Art & Science Featuring Robynn Smith and Gerta Keller

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello, welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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So today we have a couple of guests, a couple of ladies come on,

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talk about projects that they're working on.

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One is a celebration of art and the other is a scientist who,

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who, based on the research she's done,

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has some opinions about climate change and a few other things that's going on.

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So I think this is going to be an interesting show, very captivating,

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very open individuals that I had a chance to engage with.

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And so I hope you enjoy those interviews.

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You know, we are in a very interesting time as far as how we get our information,

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and so we need to support outlets that are trying to get you information,

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trying to counter, you know, the mess or the omissions that is happening.

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So I'm making my appeal not just to support this podcast, but to support other

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independent podcasters like me.

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So if you go to www.momenterik.com, you can show your support for this podcast.

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And I just encourage all to really start looking at alternatives.

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We've got one man who basically will control CBS and CNN as far as news content.

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And there's been major shakeups, even though the CNN deal is not final.

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Adjustments are being made. and at CBS, it's just total dismantling of the very

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news organization that brought us Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

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So, and it's not going to get any easier. I think Nexstar just bought Tegna,

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so that's like 80% of the local affiliates that bring you news.

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So this is a very, very perilous time. And then we have an FCC chair who is threatening.

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You know, they're threatening broadcasters if they don't, and we have a president

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who's threatening to put people

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in jail who don't report the news the way that they want it reported.

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We've actually had a couple of people arrested for covering protests.

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So this is the time to send a message to the powers that be that we want our

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First Amendment protected.

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And so the best way to do that is to support as many independent podcasters as you can.

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But again, go to www.momenterik.com And that's Erik with a K So that,

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you know, you can show support for this podcast,

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Anyway, now that I've got off my soapbox there Let me go ahead and kick this

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program off And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news With Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. The Department of Defense confirmed that six airmen from Florida

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and Ohio died in a non-hostile KC-135 tanker crash while supporting ongoing

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air operations over Iraq.

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A federal judge quashed subpoenas issued by U.S.

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Attorney Jeanine Pirro against Fed Chair Jerome Powell, ruling that the investigation

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was an improper attempt to intimidate the central bank regarding interest rate policies.

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In the race to succeed retiring Illinois Senator Dick Durbin,

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Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton won the Democratic nomination and will

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face Republican Don Tracy in the general election.

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National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent resigned in protest,

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claiming that the three-week-old war in Iran was launched without an imminent

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threat and was driven by external political pressure.

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An immigration judge has denied the asylum claim of Liam Conejo-Ramos,

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the five-year-old boy whose detention during a Minneapolis immigration raid

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gained national prominence.

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Arizona Attorney General Chris Mays filed criminal misdemeanor charges against

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prediction market Kalshi, marking a major escalation in the state's crackdown

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on election-based betting.

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A fugitive killed by Dallas police for impersonating an officer was revealed

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to have been serving on the security detail for U.S.

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Representative Jasmine Crockett during her recent campaign. In the first federal

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terrorism trial targeting the Antifa movement,

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a jury convicted nine individuals for a coordinated military-style attack on

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an ICE detention center in Texas involving explosives and gunfire.

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A Boston judge issued a temporary injunction preventing the administration from

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ending temporary protected status for nearly 1,100 Somalis.

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And a federal judge blocked Health Secretary Robert F.

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Kennedy Jr.'s efforts to overhaul childhood vaccine schedules and appoint new

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members to a federal advisory committee.

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I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.

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Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it is time for my guest, Robynn Smith.

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Robynn Smith is Professor Emeritus at California's Monterey Peninsula College,

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where she founded Print Day in May in 2007.

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She holds a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and two degrees

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from San Jose State University, MFA in Sculpture and Ceramics, and an MA in Painting.

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A printmaker and mixed-media painter, she has had solo exhibitions in galleries

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and museums from Australia to Iceland and in such American cities as Chicago,

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San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

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Her work can be found in public collections in Belgium, Canada, and the United States.

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Robin travels extensively for residencies and teaching opportunities and leads

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workshops at her own Blue Mouse Studios in Aptos, California.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

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on this podcast, Robynn Smith.

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All right. Robynn Smith, how are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

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I'm doing great. Thank you so much. Well, I appreciate you getting up early

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to talk to me today, but I want to talk about this event that you're having

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called Print Day in May, and we'll get all into the details of that.

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But I really wanted to learn something about this because I had not heard about

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this event and it's been going on for a while.

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So I wanted to give you this opportunity to talk about that and maybe a couple other things.

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So when I start these interviews, I do a couple of icebreaker deals.

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It's the whole moderator in me, I guess. I don't know. But I tend to,

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or facilitator, I guess would be a better word.

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So the first icebreaker is what I call, well, what is a quote that I want you to respond to.

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And the quote is, art can save lives.

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It has the power to bring focus and joy.

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What does that quote mean to you? I think, to me, that's absolute truth.

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I've been an art educator my whole life, and so I have seen what art has done

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for children, for adults, for older people.

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And I'm a firm believer that people have to do what they love.

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If people did what they loved more often, I think we would have a healthier society.

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And I think that art is often what people love to do, the idea of making something,

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the idea of putting your whole being into this action of simply creating something

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is a very, very powerful thing.

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And watching people do that over decades has absolutely convinced me that that quote is true.

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So how long have you been an art educator?

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Well, I've been an artist, I suppose, all my life in that I was always interested in art.

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I went to art school at a young age, Rhode Island School of Design, got my degrees there.

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And as soon as I got out of graduate school, I started teaching instantly.

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So decades, I was going to say graduated, but actually retired from teaching

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at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California, in 2018.

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And I still continue to teach all over the world.

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I teach out of my studio in Aptos, California. I just got back from Massachusetts

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where I was teaching for a week at the ZMA's printmaking studio in Florence around Northampton.

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I'm going to New Zealand to teach in a couple months.

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So yeah, forever.

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All right. So now the second icebreaker is called 20 questions.

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Okay. So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.

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How about five? Okay. What do you think we should decide at the local or state

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levels versus the federal level?

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In terms of art making or anything? Anything.

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Well, I think on the local level, we have to respond to the people in these

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local communities and see what they are truly interested in,

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because the local level is the only place where people are going to be able

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to speak directly to those who can make the changes that are necessary in our lives.

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Okay. All right. So what happened in 2007 to inspire you to create Print Day in May?

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Well, that's interesting because it actually had to do with state-level politics.

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I was teaching at Monterey Peninsula College, which is a community college.

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We used to call them junior colleges.

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Then they became community colleges. And when I began teaching there in 1989,

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it was a community college that responded to the communities,

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sort of what I was just saying before. Well.

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I created a grassroots printmaking group. I ran the art department there,

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and we started a printmaking major.

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And printmaking is very communal because people can't usually afford to have

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the equipment that you need to make prints.

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So it becomes like ceramics, a very communal situation.

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And we had this very, very, very strong community of printmakers from all over

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the Monterey Bay area. We had young people.

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We had older people. We had college-age people because the community college was open to everyone.

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So people could take a class and get involved in this tremendous community that we had.

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We were doing exchanges all over the world. It was a very, very powerful group.

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And the state had yet another budget crisis and in their wisdom decided that

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people who already had BAs would be charged way more money to take classes and

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that people who had already taken a given class could not repeat that class.

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So none of this really affected the math department because you're looking at,

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you know, college-age kids who come in, they are going to get a degree.

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They need to take math and move on.

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But it tremendously affected the arts because we had a lot of people who were

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continuously taking art classes because you can't just, you know.

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Take a paint, one painting class and say, okay, now you can paint or one aerobics

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class and you're aerobicized.

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You know, you have to continue to take these things.

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And that's what built our community. So effectively, two-thirds of our community

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was being locked out of the community college.

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And because a lot

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of my people were lucky enough to have resources They

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began to buy presses on their own To

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form co-ops in the community And I

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was very proud of them But I was really worried I was going to lose all these

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people And so we decided to have a day That our diaspora would get together

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And all make prints at the same time in various studios all over the area.

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And this was pre-cell phones and not a lot of us had internet.

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And so we would call each other on the phone and say, what are you making?

