He worked,
01:27:35 --> 01:27:45 he always had his cowboy boots on and his choir of all the Texans and so on.
01:27:47 --> 01:27:56 And before he was sitting beside me before he got up and he said, watch me.
01:27:58 --> 01:28:02 And so it it
01:28:02 --> 01:28:05 was amazing so he was first
01:28:05 --> 01:28:08 he was simply quiet until the
01:28:08 --> 01:28:11 room was quiet and then
01:28:11 --> 01:28:20 he let loose i believe in the impact and then the next song volume i believe
01:28:20 --> 01:28:27 in the impact And then all these impactors started thinking,
01:28:27 --> 01:28:28 what's wrong with this guy?
01:28:29 --> 01:28:34 Is he really having a conversion?
01:28:35 --> 01:28:39 And yes, they thought he had converted.
01:28:40 --> 01:28:46 Until he started then after that and say, okay, I'll tell you what the real story is.
01:28:46 --> 01:28:54 They no longer listened to it because now they were absolutely enthralled that
01:28:54 --> 01:28:56 they now had a conversion guide.
01:29:00 --> 01:29:09 So that was one that was one of the last ones that i attended for the impactors,
01:29:10 --> 01:29:17 yeah sometimes you know you can you can try to reach people and and try to speak
01:29:17 --> 01:29:21 their language but like you said if they're if they're hung up on their belief
01:29:21 --> 01:29:26 it's really hard to turn them because I run into that in politics a lot.
01:29:28 --> 01:29:37 So before I let you go, you gave this answer about you went back home and you
01:29:37 --> 01:29:41 saw that the glaciers were gone and you kind of left it like,
01:29:42 --> 01:29:44 oh, well, the glaciers are gone.
01:29:44 --> 01:29:47 I don't know if there's much chance. You know, you kind of were disheartened.
01:29:48 --> 01:29:55 But I can't let you leave the interview like that. So let me ask you that earlier
01:29:55 --> 01:29:57 question a different way.
01:29:57 --> 01:30:00 What motivates you to keep researching?
01:30:00 --> 01:30:08 What motivates you to keep trying to find a solution to the problem or,
01:30:08 --> 01:30:13 you know, a solution to stopping the extinction? What gives you the motivation
01:30:13 --> 01:30:14 every day to do what you do?
01:30:15 --> 01:30:26 I don't know. I can't really say. I was about five years old when I started, no longer believing.
01:30:28 --> 01:30:37 And that was the time when my parents, I was one of a dozen kids, number six.
01:30:39 --> 01:30:48 And at that time, they were telling me, I don't know why, but I think they thought I was crazy.
01:30:49 --> 01:30:51 And they would say...
01:30:53 --> 01:31:00 What you need to do and what you want to do. You can do anything you want.
01:31:02 --> 01:31:09 All of my other siblings had to do what the parents said, and I could never
01:31:09 --> 01:31:12 figure out why, but it was not good.
01:31:15 --> 01:31:19 And at the same time, yeah,
01:31:20 --> 01:31:27 at the same time, they never told me why I couldn't do, why I had to,
01:31:28 --> 01:31:30 why I could do whatever I wanted to do.
01:31:30 --> 01:31:40 And so I sort of grew up on my own, and I became my own person to do whatever
01:31:40 --> 01:31:42 I believed I needed to do.
01:31:43 --> 01:31:50 So I can't really say more than that, other than that, of course,
01:31:50 --> 01:31:57 I became sort of a persona non grata in many ways for most people,
01:31:57 --> 01:32:00 because by the time I was 13,
01:32:01 --> 01:32:11 I became a person who tried all sorts of things like I would not follow,
01:32:12 --> 01:32:22 that in winters, when it was so cold and we had to walk for three kilometers in the ice and snow,
01:32:23 --> 01:32:30 that we would have to wear short skirts, basically.
01:32:30 --> 01:32:32 We could not wear anything else.
01:32:33 --> 01:32:41 And that's when I started to go against all sorts of rules, including I needed
01:32:41 --> 01:32:44 to wear pants, which was the worst thing.
01:32:45 --> 01:32:53 But another bad thing was that I was learning more, things on my own.
01:32:54 --> 01:33:02 And at that point, I found out a lot of things that people were telling us in school.
01:33:04 --> 01:33:12 Were not right. And consequently, I made also various, created a lot of problems that way.
01:33:14 --> 01:33:17 So, what can I say? Well,
01:33:18 --> 01:33:23 you know, President Kennedy had this favorite poem by Robert Frost,
01:33:23 --> 01:33:28 and I guess, for lack of a better term, the narrator closed that poem out by
01:33:28 --> 01:33:32 saying, and I traveled a different path, right?
01:33:33 --> 01:33:42 And people that usually are grounded in the truth tend to go a different path than the masses.