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How's it going? So we decided to do it in May because that rhymes.

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Print day in May had a good ring to it.

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We decided to do it on the first Saturday in May to honor the Kentucky Derby.

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And we did it. And it was wildly successful in that everybody was happy.

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And we started thinking about ways that we could continue as a community outside of the college.

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And so we started to do this every year. And it became bigger and bigger and bigger.

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And I had a wonderful visiting artist program at the college.

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So whenever anybody would come in,

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teach a workshop, teach a class. I would tell them about it.

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They would participate. Their people would participate.

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And the whole thing grew. And now we're in our 19th year and we're all over the world.

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So elaborate on that. How has how has it now in 19 years fully evolved?

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Well, at this point, it's still a very small kernel of us that are team print day in May,

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but it really evolved through the

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internet and through social media because this was

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a time when social media

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was really a force for connection and good and it was a way to let people know

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that this was happening we started to get sponsors at a certain point where art supply stores,

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printmaking societies, etc., would give prizes to the prints that they liked

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the most that were posted and hashtagged on social media. And it just exploded.

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First, we, I'm kind of a geography nut, so I was like, wow, we've got,

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you know, 30 U.S. states. Let's get all 50.

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So then we made a concerted effort to get all 50.

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And it was a situation where I had a continuing supply of young people coming

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through the college and they were using their skills.

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Oh, I know how to build a website. Oh, well, build a website.

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Well, I know how to do social media. Well, let's do that. And so it just as

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a grassroots conversation.

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Project just started to mushroom. And when we got sponsors, we had access to

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mailing lists, and they had access to our mailing list.

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So there was never any money exchanged. It's completely non-transactional.

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And we just started setting goals. Like at one point, we said,

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hey, let's get all seven continents.

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And a scientist sent us penguin footprints from Antarctica, and we had Participation

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on all seven continents So at this point.

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It's hard to know exactly because so much of this is still through social media,

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which has its huge problems now.

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But it's still through that and our website. People register for the event.

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There's no money involved, but they register to help us to know our numbers.

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And we are estimating probably tens of thousands of people in about 100 countries do this every year.

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They set aside one day to do what they love to do,

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and we hope and believe that taking time out to do something that you love to

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do that doesn't hurt anyone, that is completely positive,

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lets us all breathe a little bit and think about what's right for the world.

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Yeah, that sounds like a beautiful experience and something that we need more of.

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But like I said, I'm new to this. So what is printmaking?

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Or who qualifies as a printmaker?

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And why is it a distinctive individual? That is such a great question.

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And printmaking for our purposes is the act of taking a mark from one surface

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and through typically pressure of some kind,

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transferring that mark from one surface to another.

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Okay, great. So why not just paint it or draw it? Why go through this transfer process?

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Number of reasons. The first is magic. There is a particular ephemeral bit of

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magic that occurs when that transfer takes place. It's like alchemy.

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We as artists can direct it, But we never really know what's going to happen

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in that transfer process.

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So there's a sense of surprise. There's a sense of release of ownership and

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sort of collaboration with the process that is truly magical.

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And it tends to separate printmakers from other kinds of artists.

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Although many people like myself, I'm primarily, I started off as a painter

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and a sculptor and got into printmaking later.

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There's just a sort of wondrous thing that happens in that transfer of information.

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So printmaking on its, you know, sort of most base level is that,

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is the transferring of marks.

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Printmaking through history has been an art form that has allowed multiples to be made.

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Not very expensively, pretty much on the cheap, think the printing press.

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It disseminates information quickly and to a much larger group of people than a painting can.

00:22:27.132 --> 00:22:30.972
Where you do one painting, somebody sees it, great. You make a print,

00:22:31.332 --> 00:22:33.312
you can disseminate that information.

00:22:33.852 --> 00:22:39.012
So there are many kinds of printmaking. There's commercial printmaking,

00:22:39.292 --> 00:22:43.672
which means, you know, your books, your magazines, et cetera, et cetera.

00:22:43.852 --> 00:22:49.772
And then there's fine art printmaking, where the artist is directing an image

00:22:49.772 --> 00:22:53.932
to be produced through a printmaking technique.

00:22:53.932 --> 00:23:00.732
And there are typically three large arenas where printmaking takes place.

00:23:00.932 --> 00:23:05.272
One is a relief print, which is like a woodcut or a lino cut,

00:23:05.472 --> 00:23:08.512
where material is carved away from a block.

00:23:08.972 --> 00:23:15.992
Ink is rolled onto the surface of that block, and you are printing from the top surface.

00:23:15.992 --> 00:23:24.252
There is a second category which is called intaglio or intaglio which is Italian

00:23:24.252 --> 00:23:25.792
for beneath the surface.

00:23:26.232 --> 00:23:30.772
This is where something is carved into a piece of metal.

00:23:31.432 --> 00:23:35.932
Acid bites the metal perhaps. There are many things like engraving,

00:23:36.232 --> 00:23:38.952
etching, collagraph, etc.

00:23:38.952 --> 00:23:42.012
And the ink is applied

00:23:42.012 --> 00:23:48.372
to the surface and then wiped away and it stays in those grooves so then you

00:23:48.372 --> 00:23:54.092
need the pressure of a press an etching press or some other kind of press to

00:23:54.092 --> 00:24:00.812
remove that ink from the grooves and onto your surface your paper.

00:24:01.968 --> 00:24:05.228
So that's a bit more complicated, involves a lot more equipment.

00:24:06.248 --> 00:24:14.588
Planar printmaking is just that. It's taking the ink from a flat surface to another flat surface.

00:24:14.748 --> 00:24:19.388
So screen printing, which is really important in disseminating information.

00:24:20.228 --> 00:24:24.568
Monotype. Stenciling. So those are the three categories.

00:24:24.568 --> 00:24:30.568
And typically printmakers try a lot of different things and settle into a few

00:24:30.568 --> 00:24:36.928
that they become enamored with and spend their entire lives often working with

00:24:36.928 --> 00:24:39.248
others in collaborative situations,

00:24:40.028 --> 00:24:42.068
doing this magical thing.

00:24:43.027 --> 00:24:47.987
Activity. Okay. So like, if I wanted to get a t-shirt made, that would fall

00:24:47.987 --> 00:24:52.027
under the screen printing form of printmaking.

00:24:52.527 --> 00:24:54.487
Yes. Yes. Yeah.

00:24:55.067 --> 00:25:01.187
And it was some, I can't remember, it was some little kit that they used to have.

00:25:01.187 --> 00:25:04.947
We didn't have to do the pressing, but

00:25:04.947 --> 00:25:07.947
I remember that we had to pour like the

00:25:07.947 --> 00:25:11.447
the ink on top and then we would like

00:25:11.447 --> 00:25:15.267
apply it on the paper and stuff like that and

00:25:15.267 --> 00:25:18.347
and and like the other version where you say you carve

00:25:18.347 --> 00:25:22.847
it out that's that's almost like stamping yes

00:25:22.847 --> 00:25:30.067
yes uh-huh because if you stamp you are typically catching ink on the top surface

00:25:30.067 --> 00:25:35.067
of the stamp and using the pressure of your own hand your own body to stamp

00:25:35.067 --> 00:25:39.347
yes okay all right I'm not that slow. I'll be trying, you know.

00:25:40.547 --> 00:25:43.967
I mean, you know, I'm an old politician, so, you know, you have to explain things

00:25:43.967 --> 00:25:45.547
to me, but I tend to get it.

00:25:46.147 --> 00:25:51.847
You said in modern times, printmaking has always been the medium of the people.

00:25:52.427 --> 00:25:57.307
Because multiples can be made for one matrix. It has been an effective tool

00:25:57.307 --> 00:25:59.867
to widely disseminate information.

00:26:00.147 --> 00:26:07.987
Give an example of that. Well, I would say calls to groups to come together,

00:26:08.547 --> 00:26:14.727
often in protest, if they do not have the ability through a newspaper.

00:26:15.407 --> 00:26:19.747
Newspapers printing right there. But that would be more organized.

00:26:19.747 --> 00:26:24.207
If you're looking at, I mean, you look at today and you're looking at handbills

00:26:24.207 --> 00:26:31.127
on telephone poles, calling people to participate in a No Kings protest, for example. all.

00:26:31.829 --> 00:26:35.289
That is printmaking right there. We've got a proud history.

00:26:35.869 --> 00:26:42.529
Okay. So when is Print Day in May this year, and why will it be unique this time around?

00:26:43.649 --> 00:26:47.429
Well, Print Day in May is always the first Saturday in May.

00:26:47.829 --> 00:26:52.489
So it falls on different dates, and it takes place around the world.

00:26:52.489 --> 00:26:55.229
So it's actually a little bit more than 24 hours.

00:26:55.349 --> 00:27:00.269
It starts somewhere in the South Pacific, and then it moves across the Pacific

00:27:00.269 --> 00:27:05.489
into Asia and Europe and comes back around to the United States and Hawaii and

00:27:05.489 --> 00:27:08.329
then ends again somewhere in the Pacific.

00:27:08.689 --> 00:27:13.049
So it's kind of like watching the ball drop on New Year's Eve because,

00:27:13.069 --> 00:27:17.549
you know, I wake up in California and people are just putting away all their

00:27:17.549 --> 00:27:20.089
stuff from, you know, somewhere in Asia.

00:27:20.469 --> 00:27:28.349
So people who are very interested can sort of follow that wave across the world

00:27:28.349 --> 00:27:32.189
by looking at our social media sites and our website.

00:27:32.709 --> 00:27:39.049
People can blog and post on their own to our website or through social media, or they don't have to.

00:27:39.229 --> 00:27:45.569
They can just sit in their kitchen and stamp away and know that they are doing

00:27:45.569 --> 00:27:49.929
that with tens of thousands of other people all across the world.

00:27:50.089 --> 00:27:54.629
So it's really good for extroverts. It's good for introverts.

00:27:54.629 --> 00:27:57.869
It's good for professionals, it's good for people who.

00:27:58.718 --> 00:28:03.778
Want to get somebody into the medium and show them something special.

00:28:04.218 --> 00:28:08.398
So that happens this year on May 2nd.

00:28:09.238 --> 00:28:18.098
And Print Day in May, as it has gotten to be so large, it has really begun to

00:28:18.098 --> 00:28:21.018
reflect what's going on in the world.

00:28:21.238 --> 00:28:28.898
I think starting in 2020, that was our most poignant Print Day in May to date

00:28:28.898 --> 00:28:36.798
as people were isolated and took the opportunity to make prints still in their own studios,

00:28:37.398 --> 00:28:40.938
really with nobody else, but to make connection.

00:28:41.498 --> 00:28:50.758
And we got so much, you know, so many people just expressing how important it was to them.

00:28:50.998 --> 00:28:57.118
You know, I think during the pandemic, A lot of people got into crafting, which is great.

00:28:57.398 --> 00:29:01.138
You know, the art supply stores actually made a lot of money during that time.

00:29:01.298 --> 00:29:05.858
And people, you know, got into quilting and embroidery and stuff.

00:29:06.158 --> 00:29:09.598
But artists had a really hard time making things.

00:29:09.778 --> 00:29:17.718
Because for us, our work is an expression of our lives. And our lives were so disrupted.

00:29:18.038 --> 00:29:22.678
I don't know any artists who just said, Hey, this is great. More studio time.

00:29:23.118 --> 00:29:29.158
I mean, really, we were, many of us were paralyzed. And so Print Day in May came at a time.

00:29:30.109 --> 00:29:35.049
When a lot of artists felt like they needed an excuse, they needed a reason

00:29:35.049 --> 00:29:37.289
to get up and make things.

00:29:37.449 --> 00:29:41.109
And we gave it to them. We provided that.

00:29:41.529 --> 00:29:47.229
And we got all kinds of testimonies about people making prints in memorial to

00:29:47.229 --> 00:29:52.869
their friends and loved ones, their families who had died, memorials to their

00:29:52.869 --> 00:29:55.209
lives that had been so disrupted.

00:29:55.209 --> 00:30:00.189
So it was a very, very poignant print day in May.

00:30:00.489 --> 00:30:09.229
And then in 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine, we added a page on our site

00:30:09.229 --> 00:30:10.569
that was prints for Ukraine.

00:30:11.029 --> 00:30:15.769
And people, there was an outpouring of printmaking that year.

00:30:15.769 --> 00:30:19.009
We saw tons of yellow and blue,

00:30:19.369 --> 00:30:29.149
sunflowers everywhere, and we posted ways to get involved in support for Ukraine

00:30:29.149 --> 00:30:32.629
monetarily, and people responded to that.

00:30:32.629 --> 00:30:37.629
So that was another really poignant print day in May.

00:30:37.849 --> 00:30:42.849
And this year, you know, we never know, but I suspect we're going to see a lot

00:30:42.849 --> 00:30:49.469
of political work and that printmaking will go back to its roots on that score this year.

00:30:49.649 --> 00:30:52.689
I'm hoping that that is the case, and I suspect it will be.

00:30:53.089 --> 00:30:58.669
Yeah, yeah. And that's a valid point because, you know, it's almost like.

00:30:59.628 --> 00:31:04.948
People use this and use that medium to like chronicle history,

00:31:05.188 --> 00:31:06.828
which I think is really, really keen.

00:31:07.248 --> 00:31:14.548
But it's something about you collaborating with another event,

00:31:14.548 --> 00:31:16.748
I think, like in New Zealand or something.

00:31:16.888 --> 00:31:18.948
I think that was where I was kind of going.

00:31:19.728 --> 00:31:21.748
Yes, well, I'm glad you asked.

00:31:23.068 --> 00:31:28.128
Yes, there is a wonderful festival of printmaking called Printopia,

00:31:28.128 --> 00:31:29.588
the Printopia Festival.

00:31:30.048 --> 00:31:34.168
And this is its fifth year. It happens every year in Auckland,

00:31:34.328 --> 00:31:39.408
New Zealand. And it is a true celebration of printmaking.

00:31:40.228 --> 00:31:46.368
And this year, they've asked the Print Day in May team to collaborate.

00:31:46.548 --> 00:31:53.028
And so I'm going to New Zealand. And I'm going to give the keynote address about Print Day in May.

00:31:53.930 --> 00:31:59.390
To hundreds of people in New Zealand. I'm going to be teaching a workshop a

00:31:59.390 --> 00:32:03.890
couple days later, and then I'm going to travel around the North Island and

00:32:03.890 --> 00:32:05.330
do a couple of other workshops.

00:32:05.530 --> 00:32:11.690
A few of my colleagues are coming as well and doing talks and workshops.

00:32:12.250 --> 00:32:15.710
So we're extremely excited about this.

00:32:15.910 --> 00:32:20.110
And, you know, in part because, wow, we're going to New Zealand.

00:32:20.230 --> 00:32:25.650
I mean, what could be cooler than that? But also it means that everybody at

00:32:25.650 --> 00:32:29.290
the festival is making stuff on print day in May.

00:32:29.510 --> 00:32:36.210
So we've got hundreds more people and then people that they will tell about the event.

00:32:36.350 --> 00:32:39.370
And I think our participation will mushroom.

00:32:39.530 --> 00:32:41.770
You know, we're kind of trying to take over the world here.

00:32:43.790 --> 00:32:47.550
I understand. Well, in order to take over the world, you've got to have people

00:32:47.550 --> 00:32:51.970
to participate. So how can someone participate in print day in May?

00:32:52.090 --> 00:32:58.970
Well, probably the easiest thing to do is to go to printanmay.com.

00:32:59.070 --> 00:33:01.930
It's very simple. We have a register button.

00:33:02.810 --> 00:33:08.910
And by registering, you can get newsletters, which happen a few times a year.

00:33:09.430 --> 00:33:15.390
And you actually have access to a database of thousands of printmakers all over

00:33:15.390 --> 00:33:19.670
the world. So if you're going to India and you want to, you know,

00:33:20.630 --> 00:33:27.770
connect with a printmaker in some city in India, you can do that by being a print AMA registrant.