01:33:43 --> 01:33:49 So I say all that to say that you are not persona non grata with me and that
01:33:49 --> 01:33:56 I'm willing to bet there's a lot of folks that will buy your book or whatever that,
01:33:57 --> 01:33:59 or if it attended your classes or whatever,
01:34:00 --> 01:34:05 that would agree with my assessment that, you know, you're not persona non grata,
01:34:05 --> 01:34:10 you just are following the path that the truth is leading you toward.
01:34:10 --> 01:34:14 And I think we need more of you, Gerta Keller.
01:34:14 --> 01:34:19 I need, I think we need thousands more of you, not just in this country,
01:34:19 --> 01:34:22 but around the world to continue to do what you're doing.
01:34:22 --> 01:34:30 So I am glad that you chose that path because that path led us to have this
01:34:30 --> 01:34:35 conversation and it led you to write this book, The Last Extinction.
01:34:35 --> 01:34:39 So if people want to get this book, if people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?
01:34:41 --> 01:34:45 I think the best thing is to just use Amazon.
01:34:46 --> 01:34:52 It's probably the easiest one. In fact, I found out that when I was in India
01:34:52 --> 01:34:55 a month ago, well, less than that.
01:34:58 --> 01:35:05 That I got a lot of people, of course, in India who were buying the book.
01:35:06 --> 01:35:15 Are very, well, they have known me for 15 years by now in working there as well.
01:35:15 --> 01:35:24 Yeah. So I think whether here or anywhere else, and one of the things that is,
01:35:24 --> 01:35:30 I mean, Amazon.com is just one of the ways it can go anywhere.
01:35:30 --> 01:35:41 Where the problem is that we still don't have access to the book in different languages,
01:35:43 --> 01:35:52 because it's still waiting until the rest is coming out, meaning the other versions.
01:35:54 --> 01:36:00 Example, in Switzerland, I cannot buy, they cannot buy the book unless they
01:36:00 --> 01:36:02 are speaking in English only.
01:36:03 --> 01:36:10 And they're all asking for German versions or Spanish versions, whatever.
01:36:11 --> 01:36:15 I got you. But all right, well, that's, you know, that's coming.
01:36:15 --> 01:36:21 So, you know, we're, you know, for those folks that want those different versions,
01:36:21 --> 01:36:23 I hope that they get them as soon as they're available.
01:36:25 --> 01:36:28 But, Gerta Keller, again, thank you for coming on the podcast.
01:36:28 --> 01:36:35 I greatly appreciate the work that you put in, and I greatly appreciate you
01:36:35 --> 01:36:40 coming on and expressing your thoughts.
01:36:40 --> 01:36:44 And like I said, I greatly appreciate you for who you are.
01:36:45 --> 01:36:50 Well, thank you. I think it was absolutely fabulous to talk with you.
01:36:52 --> 01:37:00 And I, yes, what can I say? I think you're a great guy.
01:37:01 --> 01:37:05 Well, thank you. I appreciate that. On that note, ladies and gentlemen,
01:37:05 --> 01:37:07 we're going to catch you all on the other side.
01:37:20 --> 01:37:27 We are back. So I want to thank Robynn Smith and Gerta Keller for coming on the show.
01:37:28 --> 01:37:34 If you're into art, please support Robynn's Endeavor with Print Day in May.
01:37:34 --> 01:37:41 You can go to the website and check it out and, you know, learn a little more about it.
01:37:41 --> 01:37:45 And like I said, you know, just it's a cool thing.
01:37:46 --> 01:37:52 And I was glad she was able to give some insight about the relationship between
01:37:52 --> 01:37:59 the arts and politics and go out and get The Last Extinction.
01:37:59 --> 01:38:01 That's the book by Gerta Keller.
01:38:03 --> 01:38:08 Very fascinating, very detailed about her theory of what happened,
01:38:08 --> 01:38:12 but it also gives you some insights of what goes on in the scientific community.
01:38:12 --> 01:38:17 And those are some of the things I was trying to pull out in the interview about
01:38:17 --> 01:38:26 a lot of the fighting that you see in politics kind of happens in other areas of life.
01:38:27 --> 01:38:34 So basically there's politics in everything, right it's not just politics impacts
01:38:34 --> 01:38:36 everything in your life but politics is in everything,
01:38:37 --> 01:38:43 and it doesn't matter if you're a preacher at a church or you know a scientist
01:38:43 --> 01:38:51 with a theory you're going to encounter some political dynamics in order to
01:38:51 --> 01:38:56 do what you want to do and do what you know, expose truth, right?
01:38:57 --> 01:39:04 And again, her insight into climate change and how her research kind of,
01:39:04 --> 01:39:11 you know, opened the light as far as what that impact really will be like.
01:39:12 --> 01:39:17 So I think it's a good book for people to read. And I hope you appreciated the
01:39:17 --> 01:39:21 conversation I had with her as well as with Robynn Smith.