00:33:29.330 --> 00:33:35.370
So that's really helpful for us because we like to know how many people in the

00:33:35.370 --> 00:33:38.670
world are doing this and where our reach extends to.

00:33:38.890 --> 00:33:42.310
So register at printama.com.

00:33:42.650 --> 00:33:45.650
You don't need to. You can just make a

00:33:45.650 --> 00:33:48.670
print and you can go to our website and

00:33:48.670 --> 00:33:51.850
look and see what's happening as the blog comes in

00:33:51.850 --> 00:33:55.110
and you're seeing where people are printing all over the world if

00:33:55.110 --> 00:33:58.830
you're in you know if you're involved in social media you can

00:33:58.830 --> 00:34:05.230
do that you can post on our sites we have a print day in may print makers group

00:34:05.230 --> 00:34:13.130
that people are a member of on facebook all year because it's it's really helpful

00:34:13.130 --> 00:34:15.150
for techniques. I just learned this.

00:34:15.290 --> 00:34:17.670
Do you want to know how to do this? Who's teaching where?

00:34:17.890 --> 00:34:20.850
So that's just a wonderful communication tool.

00:34:21.210 --> 00:34:27.690
You can also post on our actual page and on Instagram. You can see what's going

00:34:27.690 --> 00:34:30.110
on. And you can hashtag our sponsors.

00:34:30.590 --> 00:34:35.870
And we've got about two dozen sponsors. And those sponsors will look at the

00:34:35.870 --> 00:34:40.830
hashtags right after Print A&M and award prizes to people.

00:34:41.110 --> 00:34:48.110
Right now, the Edinburgh Printmakers, a wonderful, wonderful print shop in Scotland.

00:34:49.114 --> 00:34:54.054
They are awarding a residency at their studio for people to come and work.

00:34:54.834 --> 00:35:00.694
We've got Cranfield Colors in Wales that are, they are giving away ink.

00:35:01.594 --> 00:35:04.974
Zia Mays Printmaking in Massachusetts, where I was just teaching,

00:35:05.274 --> 00:35:10.394
they are giving away classes for people to take to learn how to make prints.

00:35:10.654 --> 00:35:14.054
So it's a win-win situation.

00:35:14.774 --> 00:35:18.714
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. But the Edinburgh sounds real nice,

00:35:18.994 --> 00:35:24.194
you know, just just to travel and go to school. That's that's a pretty cool prize.

00:35:24.654 --> 00:35:30.094
All right. So, like I said, this is this is a political show.

00:35:30.294 --> 00:35:33.994
So I got to ask you some questions. And you kind of touched on one question

00:35:33.994 --> 00:35:39.694
already when you're talking about the history of the origin of print day in May.

00:35:39.694 --> 00:35:46.774
It was a state decision that impacted whether people could participate in the arts or not.

00:35:48.094 --> 00:35:53.954
And so the 2026 federal budget is proposed by the Trump administration,

00:35:54.374 --> 00:36:00.314
aims to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Assistance

00:36:00.314 --> 00:36:02.114
for Arts Education Program.

00:36:02.414 --> 00:36:07.014
So what impact do you think that will have on the arts community in the United

00:36:07.014 --> 00:36:13.874
States? Well, that's been, you know, one of our biggest fears ever since I started teaching.

00:36:14.174 --> 00:36:21.334
You know, our budgets have fluctuated wildly, but it has always been terrifying

00:36:21.334 --> 00:36:28.354
to think that somebody could come into office and end arts funding in the United States.

00:36:29.014 --> 00:36:34.394
And, of course, we're there. It's going to have an enormous impact if this happens.

00:36:34.394 --> 00:36:36.454
I mean, I was really scared.

00:36:37.609 --> 00:36:43.769
The loss of NPR and thinking, how am I going to exist in the world without NPR?

00:36:44.049 --> 00:36:49.469
And somehow it's still holding on, even though it's been under such tremendous attack.

00:36:49.729 --> 00:36:56.829
So of course, we hope that with whatever the Trump administration does and whatever

00:36:56.829 --> 00:37:00.889
Congress does or does not do, to save arts.

00:37:01.089 --> 00:37:09.569
We hope that people will find ways to continue to provide support for the arts.

00:37:09.809 --> 00:37:19.829
But, you know, the chipping away is so profound that in the end,

00:37:19.969 --> 00:37:25.169
you know, with one giant thing like no more, you know, NEA.

00:37:25.409 --> 00:37:30.669
I mean, of course, that means no more state arts budgets because it trickles

00:37:30.669 --> 00:37:36.509
down to the states, local situations, art education for children.

00:37:36.989 --> 00:37:38.509
Art education for adults.

00:37:38.789 --> 00:37:47.169
It's a profound loss because one of the things people don't realize is it's

00:37:47.169 --> 00:37:54.789
not only personally important for people to take place or to take part in making art.

00:37:55.069 --> 00:37:59.889
It actually is a way that people learn how to make decisions.

00:38:00.329 --> 00:38:06.649
It's problem-solving. It's creative problem-solving and critical thinking.

00:38:06.929 --> 00:38:14.029
And when a population loses those abilities, they don't come back easily.

00:38:14.029 --> 00:38:20.789
And my husband taught middle school for 30 years so we sat in the hot tub every

00:38:20.789 --> 00:38:27.189
night and for 30 years talked about what we saw as a systematic destruction

00:38:27.189 --> 00:38:33.569
of education in this country and it has come to roost. Subsequent.

00:38:34.450 --> 00:38:41.250
Generations don't know where to start. If you lose it, they don't even know it's there.

00:38:41.510 --> 00:38:44.470
So how do we get that back?

00:38:44.690 --> 00:38:48.110
How do we get that drive back? How do we get those skills back?

00:38:48.110 --> 00:38:57.430
We used to have Silicon Valley recruiters come to our college for people to

00:38:57.430 --> 00:39:02.770
work in their graphic arts areas, in their animation areas, and so on.

00:39:03.490 --> 00:39:07.330
And they always said, we don't care what their computer skills are.

00:39:07.390 --> 00:39:11.270
We can teach them computer skills. What we need is we need thinkers.

00:39:11.510 --> 00:39:14.590
We need creative problem solvers. So we're going to the art department.

00:39:14.590 --> 00:39:19.610
We're not going to the computer science people. and that says it all right there.

00:39:20.530 --> 00:39:28.010
Yeah and and I got a follow-up to that but I want to briefly tell you oh well it's a confession.

00:39:29.050 --> 00:39:32.450
So when I was in the legislature we started

00:39:32.450 --> 00:39:35.590
a Mississippi version of fame right the

00:39:35.590 --> 00:39:38.350
it was called the Mississippi School of

00:39:38.350 --> 00:39:41.110
the Fine Arts and it was it was

00:39:41.110 --> 00:39:44.630
a tremendous idea but having

00:39:44.630 --> 00:39:47.710
been a legislator a few years at that moment I

00:39:47.710 --> 00:39:50.770
I said I've got a problem with

00:39:50.770 --> 00:39:53.950
us doing that so I am the only person on record

00:39:53.950 --> 00:39:59.930
when they actually created the school to have voted against it oh and my argument

00:39:59.930 --> 00:40:04.570
on the floor were and you should have seen it Robynn it was amazing it was like

00:40:04.570 --> 00:40:09.190
you had folks quoting Shakespeare and singing and And, you know,

00:40:09.270 --> 00:40:10.850
it was just like they were all these people.

00:40:10.970 --> 00:40:14.710
I was like, wow, look at all this artistic talent we have in the legislature

00:40:14.710 --> 00:40:16.390
alone. They could teach classes, right?

00:40:16.990 --> 00:40:23.530
Yeah. But I got up and I said, if we do this, this is a commitment.

00:40:25.430 --> 00:40:32.130
I can't support something that I know this body in a couple of years is going to abandon.

00:40:33.199 --> 00:40:38.119
And so my thing is, is that I want you to prove me wrong.

00:40:38.879 --> 00:40:42.399
I'm going to vote against it, but I want you to prove me wrong.

00:40:42.719 --> 00:40:48.779
And I swear to God, two years later, there was a bill in the appropriations

00:40:48.779 --> 00:40:51.599
to cut the funding, to shut that thing down.

00:40:52.019 --> 00:40:57.299
And I got up there and I railed on him. I said, I reminded him I was the only one to vote against it.

00:40:57.379 --> 00:41:01.559
And I said, it's because of this very bill right here. I said,

00:41:01.799 --> 00:41:08.279
you didn't prove me wrong by bringing this bill up, but I want you to prove

00:41:08.279 --> 00:41:11.239
me wrong and vote against this bill and fund this school.

00:41:11.359 --> 00:41:14.839
Now that we've made this commitment, we've got to support it.

00:41:15.059 --> 00:41:19.119
And the bill died. And so we still have the Mississippi School for the Fine

00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:26.419
Arts. But, you know, it's just that that's the scary thing about government

00:41:26.419 --> 00:41:29.679
funding for something that is essential, right?

00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:35.679
Yes, I understand that. So my follow-up question is, in this political climate

00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:40.099
that we are in, why is it important to celebrate and support the arts?

00:41:40.099 --> 00:41:46.459
Well, I think it's more important in some ways than ever, because people are

00:41:46.459 --> 00:41:50.639
looking around and feeling and seeing despair,

00:41:51.299 --> 00:41:58.819
feeling like their way of life is just going down the drain.

00:41:59.539 --> 00:42:02.659
And I think that...

00:42:03.347 --> 00:42:08.627
It's really important for people to have hope, and it's become almost impossible

00:42:08.627 --> 00:42:11.007
to have hope in politics.

00:42:11.607 --> 00:42:17.187
So we've got to look elsewhere, and people have to have their own strength.

00:42:17.387 --> 00:42:24.267
They have to have the strength to think for themselves and to make their lives work for themselves.

00:42:24.487 --> 00:42:30.147
And the arts is a place where people begin to gather that strength,

00:42:30.347 --> 00:42:34.087
begin to understand who they are and what is important to them.

00:42:34.847 --> 00:42:43.667
I mean, singing a song, you know, that is a, these days, that's an act of resistance.

00:42:44.167 --> 00:42:52.787
You know, I heard David Byrne's performance, I went to a performance of his in New York in October.

00:42:53.067 --> 00:42:58.307
And this is right about the time when, you know, we were all just feeling like,

00:42:58.447 --> 00:43:01.727
wow, there is, you know, how are we going to get through this,

00:43:02.007 --> 00:43:05.307
you know, not even a year and look at what's gone on.

00:43:05.867 --> 00:43:11.987
And there was so much joy in that room. It was at Radio City Music Hall.

00:43:12.627 --> 00:43:16.527
And my husband and I coming from California had been noticing,

00:43:16.667 --> 00:43:20.547
and I'm from New York originally, we'd noticed in our whole week there prior

00:43:20.547 --> 00:43:24.827
to this performance that people in New York were so nice,

00:43:25.107 --> 00:43:28.227
like over the top, wonderful to each other.

00:43:28.227 --> 00:43:33.747
People were saying, hello, you go get your egg on a roll at a kiosk in the morning,

00:43:33.747 --> 00:43:36.787
and you're talking to the young woman who's making your breakfast.

00:43:37.207 --> 00:43:41.347
And, you know, we were like, wow, what's going on in New York? This feels amazing.

00:43:41.807 --> 00:43:47.827
So there's David Byrne. And at one point, about halfway through the performance,

00:43:47.847 --> 00:43:51.927
he stops and he's talking to the audience and he says, so today,

00:43:51.927 --> 00:43:56.507
he says, love and kindness are acts of resistance. assets.

00:43:57.568 --> 00:44:02.408
And I felt like that's what's been going on in New York all week.

00:44:02.828 --> 00:44:07.768
And everybody, just the whole audience, started hugging each other.

00:44:09.508 --> 00:44:16.928
So that kind of joy in times like this, it's what connects us to our humanity.

00:44:16.928 --> 00:44:21.668
And we've got to be connected to that humanity or we go down the toilet with them.

00:44:23.448 --> 00:44:29.748
Yeah, so that leads me to my final question. Finish this sentence I have hope

00:44:29.748 --> 00:44:34.768
because Because the world is a beautiful place.

00:44:36.948 --> 00:44:46.468
And we've got to be able to see through the ugliness I'm looking out the window You know,

00:44:46.688 --> 00:44:49.808
it's blue sky There's trees That's a

00:44:49.808 --> 00:44:52.928
beautiful thing So we've got

00:44:52.928 --> 00:44:56.648
to be able to personally each one of us connect

00:44:56.648 --> 00:44:59.988
to the beauty of the world and

00:44:59.988 --> 00:45:02.828
the arts lets us do that and printmaking lets

00:45:02.828 --> 00:45:11.508
us do that yeah all right so Robynn Smith i i i thank you i thank you for what

00:45:11.508 --> 00:45:17.388
you do i thank you for the vision and the collaboration you were able to gather

00:45:17.388 --> 00:45:22.048
to make this print day in may not only exist but to be successful you,

00:45:22.621 --> 00:45:27.681
Go over again how people can get involved and also how can people get in touch

00:45:27.681 --> 00:45:32.921
with you as far as, you know, speaking engagements, teaching classes,

00:45:33.061 --> 00:45:35.541
the whole nine yards. Very good. Thank you.

00:45:36.021 --> 00:45:42.941
First of all, www.printdayinmay.com. That will give you all the information

00:45:42.941 --> 00:45:46.941
you need about getting involved in the project.

00:45:46.941 --> 00:45:54.801
And it will give you a way to contact us through our Gmail, printama at gmail.com.

00:45:55.961 --> 00:46:01.141
And we answer, I answer just about every email.

00:46:01.301 --> 00:46:05.661
There's a small team of women and we are very committed. We answer everything.

00:46:06.281 --> 00:46:14.381
My name is Robynn Smith. It's R-O-B-Y-N-N. And you can go to robynnsmith.com and

00:46:14.381 --> 00:46:20.941
that will get you right to me It'll show you my portfolio of works that I make,

00:46:21.321 --> 00:46:23.401
painting, printmaking, drawing.

00:46:23.641 --> 00:46:29.541
There's a link to Print Day in May to the page, and there's a way to contact

00:46:29.541 --> 00:46:35.261
me directly. There's also an events page on my website, which is mostly up to date.

00:46:35.481 --> 00:46:42.441
And I do encourage people to contact me with any questions regarding the event,

00:46:42.441 --> 00:46:50.381
Or certainly, if you would like me to participate in an event of yours, give me a shout out.

00:46:51.121 --> 00:46:55.541
Absolutely. All right. Well, Robynn Smith, again, thank you. Thank you for this.

00:46:55.681 --> 00:46:57.481
And thank you for coming on the podcast.

00:46:58.381 --> 00:47:01.461
Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure. All right, guys.

00:47:01.581 --> 00:47:03.041
And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

00:47:21.361 --> 00:47:28.261
All right, we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Gerta Keller.

00:47:28.721 --> 00:47:35.961
Gerta Keller is a professor of paleontology and geology emeritus in the Department

00:47:35.961 --> 00:47:42.301
of Geosciences at Princeton University, where she has been a tenured faculty member since 1984.

00:47:42.301 --> 00:47:48.641
She has placed over 260 scientific publications in international journals and

00:47:48.641 --> 00:47:53.141
is considered a leading authority on catastrophes, mass extinctions,

00:47:53.401 --> 00:47:59.561
and the biotic and environmental effects of impacts and volcanism.

00:48:00.281 --> 00:48:05.821
In recent years, her work has received increased recognition and continues to

00:48:05.821 --> 00:48:12.401
make waves in the mainstream media, including a widely circulated profile in The Atlantic.

00:48:12.781 --> 00:48:17.841
She is the author of the book, The Last Extinction, The Real Science Behind

00:48:17.841 --> 00:48:19.601
the Death of the Dinosaurs.

00:48:20.041 --> 00:48:24.301
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:48:24.301 --> 00:48:27.341
on this podcast, Gerta Keller.