01:39:22 --> 01:39:28 So some interesting things happened this week. We had a Supreme Court case.
01:39:30 --> 01:39:37 That came up. There was this guy in Mississippi who was, he's like one of those
01:39:37 --> 01:39:42 street evangelists and he was, you know,
01:39:42 --> 01:39:45 calling women who were coming out at this particular concert.
01:39:46 --> 01:39:49 I think it was a country concert from when I remember.
01:39:50 --> 01:39:56 And he was calling the women whores and jezebels and all that.
01:39:57 --> 01:40:02 And the local police arrested him. I think it was Brandon, Mississippi,
01:40:02 --> 01:40:03 which is in Rankin County.
01:40:04 --> 01:40:09 They arrested him for, you know, being a disturbance and obstruction and all that.
01:40:09 --> 01:40:15 And so not following the rules of where you can protest.
01:40:17 --> 01:40:23 So he didn't challenge the conviction. He went ahead and paid the fine, all that stuff.
01:40:23 --> 01:40:28 But he challenged the law that they used to convict him.
01:40:29 --> 01:40:34 And so there was some case in 1994 that basically said you really can't do that.
01:40:35 --> 01:40:39 And so up until they got to the U.S. Supreme Court, that was what they were citing.
01:40:39 --> 01:40:44 It was like, look, you know, you can't be convicted of something and turn around
01:40:44 --> 01:40:46 and say it's unconstitutional. Right.
01:40:47 --> 01:40:52 I think you kind of have to, like, fight the conviction or whatever,
01:40:52 --> 01:40:56 or be in the process of fighting your conviction still. Right.
01:40:57 --> 01:41:02 Before you can, you know, while you're challenging the constitutionality of it.
01:41:02 --> 01:41:07 Well, the U.S. Supreme Court said, no, not really. If it's an unconstitutional
01:41:07 --> 01:41:13 law, then he has the right to challenge that, regardless of his legal status.
01:41:13 --> 01:41:20 Now, it didn't overturn the conviction. It just said that he has the right to sue, right?
01:41:20 --> 01:41:25 So that's an important case that y'all need to bookmark,
01:41:25 --> 01:41:29 especially when it comes to some of the stuff that's getting ready to happen
01:41:29 --> 01:41:35 with voting rights and all the other dynamics that have been taking place,
01:41:35 --> 01:41:41 all these protests that have been happening with the president and his decisions,
01:41:41 --> 01:41:51 especially as this military action in Iran is taking place. There will be protests on that.
01:41:51 --> 01:41:54 So that's something to pay attention to.
01:41:55 --> 01:42:03 Then in Ohio, an artist named Afro Man won a case for free speech.
01:42:04 --> 01:42:12 And his scenario was that the police came to his house allegedly looking for
01:42:12 --> 01:42:15 somebody who was kidnapped. mapped.
01:42:16 --> 01:42:20 And, you know, they searched through the house and all that stuff.
01:42:20 --> 01:42:24 And so he caught everything they did on his security cameras in the house.
01:42:25 --> 01:42:31 So needless to say, they didn't find what they were looking for,
01:42:31 --> 01:42:33 at least what they said they were looking for.
01:42:33 --> 01:42:39 But they took $5 that he had in the house.
01:42:39 --> 01:42:42 They took that, he seized that, right?
01:42:43 --> 01:42:47 And one of the officers proceeded to help himself and said.
01:42:49 --> 01:42:53 To a slice of lemon pound cake that was in the kitchen.
01:42:54 --> 01:43:01 So Afro Man decided that being the artist that he is, and his most popular song
01:43:01 --> 01:43:07 was Get High, I think is the name of it, Because I Get High or something like that.
01:43:07 --> 01:43:12 But it was, and it's an old song.
01:43:12 --> 01:43:17 When I say old, it's like over 20 years ago that he made this song.
01:43:19 --> 01:43:24 And but it was very very popular i was kind of like a it didn't get a whole
01:43:24 --> 01:43:26 lot of radio play but it was kind
01:43:26 --> 01:43:32 of the song that propelled him into the discussion as far as artists go,
01:43:33 --> 01:43:39 and and he's always kind of been that cutting edge kind of guy and he actually
01:43:39 --> 01:43:42 ran for president i I think, in the last election.
01:43:44 --> 01:43:49 So he decided to, I don't know if he made a whole album, but I know he made
01:43:49 --> 01:43:54 a song called Lemon Pound Cake, but I think he made a whole album off of the
01:43:54 --> 01:43:56 experience with the police officers.
01:43:58 --> 01:44:02 And so the police officers caught holy hell,
01:44:02 --> 01:44:06 from the town residents because of what they did to Afro man,
01:44:06 --> 01:44:14 even to the extent where people were calling 911 asking, what did you do with Afro Man's money?
01:44:14 --> 01:44:19 Now, he got 5 of the 5 back.