00:48:37.844 --> 00:48:43.104
All right, Gerta Keller. How you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

00:48:43.604 --> 00:48:47.944
I'm doing good. Thank you. Well, I'm honored to have you on.

00:48:48.304 --> 00:48:52.704
You know, the average has been that every guest that I've had on is smarter than me.

00:48:52.984 --> 00:49:02.264
And I definitely think that you would qualify in that because you are a paleontologist

00:49:02.264 --> 00:49:04.804
and a geologist. Is that correct?

00:49:05.624 --> 00:49:08.864
Yes. Yes. I like dinosaurs.

00:49:09.944 --> 00:49:16.524
And, you know, I know that I know what an earthquake is and what causes it. But that's it.

00:49:16.704 --> 00:49:19.704
That's that's all you're going to get out of me. I'm not you.

00:49:19.984 --> 00:49:22.664
You can explain it a lot better than I can. Yeah.

00:49:24.164 --> 00:49:28.704
So he wrote this book called The Last Extinction. So we're going to talk.

00:49:29.204 --> 00:49:33.084
Most of the discussion is going to be about that. But I want to pick your brain

00:49:33.084 --> 00:49:34.344
on a couple other things, too.

00:49:34.924 --> 00:49:39.214
But before we do all that, I do what we call icebreakers. icebreakers.

00:49:39.554 --> 00:49:44.714
So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.

00:49:44.934 --> 00:49:50.554
And the quote is, we are the first generation to feel the effect of climate

00:49:50.554 --> 00:49:54.734
change and the last generation who can do something about it.

00:49:54.914 --> 00:49:56.174
What does that quote mean to you?

00:49:56.834 --> 00:49:59.414
I think that's a very good quote.

00:50:01.952 --> 00:50:05.932
I wish I had thought about it, but I did not.

00:50:07.672 --> 00:50:15.392
We are the first generation, and the last one indeed.

00:50:15.792 --> 00:50:22.552
In fact, I think the last one is probably the worst one, and that's the one

00:50:22.552 --> 00:50:28.792
that is really hitting a lot of scientists, particularly.

00:50:30.392 --> 00:50:39.112
And in many ways, it's increasingly so just in a few years.

00:50:40.132 --> 00:50:50.772
Because for all this time, I have worked on climate change and extinctions, as extinctions.

00:50:51.372 --> 00:50:58.812
And I've had a lot of fights, or at least disagreements.

00:50:59.812 --> 00:51:08.832
And lastly, the impactors, I call those impactors because they believe,

00:51:09.072 --> 00:51:14.572
essentially, that an impact hit earth.

00:51:15.192 --> 00:51:22.752
And then it killed everything, caused the mass extinction, and everything else.

00:51:23.112 --> 00:51:29.352
But most of that, almost everything, is not quite true.

00:51:29.892 --> 00:51:35.992
And much of it is not true at all. Yet, so many people believe it,

00:51:36.072 --> 00:51:38.272
and still today believe it.

00:51:39.632 --> 00:51:48.532
So, I think that I would sum up that basically, that yes, we should talk.

00:51:50.115 --> 00:52:01.115
Particularly on not so much, perhaps, more of climate change than perhaps on the impactors.

00:52:01.955 --> 00:52:05.755
Yes, ma'am. Well, we're going to get into that because, you know,

00:52:05.875 --> 00:52:09.575
when you say the impactors, growing up I was one of those kids.

00:52:09.695 --> 00:52:12.775
But we're going to dive into that a little more.

00:52:13.395 --> 00:52:22.055
The next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions. So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.

00:52:22.715 --> 00:52:30.495
1 and 20. I'm not quite understanding what you mean, an answer between 1 and 20.

00:52:30.675 --> 00:52:35.875
Just give me a number in that range. Okay.

00:52:36.415 --> 00:52:38.295
How about 15? Okay.

00:52:39.935 --> 00:52:45.775
When you think about the challenges our country faces, what gives you hope? Okay.

00:52:46.748 --> 00:52:55.868
That is a difficult one, because I used to have more hope only just a few years ago,

00:52:56.048 --> 00:53:03.408
when I visited Switzerland all the time, because that's where I'm from originally.

00:53:03.408 --> 00:53:17.468
And just two years ago when I was there I was looking for my usual mountains, the Alps,

00:53:17.748 --> 00:53:27.008
the High Alps and the problem was that the glaciers had melted and there was

00:53:27.008 --> 00:53:34.668
literally nothing the rocks not just the rocks, but the sediments,

00:53:35.028 --> 00:53:39.208
everything had started tumbling down.

00:53:40.268 --> 00:53:46.088
And in fact, there were falls, rock slides everywhere.

00:53:46.928 --> 00:53:52.748
A lot of people got killed because a lot of them believed, well,

00:53:52.828 --> 00:53:57.768
they were always living in the mountains, and it was always beautiful and nothing ever happened.

00:53:59.298 --> 00:54:03.018
Now it all came down, and that's what's happening in Switzerland,

00:54:03.538 --> 00:54:07.258
and it happens virtually the world over.

00:54:08.598 --> 00:54:18.958
So that is a remarkable situation, which is, I can tell from my siblings in Switzerland,

00:54:19.538 --> 00:54:24.738
they don't believe it, that this can happen or could happen. Yeah.

00:54:25.558 --> 00:54:29.938
All right. So let's get into the book.

00:54:30.238 --> 00:54:36.398
The emphasis of your book, The Last Extinction, explains how the dinosaurs really

00:54:36.398 --> 00:54:39.918
became extinct and the journey you went on to prove that.

00:54:39.918 --> 00:54:44.798
So I was brought up to believe that a big giant asteroid hit the Earth,

00:54:45.018 --> 00:54:51.938
and the effect of the crash created an environment which killed them off.

00:54:52.778 --> 00:54:58.838
So why is that wrong? It's only wrong in part.

00:54:58.838 --> 00:55:04.578
The wrong part is that everyone, the impactors,

00:55:05.278 --> 00:55:14.898
believed that it was exactly 66 million years ago and nothing else happened

00:55:14.898 --> 00:55:17.498
other than that before or after.

00:55:17.918 --> 00:55:22.598
What is wrong here is that we have found that.

00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:29.760
I've studied this now since the 1970s.

00:55:30.700 --> 00:55:39.960
And what we found was wrong is literally that the story is that,

00:55:40.140 --> 00:55:43.920
yes, an asteroid happened, but it didn't.

00:55:44.080 --> 00:55:57.560
It happened 200,000 years earlier. And at that time, it actually didn't kill many species.

00:55:58.700 --> 00:56:00.720
There wasn't much that was going on.

00:56:02.548 --> 00:56:06.388
And life just went on as usual.

00:56:07.448 --> 00:56:11.768
Climate was normal, and that was it.

00:56:12.288 --> 00:56:21.088
But nobody would believe it because an asteroid had to have killed all the dinosaurs.

00:56:21.468 --> 00:56:28.488
And the dinosaurs were killed a lot before that asteroid hit. Okay.

00:56:30.208 --> 00:56:33.968
So, like you said, you've been doing this for four years. So,

00:56:34.148 --> 00:56:36.108
what led you down this path?

00:56:37.008 --> 00:56:41.568
Four years. Say that again? Forty years. Yes, ma'am.

00:56:42.388 --> 00:56:46.928
What led you down this path to reach your conclusion?

00:56:48.228 --> 00:56:54.928
Because it was a word that I had never heard before called volcanism.

00:56:56.008 --> 00:57:00.428
Volcanism, yes. Volcanism, yes, ma'am. So kind of explain how did you get to

00:57:00.428 --> 00:57:05.208
this point where you realize the asteroids didn't do it, but this Volcanism did.

00:57:05.208 --> 00:57:17.048
Well, that's because after 2020, and even before then,

00:57:18.008 --> 00:57:24.348
I've studied with my collaborators and friends.

00:57:24.368 --> 00:57:30.288
We've studied essentially throughout the world, particularly through Mexico,

00:57:30.608 --> 00:57:34.328
because that's where the impact happened.

00:57:35.208 --> 00:57:44.208
As well as virtually we started to go absolutely throughout the world and checked with everything.

00:57:45.688 --> 00:57:46.828
And...

00:57:47.910 --> 00:58:00.970
By about 25, I found that I knew about Deccan volcanism.

00:58:01.250 --> 00:58:04.450
That means simply volcanic eruptions in India.

00:58:05.590 --> 00:58:11.790
And it is massive. There are 2,000 meters of lava flows.

00:58:12.590 --> 00:58:18.650
And they just came one after another. sometimes in short terms,

00:58:18.830 --> 00:58:21.450
other times in longer terms.

00:58:22.590 --> 00:58:29.270
And there were a lot of people that had studied them, including from France,

00:58:29.490 --> 00:58:36.190
from other countries, as well as, of course, India.

00:58:36.730 --> 00:58:39.450
The problem here was that.

00:58:41.069 --> 00:58:48.869
Could only study these not on volcanism, because that's not what I usually do,

00:58:49.369 --> 00:58:57.769
but rather can they find that there is any truth in the mass extinction and

00:58:57.769 --> 00:59:00.909
how it happened at that time in India?

00:59:02.109 --> 00:59:08.689
And that's where we found first that, yes, there are a lot of dinosaurs throughout

00:59:08.689 --> 00:59:12.769
India, and yes, they got killed.

00:59:13.589 --> 00:59:22.049
They got killed sometimes just in parts, slower parts, so it did not matter.

00:59:22.289 --> 00:59:29.929
But then at some point, it was so that massive volcanic eruptions,

00:59:30.289 --> 00:59:36.289
that means just lava is pouring out, and lava means simply hot rocks.

00:59:36.289 --> 00:59:43.249
And so I started working in India and we found that.

00:59:44.689 --> 00:59:54.929
These lava outpourings were absolutely rapid fast and going over a thousand

00:59:54.929 --> 01:00:03.509
kilometers of flows and it was absolutely amazing I got this from,

01:00:04.269 --> 01:00:09.069
my collaborators in India who were doing oil drilling,

01:00:09.889 --> 01:00:14.549
and that's how I got the data from that.

01:00:15.089 --> 01:00:23.049
And they helped me for now, by now, about 15 years, we collaborated on these.

01:00:25.049 --> 01:00:28.409
So, what we did find, though, is

01:00:28.409 --> 01:00:38.029
that we discovered that there also are microfossils in these lava flows.

01:00:39.898 --> 01:00:50.378
And these microfossils actually died, had died out with all except one species

01:00:50.378 --> 01:00:53.638
that survived and still is surviving today.

01:00:54.178 --> 01:00:57.138
That's the only species that was surviving.

01:00:58.238 --> 01:01:02.078
So that's essentially how we got into it.

01:01:02.278 --> 01:01:07.998
And then from then on, I worked more on India.

01:01:07.998 --> 01:01:17.478
And these kinds of many more different kinds of sciences that I began at that time. Okay.

01:01:18.418 --> 01:01:21.078
You mentioned in the book that the

01:01:21.078 --> 01:01:26.158
hardest people to convince about a new scientific theory are scientists.

01:01:26.618 --> 01:01:32.878
You also stated that it was even harder because you are a female and most scientists are male.

01:01:32.878 --> 01:01:41.938
So do you think it was misogyny or rigidity that made it harder for your research to be accepted?

01:01:43.553 --> 01:01:51.493
Reason that I had major problems was with the impactors, because they could not believe.

01:01:53.153 --> 01:01:59.413
That there was volcanism in India to begin with.

01:01:59.793 --> 01:02:07.013
That was a no-no, even though they eventually had to change some of that.

01:02:08.313 --> 01:02:16.413
It still didn't work, because the impactors had their own ways,

01:02:16.433 --> 01:02:19.933
and it was always the same, the same story.

01:02:20.353 --> 01:02:30.513
And that essentially is, It wasn't rigidity on my part, it was their rigidity, completely.

01:02:30.973 --> 01:02:39.133
On my part, I was always looking with my collaborators, we were always looking

01:02:39.133 --> 01:02:43.873
for what is really happening in every step.

01:02:44.293 --> 01:02:49.033
We are not looking for what was wrong.

01:02:49.233 --> 01:02:53.133
We were looking what we could find out.

01:02:53.953 --> 01:03:02.873
Yeah, you were basically following the trail of the cookie crumbs, as laymen would say.

01:03:03.693 --> 01:03:05.533
You were following the evidence.

01:03:06.373 --> 01:03:10.273
Right. Yeah. I like the cookie crumbs. Okay.

01:03:11.813 --> 01:03:17.953
So one of those impactors was this guy named Luis Alvarez.

01:03:18.233 --> 01:03:23.553
And I came away from the book with the impression that you weren't a big fan of Mr. Alvarez.

01:03:23.953 --> 01:03:29.853
What about Alvarez that taught you about the impact of politics,

01:03:30.213 --> 01:03:35.633
media manipulation, and popular opinion on scientific research?

01:03:36.253 --> 01:03:39.433
Alvarez had his own opinion.

01:03:40.553 --> 01:03:43.753
He had, there was really...

01:03:46.011 --> 01:03:53.051
His own view at all times. There was only one time that it was different.

01:03:53.551 --> 01:04:03.151
And that one time is when I decided I was not going to work on the Alvarez type story.

01:04:03.431 --> 01:04:10.631
I would wait for five years because I believed he was wrong what they were saying.

01:04:11.231 --> 01:04:15.231
And I decided I would do something completely different.

01:04:15.791 --> 01:04:26.971
And so I worked on an impact, but an impact that happened some 60,000 years ago.

01:04:27.331 --> 01:04:33.311
And that is when Alvarez stepped in.

01:04:33.791 --> 01:04:45.311
And in fact, he told me that He invited me with a large group of his most famous

01:04:45.311 --> 01:04:50.871
collaborators and scientists there,

01:04:51.031 --> 01:04:54.131
and I was the only woman invited,

01:04:54.691 --> 01:04:56.491
which is the usual thing.

01:04:56.491 --> 01:04:59.791
And he asked me.

01:05:01.651 --> 01:05:08.691
I was supposed to give, I was the only one to give a talk and I did give my

01:05:08.691 --> 01:05:13.811
talk and he liked it a lot but before the talk,

01:05:15.031 --> 01:05:22.891
I actually was free enough to ask some questions of what they had talked,

01:05:23.171 --> 01:05:26.031
namely Alvarez was giving these Jewish children.

01:05:28.331 --> 01:05:35.371
About how the mass extinctions occurred, how everything, the dinosaurs got killed and everything.

01:05:35.711 --> 01:05:40.511
And I would say, but this is not quite right.

01:05:40.991 --> 01:05:44.371
It happened completely different.

01:05:45.311 --> 01:05:52.931
And then everything, the whole room, everything would be in silence until Alvarez

01:05:52.931 --> 01:05:59.231
would then stop and continue it.

01:05:59.231 --> 01:06:12.751
I expressed it as like I was a bird that dropped into a rock or whatever,

01:06:13.291 --> 01:06:14.851
fell into something.

01:06:15.411 --> 01:06:20.491
And then there was just total silence.

01:06:20.971 --> 01:06:28.891
And after that, Alvarez could talk again without ever saying anything else.

01:06:29.231 --> 01:06:41.971
And at the end of my lecture, he was silent, and there were about 30 people in the room.

01:06:42.211 --> 01:06:44.451
They never said a word.

01:06:46.031 --> 01:06:51.791
And everyone was waiting to see what Alvarez would say.

01:06:51.791 --> 01:06:59.811
And so finally he said, this talk with Gerta Keller was very good,

01:07:00.331 --> 01:07:06.751
that the impact, that we know now that the impact happened, but an earlier one,

01:07:06.911 --> 01:07:11.611
that it was a much earlier time.

01:07:11.611 --> 01:07:16.851
And so now they knew that there were actually what I called comet showers.

01:07:18.564 --> 01:07:25.344
And so he liked that, but nothing else. Yeah, I definitely understand that.

01:07:26.084 --> 01:07:34.544
So in the South, you were trying to pick an allegory of how you were a disruptor.

01:07:34.684 --> 01:07:37.904
So in the South, we say a fly in the buttermilk, right?