01:44:19 --> 01:44:24 And so people were calling and saying, well, where's the rest of his money? Literally calling 911.
01:44:25 --> 01:44:32 So these police officers, including the sheriff, decided to sue Afro Man for
01:44:32 --> 01:44:36 defamation. And they just had the case and a jury.
01:44:37 --> 01:44:45 It wasn't a judge civil case. Most of these cases, the judge usually makes a
01:44:45 --> 01:44:48 decision, but I guess the plaintiffs thought if they had the citizens...
01:44:50 --> 01:44:56 His peers that they would, you know, and you don't have to have absolute proof, right?
01:44:57 --> 01:45:00 It's the preponderance of the evidence in a civil case.
01:45:00 --> 01:45:06 And so they thought with a jury trial, they would get the verdict they wanted. Well, they were wrong.
01:45:07 --> 01:45:11 And that was a miscalculation on their part. If people are calling 911 asking
01:45:11 --> 01:45:13 you, what have you done with this man's money?
01:45:14 --> 01:45:17 It's probably a good indication that the citizens are not on your side.
01:45:18 --> 01:45:25 Nevertheless, they had a jury trial, and the jury said that Afro Man didn't
01:45:25 --> 01:45:31 defame them, that he had the right under the First Amendment as an artist to do what he wanted to do.
01:45:31 --> 01:45:35 And the basic argument was it was his cameras, it was his house,
01:45:36 --> 01:45:40 that he got all this material from to write the songs. It was his experience.
01:45:41 --> 01:45:45 And so he decided to tell his side of the story and he did it in the form that
01:45:45 --> 01:45:54 he's famous for which was music and you know there were some people that were
01:45:54 --> 01:45:56 kind of shocked by it but not because,
01:45:56 --> 01:46:02 you know, are advocates of the First Amendment. But this is a big thing because,
01:46:02 --> 01:46:07 you know, there have been some young men here in Atlanta for example and other
01:46:07 --> 01:46:13 places that are artists and they have been using their lyrics to try to get criminal convictions,
01:46:14 --> 01:46:18 against them for stuff that they say on their records.
01:46:19 --> 01:46:21 Yes, I'm old. I still say records.
01:46:24 --> 01:46:33 And so this is a This is a big deal because this is protection for artists to
01:46:33 --> 01:46:36 express themselves, you know,
01:46:36 --> 01:46:39 because I don't know any other place.
01:46:41 --> 01:46:47 Maybe a jury might have found him responsible, but I don't really think so.
01:46:47 --> 01:46:55 I think this is just a classic case of, you know, people understanding what
01:46:55 --> 01:46:59 the First Amendment is about and understood that he had the right to do that.
01:46:59 --> 01:47:06 And because he did it as a parody, right, he wasn't necessarily doing a documentary
01:47:06 --> 01:47:13 by music. He was, you know, doing a parody of the officers and their actions.
01:47:14 --> 01:47:19 So they basically said no harm, no foul. You know, if your ego's bruised, so what?
01:47:19 --> 01:47:23 You kicked in the man's door and commenced the action.
01:47:24 --> 01:47:27 So that's a case that you need to...
01:47:30 --> 01:47:38 To. So, you know, the court systems are about the only thing really going,
01:47:39 --> 01:47:42 you know, that is somewhat stable.
01:47:42 --> 01:47:47 You're not going to get rulings that you want all the time, but,
01:47:47 --> 01:47:54 you know, there are cases that are out there that, you know, we just,
01:47:54 --> 01:47:57 you know, and they may not get all of the attention,
01:47:57 --> 01:48:03 but it's just reminders that in all this chaos and confusion and cowardice,
01:48:03 --> 01:48:09 that there's one institution that still you got a shot at, and that's in the judicial system,
01:48:10 --> 01:48:12 civil or criminal.
01:48:12 --> 01:48:15 Probably more civil, you have a better chance than criminal,
01:48:16 --> 01:48:22 but we just need to pay attention to those kind of things, and I wanted to bring those cases up.
01:48:22 --> 01:48:29 There was another case I was thinking about, but it slipped in my mind at this particular point.
01:48:29 --> 01:48:35 So I won't belabor and go on, but I just wanted to highlight those two.
01:48:36 --> 01:48:43 And there was one other thing I wanted to talk about dealing with,
01:48:43 --> 01:48:47 there's a correlation I wanted to make, right?
01:48:49 --> 01:48:56 So in Georgia, where I'm based, as of this moment, there is no black person
01:48:56 --> 01:49:00 that is a Republican that serves in the state legislature.
01:49:01 --> 01:49:05 The Georgia legislature is majority Republican, both in the House and the Senate.
01:49:05 --> 01:49:11 They actually have a trifecta here in Georgia where the both houses of the legislature
01:49:11 --> 01:49:18 and the governor's office is occupied by Republicans, or at least the majority
01:49:18 --> 01:49:19 in the House and the Senate.
01:49:20 --> 01:49:26 And so there's an effort to recruit black Republicans. They had this big thing.
01:49:27 --> 01:49:31 There's this cool place called the Freight Depot in downtown Atlanta,
01:49:32 --> 01:49:36 not that far from the Capitol, actually. and they use it for events.
01:49:36 --> 01:49:41 The Black Caucus usually has their events there and I've been there a few times.
01:49:42 --> 01:49:48 And so they had an event there and it was highlighting, I think there's like
01:49:48 --> 01:49:55 35 Black Republicans that are now on a ballot to run for either a statewide office,
01:49:55 --> 01:49:58 or one of the legislative seats.
01:49:59 --> 01:50:02 And one of the nuances is that Thank you.
01:50:04 --> 01:50:11 Republican Party paid the qualifying fees for those Black Republicans.
01:50:11 --> 01:50:15 So as long as you weren't running against a Republican incumbent,
01:50:15 --> 01:50:21 you were running against a Democratic incumbent, the state party paid your qualifying fee.
01:50:21 --> 01:50:26 And that's like 400 bucks for a state legislature, but if you wanted to run
01:50:26 --> 01:50:29 for the Supreme Court, which is supposedly nonpartisan, you know,
01:50:30 --> 01:50:34 whatever you wanted to run for, they pay, if you were a black Republican,
01:50:34 --> 01:50:35 they pay for that, right?
01:50:37 --> 01:50:42 Which I thought was kind of interesting because, you know, these are the same people.
01:50:44 --> 01:50:54 Who challenged a black venture capital fund for creating grants for black women,
01:50:55 --> 01:51:01 start-up businesses. And they said that was kind of, that was unfair because
01:51:01 --> 01:51:04 you were just targeting black women.
01:51:04 --> 01:51:11 It didn't give Asian women, it didn't give Latino women, it didn't give anybody
01:51:11 --> 01:51:13 else a chance to get this money.
01:51:13 --> 01:51:17 It was only geared for black women, right?
01:51:17 --> 01:51:26 They support this guy named Edward Bloom who is suing every college he can get
01:51:26 --> 01:51:31 a chance to about their admissions policies, right?
01:51:31 --> 01:51:34 You're offering scholarships to these black kids.
01:51:34 --> 01:51:39 You're admitting these black kids, but you're not admitting these Asian children
01:51:39 --> 01:51:41 or these Latino children or whatever.
01:51:42 --> 01:51:45 They're saying that's discriminatory, right?
01:51:45 --> 01:51:54 But they think it's okay to pay the filing fees for black people to run as a
01:51:54 --> 01:51:56 Republican. in an election.
01:51:57 --> 01:52:05 So if you're a Latino and you wanted to run for a statewide office or a legislative
01:52:05 --> 01:52:10 seat in the state of Georgia and you went to the, the Republican Party didn't pay for your fee to run.
01:52:11 --> 01:52:17 You're Asian. They didn't pay your fee. But if you're black, they paid your fee.
01:52:17 --> 01:52:23 And so the question I have is, what's the difference between a venture capital,
01:52:24 --> 01:52:33 organization using their money to support Black women starting a business and
01:52:33 --> 01:52:38 a political party using their money to recruit Black candidates. What's the difference?
01:52:40 --> 01:52:43 The obvious, which is self-service, right?
01:52:44 --> 01:52:49 Because Black women trying to attain wealth is against the agenda,
01:52:49 --> 01:52:57 but Black people touting the Republican platform of denying Black people wealth is okay.
01:52:58 --> 01:53:05 It's, you know, this is part of the hypocrisy of why they can't get any Black
01:53:05 --> 01:53:07 folks to vote for these candidates.
01:53:07 --> 01:53:12 And even if these candidates run, the majority of Black people that vote are
01:53:12 --> 01:53:13 not going to vote for them.
01:53:14 --> 01:53:19 There's one young brother, he's running for the U.S. Senate here.
01:53:20 --> 01:53:26 Now, he's up against a current congressman, Mike Collins, and a few other folks.
01:53:28 --> 01:53:34 He's not going to get the nomination. But he's running, and if you didn't know
01:53:34 --> 01:53:36 he was Black, You just looked at his platform.
01:53:36 --> 01:53:39 You just thought he was just another white Republican.
01:53:39 --> 01:53:43 You thought he was like this Rick Jackson guy who's just come out of nowhere
01:53:43 --> 01:53:48 and given Burt Jones grief as far as running for governor in the Republican
01:53:48 --> 01:53:50 primary. You couldn't tell.
01:53:50 --> 01:53:55 You know, he's trying, his brother's trying to get in the November election
01:53:55 --> 01:53:57 against John Hosoff. Right.
01:53:58 --> 01:54:03 And, you know, he's talking the same thing about, you know,
01:54:04 --> 01:54:11 God only recognizes two genders and, you know, same-sex marriage,
01:54:12 --> 01:54:16 you know, marriage is sacred, it's not supposed to be same-sex.
01:54:16 --> 01:54:19 All the old hits, right?
01:54:21 --> 01:54:26 And again, they don't seem to get that because, you know,
01:54:26 --> 01:54:30 people of a certain faith, they understand what you're saying,
01:54:30 --> 01:54:38 but you still are missing the big part of that whole tolerance thing, right? Right.
01:54:39 --> 01:54:49 See, you can't tell people how to live their lives and deny them their wealth.
01:54:50 --> 01:54:55 Right. And Americans have been trying to tell you all this for a long time,
01:54:56 --> 01:55:04 but you seem to get just enough people in positions to hold that authoritative line.
01:55:04 --> 01:55:14 Now, wherever you personally stand on the LGBTQ issue or just anything, right,
01:55:15 --> 01:55:23 you know, it's one of those things where it's like people have the right to live their lives.
01:55:23 --> 01:55:28 And the most important thing that we're supposed to remember,
01:55:28 --> 01:55:34 besides tolerance, for all these folks that always use the Bible for their political
01:55:34 --> 01:55:37 backbone or philosophy, whatever,
01:55:37 --> 01:55:44 is that if you go to the very middle, if you split the Bible in half,
01:55:45 --> 01:55:47 you will come to Matthew 7.1.
01:55:47 --> 01:55:51 And it says, judge not that ye be judged yourself, right?
01:55:52 --> 01:55:56 Have the right to judge people on how they live. We don't.
01:55:56 --> 01:56:03 We do it, but we really don't, especially if we ascribe to Christianity as a
01:56:03 --> 01:56:04 faith. That's not our job.
01:56:05 --> 01:56:12 God does that. Our job is to try to spread the good news, which was what we
01:56:12 --> 01:56:18 called a great commission, and live our lives according to that great commission, right?
01:56:19 --> 01:56:26 And the most important thing is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, right?
01:56:26 --> 01:56:31 So if your neighbor is not the same as you, you don't have the right to hate them.
01:56:32 --> 01:56:37 Your obligation is to love them as a creation of God, just like you were created.
01:56:38 --> 01:56:41 Which you have a better chance.
01:56:41 --> 01:56:45 You already beat the odds because you had a better chance of winning the lottery
01:56:45 --> 01:56:47 than you did being born, right?
01:56:47 --> 01:56:49 So you already defied that odd.
01:56:50 --> 01:56:56 And you want to squander your blessing by hating on people that are different than you, right?
01:56:57 --> 01:57:00 You've built a whole political culture on that.
01:57:00 --> 01:57:07 If you want to evangelize about what you believe about marriage and all that stuff, that's fine.
01:57:07 --> 01:57:09 There's plenty of churches that need preaches.
01:57:10 --> 01:57:16 But if you decide to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States
01:57:16 --> 01:57:20 and the Constitution of the state that you live in and the laws thereof,
01:57:20 --> 01:57:25 then you have to understand that there are people that are not of your faith
01:57:25 --> 01:57:28 that are citizens of that state or of this nation.
01:57:29 --> 01:57:34 You have to understand them. And so you have to respect people where they are.
01:57:34 --> 01:57:40 And you have to protect people from folks that don't get the memo, right?
01:57:40 --> 01:57:44 Because there's a lot of people in the United States, and it's growing by the
01:57:44 --> 01:57:47 day, that don't ascribe to any religion at all.
01:57:49 --> 01:57:54 So they shouldn't be discriminated against because they don't believe what you believe.
01:57:55 --> 01:57:58 And you can't force feed that into them.
01:57:59 --> 01:58:06 But then they wonder why black people are not gravitating to the Republican Party.
01:58:07 --> 01:58:13 So that means that you need to understand black history in the United States.
01:58:14 --> 01:58:21 We just went over the fact that the first blacks that showed up were stolen twice.
01:58:22 --> 01:58:29 The 20 black folks that showed up in Jamestown, Virginia, a British colony,
01:58:29 --> 01:58:32 were actually supposed to go somewhere else to Portuguese.
01:58:33 --> 01:58:38 Had because it was the Portuguese slave traders that got those 20 people initially.
01:58:39 --> 01:58:45 I think it's from Angola. And then a British ship pirated them and took them
01:58:45 --> 01:58:49 and whatever other cargo they stole from the ship, right?
01:58:49 --> 01:58:51 And that's how they ended up in Jamestown.
01:58:52 --> 01:58:58 So just that little tidbit of history will tell you that black people are not
01:58:58 --> 01:59:06 friendly to any kind of philosophy that's going to tell them how to live, right?
01:59:06 --> 01:59:10 Now, you can guide people, which is what religion is.
01:59:11 --> 01:59:17 You can give people options to choose in their own free will how to live their
01:59:17 --> 01:59:21 life, whether it's Christianity or Islam or Judaism.
01:59:22 --> 01:59:26 Yes, there are black people who are Jewish, right, all over the planet.
01:59:27 --> 01:59:35 So people can choose how they want to live but you can't force feed it into
01:59:35 --> 01:59:38 them, you can't oppress them into it, you can't.
01:59:40 --> 01:59:45 The submission to live a life. That experiment has been tried with Black people
01:59:45 --> 01:59:47 in the United States for a long time.
01:59:48 --> 01:59:54 And generation after generation after generation has rebelled enough to the
01:59:54 --> 01:59:57 point now where a Black person could be President of the United States,
01:59:57 --> 01:59:59 a Black person could be Vice President of the United States,
01:59:59 --> 02:00:00 a Black person could be a billionaire,
02:00:01 --> 02:00:07 a Black person could be a face of a sport, a Black person can fight a lawsuit
02:00:07 --> 02:00:10 against police officers over free speech.
02:00:11 --> 02:00:19 Each and every time, each and every generation, we have shown you that we don't
02:00:19 --> 02:00:20 want to be told what to do.
02:00:21 --> 02:00:25 And we're not going to support a political party that doesn't get that memo.
02:00:26 --> 02:00:32 You're always going to have a few. Like you said, you got 35 people to run this time, right?
02:00:33 --> 02:00:38 And if they believe that of their own free will, and that's what they want to do, then so be it.
02:00:39 --> 02:00:44 But when you try to get into a position to enact a law that's saying you got
02:00:44 --> 02:00:49 to live this lifestyle, you're going to have rebellion. You're going to have a problem.
02:00:50 --> 02:00:54 Regardless of how you personally feel about it, that's not your job.
02:00:55 --> 02:01:02 Your job is to protect individual liberties and the general welfare.
02:01:03 --> 02:01:08 Provide for it. That's it. That's spelled out in the preamble of the Constitution.
02:01:09 --> 02:01:15 That's it. Everything else is to kind of set those things in order that,
02:01:16 --> 02:01:21 go to war, Mr. President, you've got to get Congress because Congress represents the people.
02:01:21 --> 02:01:26 You have to have the people behind your desire to go to war with another nation state.
02:01:27 --> 02:01:33 That's why it's set up that way. It ain't about your feelings and your bones or wherever.
02:01:33 --> 02:01:36 There's a process. And I get it.
02:01:38 --> 02:01:42 Despite what other character flaws you have, I get it that because you were
02:01:42 --> 02:01:45 a CEO, you're used to making a decision and things start happening.
02:01:45 --> 02:01:47 That's not how this works.
02:01:49 --> 02:01:54 Congress has to have a say-so in it because they represent the population.
02:01:55 --> 02:02:00 That's why it was created first. That's why they get sworn in first.
02:02:02 --> 02:02:12 The madness, right? So if the Republican Party wants to get black people in,
02:02:13 --> 02:02:18 then it has to talk about what they're for instead of what they're against.
02:02:18 --> 02:02:23 Their political platform has to be about things you are going to do to help
02:02:23 --> 02:02:27 people as opposed to things that you're going to do to restrict people.
02:02:28 --> 02:02:33 But as long as certain elements within that party are the dominant party,
02:02:33 --> 02:02:35 then that's how that's going to go.
02:02:36 --> 02:02:42 Now, people may give you the time of day if you say the right thing about groceries
02:02:42 --> 02:02:48 being cheaper or, you know, you promise the sky will always be blue, whatever.
02:02:49 --> 02:02:51 Gets them to vote your way, right?
02:02:51 --> 02:02:57 But the reality is that the American people are tired of anybody's let alone
02:02:57 --> 02:03:02 the federal government, which gets trillions of dollars from us to protect our
02:03:02 --> 02:03:05 individual liberties and to promote the general welfare,
02:03:05 --> 02:03:08 telling us how to live our life.
02:03:09 --> 02:03:14 If you're constantly running into a situation where 80% of a particular group
02:03:14 --> 02:03:17 doesn't like what you're saying, maybe you need to change what you're saying.
02:03:18 --> 02:03:22 If you don't know which way another group's going to go, it might be 51%,
02:03:22 --> 02:03:25 one election, and then there might be 40 the next.
02:03:26 --> 02:03:30 You might need to be consistent in what you're saying and your actions.
02:03:31 --> 02:03:36 If you say, all I'm going to do is deport criminals, and then you start deporting
02:03:36 --> 02:03:41 everybody, that's not following what you said. That's lying to people.
02:03:42 --> 02:03:45 And then you wonder why people are not supporting you the next election.
02:03:47 --> 02:03:51 It's just basic common sense, and I understand common sense and common.
02:03:51 --> 02:03:53 A lot of people are reminding us of that.
02:03:53 --> 02:03:58 And it's not about chaos and confusion and cowardice either.
02:03:59 --> 02:04:04 American leadership is about being courageous. It's about being innovative.
02:04:05 --> 02:04:07 It's about caring for people.
02:04:08 --> 02:04:14 It's about standing up for the citizens instead of putting them down or restricting their freedoms.
02:04:15 --> 02:04:20 And until you get that memo, you're not going to have people on your side.
02:04:21 --> 02:04:26 And for my friends on the Democratic side, if you want to be true American leaders,
02:04:26 --> 02:04:29 then you've got to stay consistent.
02:04:30 --> 02:04:37 You have to. If you are going to be the alternative to a party that wants to
02:04:37 --> 02:04:42 restrict human beings, then you have to be consistent in fighting for the rights of every human being.
02:04:42 --> 02:04:48 Even if it ain't popular or politically convenient, right?
02:04:49 --> 02:04:53 There were decisions that your parents made that you didn't agree with.
02:04:54 --> 02:05:00 But once you became a parent, then you realized, huh, now I get it.
02:05:03 --> 02:05:08 Because the parent was over you, the parent was responsible for you.
02:05:09 --> 02:05:14 You didn't ask to show up here. They contributed and brought you into this world.
02:05:15 --> 02:05:20 They were the ones playing in the casino of life in the universe.
02:05:21 --> 02:05:28 And they won because you showed up. So they had a responsibility for you.
02:05:28 --> 02:05:33 And so those of us who are given the opportunity to serve in the public,
02:05:33 --> 02:05:39 we have to have that same mentality that we have a responsibility for the people that we represent.
02:05:40 --> 02:05:44 And we have to be consistent in that. You can't be everybody's friend.
02:05:45 --> 02:05:49 You've heard people tell parents that you can't be your child's friend.
02:05:49 --> 02:05:50 You have to be their parent.
02:05:51 --> 02:05:56 So you have to be their shepherd. You have to be their protector.
02:05:56 --> 02:06:02 You have to be their provider. You have to be the person that promotes their
02:06:02 --> 02:06:10 general welfare and to develop them so that they can have the free will to dictate
02:06:10 --> 02:06:13 how they want to live their lives,
02:06:14 --> 02:06:15 their individual liberty.
02:06:17 --> 02:06:21 I'll be glad when this foolishness that we call the U.S.
02:06:21 --> 02:06:25 Government right now is over and that the
02:06:25 --> 02:06:28 majority of the people figure out what
02:06:28 --> 02:06:35 their role is really supposed to be so but until that time me and countless
02:06:35 --> 02:06:42 others will continue to remind them that they have a responsibility and not
02:06:42 --> 02:06:45 a mandate to dictate to us,
02:06:46 --> 02:06:50 when you get out of this dictating how we're supposed to live our lives when
02:06:50 --> 02:06:52 you get that mentality out of your system,
02:06:53 --> 02:06:58 you'll have the most productive America history has ever recorded or seen.
02:07:00 --> 02:07:08 Catering to people who defied the odds and made ungodly sums of money and equate
02:07:08 --> 02:07:11 that with intelligence and talent and all that stuff.
02:07:11 --> 02:07:17 It has to be a certain aspect to that, but if you master a skill,
02:07:17 --> 02:07:20 that doesn't mean that you are a master of the universe, right?
02:07:21 --> 02:07:26 I'm just saying. If you have the ability to make money, that doesn't mean that
02:07:26 --> 02:07:28 you get to tell me what to do with my life.
02:07:29 --> 02:07:36 So, you know, just some thoughts Just something that was on my mind I wanted
02:07:36 --> 02:07:41 to bring out those court cases But I really wanted to get that out Because I'm not against,
02:07:41 --> 02:07:47 If you know me I've always said my dream scenario in life Would see a black
02:07:47 --> 02:07:52 person running as a Democrat nominee And a black person as a Republican nominee
02:07:52 --> 02:07:56 For President of the United States I would love to live to see that.
02:07:58 --> 02:08:04 But we got to have reform in both parties for that to happen.
02:08:04 --> 02:08:09 We got to take cruelty out of one. We got to take fear out of the other one.
02:08:10 --> 02:08:17 And once we do that, once we take cruelty and fear out of our main political thought and strategy,
02:08:17 --> 02:08:22 then it's possible to see two Latinos run against each other for president or
02:08:22 --> 02:08:25 two women, let alone two black folks.
02:08:26 --> 02:08:32 Right? Because society will be freer. And because fear and cruelty are human
02:08:32 --> 02:08:37 elements that are fueled by supernatural forces, it's going to be hard to eradicate it.
02:08:37 --> 02:08:40 But if we could just get it out of politics.
02:08:42 --> 02:08:48 Moment we would have. If we could get it out of government, then we could debate
02:08:48 --> 02:08:56 the real merits of an issue honestly and openly and stop creating issues where there aren't.
02:08:57 --> 02:09:04 So, I appreciate y'all listening. I appreciate y'all support. And until next time.