01:07:38.544 --> 01:07:44.204
It was pretty obvious. It was like, okay, that's not really how it's supposed

01:07:44.204 --> 01:07:47.704
to look, but it's in there.

01:07:48.564 --> 01:07:54.724
But I guess what I was trying to find out was that you talked about in your

01:07:54.724 --> 01:07:58.364
challenges, you talked about because Alvarez, so for the listeners,

01:07:58.584 --> 01:08:05.204
Alvarez was one of the scientists with the Manhattan Project or as a young, young guy.

01:08:05.484 --> 01:08:12.824
And he kind of made his name, you know, with he made something with hydrogen

01:08:12.824 --> 01:08:15.784
that I think he got a Nobel Prize for whatever.

01:08:15.784 --> 01:08:20.984
So by the time that you had encountered him, he was real popular and he was

01:08:20.984 --> 01:08:22.284
pretty well established.

01:08:23.204 --> 01:08:30.304
And so basically, whenever he got on TV or, you know, whenever the elected officials

01:08:30.304 --> 01:08:35.024
would talk to him, they would listen to him as opposed to somebody like you.

01:08:35.024 --> 01:08:39.664
And so what I was trying to ask you was, did you learn anything from that?

01:08:39.824 --> 01:08:48.264
Did you see anything, I guess, similar now than what you were dealing with?

01:08:48.264 --> 01:08:51.704
I guess this was like in the 1980s that this was happening?

01:08:52.664 --> 01:08:57.944
Yes. Yes. At that point, middle 1980. Okay.

01:08:59.524 --> 01:09:14.364
Yeah. Well, yes, I was in my early 30s, so, of course, I was young, and I...

01:09:16.116 --> 01:09:22.876
I was always the kind of person who wanted to tell the truth,

01:09:23.056 --> 01:09:28.996
and that was a problem, because Alvarez has his own truth.

01:09:31.336 --> 01:09:39.276
And I had questioned my husband, who was a mathematician at the time,

01:09:40.936 --> 01:09:46.336
should I or should I not accept this invitation to talk?

01:09:47.536 --> 01:09:59.016
And he said, you're strong enough, you should do it and see what happens. well.

01:10:00.892 --> 01:10:04.632
Did, and it was okay, because Alvarez,

01:10:05.072 --> 01:10:14.872
in the end, he basically wanted my story for the comet shower,

01:10:15.112 --> 01:10:17.752
because that had never happened before.

01:10:19.172 --> 01:10:25.432
And so he needed that story,

01:10:25.472 --> 01:10:38.472
and he had asked me and some of his other fellow scientists that I would write

01:10:38.472 --> 01:10:40.392
essentially this story.

01:10:41.252 --> 01:10:48.552
And I had said I would under certain circumstances,

01:10:48.972 --> 01:10:58.452
and those were that I would not touch on the impact story of Alvarez,

01:10:58.732 --> 01:11:01.032
because I did not believe it.

01:11:01.872 --> 01:11:11.092
So, the next day, there was a talk by Alvarez at the Denver Museum,

01:11:11.332 --> 01:11:20.652
and he announced that And there is a new member now in his team,

01:11:21.092 --> 01:11:30.472
Gerta Keller, who formerly did not want to work with him, but now was on board.

01:11:31.732 --> 01:11:37.112
At the same evening, I had phone calls from my other collaborators,

01:11:37.112 --> 01:11:41.172
from other collaborators saying, Gerta, what happened to you?

01:11:41.432 --> 01:11:45.112
Why did you change your mind on Alvarez?

01:11:45.692 --> 01:11:48.772
And I was furious.

01:11:49.312 --> 01:11:55.652
And so I called one of Alvarez's other guys.

01:11:57.463 --> 01:12:04.163
And said, I am stopping this. I will not do anything.

01:12:04.663 --> 01:12:07.283
I have nothing to do with Alvarez.

01:12:08.203 --> 01:12:12.523
And then he went back and forth.

01:12:12.723 --> 01:12:19.503
And yes, I eventually, I did accept to give a talk, but that was it.

01:12:20.623 --> 01:12:29.183
Yeah. All right. So, in the book, you state that the Earth has had five extinction events.

01:12:29.543 --> 01:12:33.283
Are we in the middle of the sixth extinction event?

01:12:33.863 --> 01:12:36.063
Yes. Okay.

01:12:37.723 --> 01:12:41.803
And that's a big deal. Yeah, yeah.

01:12:42.943 --> 01:12:49.583
A very big deal. It's an amazing extinction event.

01:12:49.583 --> 01:12:57.583
And yes, the sixth one, of course, is the one that we are just trying to figure

01:12:57.583 --> 01:13:03.503
out whether we can make it through and how we are going to make it through.

01:13:03.503 --> 01:13:17.523
And one of the things that I would say today is that I worked on these extinctions in events,

01:13:17.843 --> 01:13:20.443
including the recent ones.

01:13:20.443 --> 01:13:33.923
For a long time, I thought it would take quite a lot of years before we reach the fifth extinction.

01:13:34.663 --> 01:13:37.903
Then, very quickly, it changed.

01:13:39.083 --> 01:13:45.023
And the reason it changed, it was because climate changed.

01:13:46.877 --> 01:13:50.957
Wasn't Deccan volcanism that was the problem.

01:13:51.337 --> 01:13:56.737
It was actually our own problems, because.

01:13:58.757 --> 01:14:10.177
Basically throughout all these years from the late 70s, we knew that climate was changing.

01:14:10.177 --> 01:14:16.337
But the first time in 1980, actually,

01:14:17.337 --> 01:14:24.437
there was an idea, and more than an idea, actually,

01:14:25.057 --> 01:14:34.997
belief that we had to do something to do some mitigating of what happens with our climate.

01:14:34.997 --> 01:14:37.217
But nothing happened.

01:14:37.557 --> 01:14:41.757
Not in 1980, and nothing happened until 2000.

01:14:42.717 --> 01:14:53.337
Every time there was a belief that, yes, we had to do something now.

01:14:53.337 --> 01:15:01.797
And each time we had some other things to do, including Trump later on,

01:15:02.157 --> 01:15:12.297
I can mention that one now, because after all, he wasn't caring what climate change was.

01:15:12.297 --> 01:15:14.997
In fact, he never believed there was climate change.

01:15:15.577 --> 01:15:25.117
And so the problem was that nothing has happened and nothing has happened to this day.

01:15:27.045 --> 01:15:34.365
No mitigating of climate, in fact, probably more than ever, less than ever.

01:15:34.845 --> 01:15:45.825
So what did your research teach you or teach us about greenhouse gas and climate change?

01:15:46.365 --> 01:15:52.725
And I guess, you know, you've written this book about the last extinction.

01:15:52.725 --> 01:15:59.205
So what about the demise of the dinosaurs are more relevant now as we are,

01:15:59.425 --> 01:16:02.685
as you say, in this new extinction event?

01:16:02.685 --> 01:16:12.105
Well, the dinosaur extinctions are relevant because it's the first time in 66

01:16:12.105 --> 01:16:18.065
million years that we actually had the evidence,

01:16:18.325 --> 01:16:24.845
the real evidence that there was something really bad happening.

01:16:25.745 --> 01:16:31.945
Yes, eventually it was taken volcanism, but first it was, of course, Alvarez.

01:16:33.185 --> 01:16:38.005
And Alvarez has never changed his mind.

01:16:38.825 --> 01:16:45.605
So now though we can go back, we know all about the dinosaurs,

01:16:46.085 --> 01:16:47.925
we know all about those stories,

01:16:48.545 --> 01:16:56.625
but now we need to go back and see what can we do to make some changes in our

01:16:56.625 --> 01:17:02.345
own lives so that we will not be the next dinosaurs.

01:17:04.224 --> 01:17:07.584
And basically what you're saying in your research,

01:17:07.904 --> 01:17:11.344
our growth as a population,

01:17:11.344 --> 01:17:23.104
our explicit use of fossil fuels and all that equated or equates to the cataclysmic

01:17:23.104 --> 01:17:27.964
volcanic explosions that took place millions of years ago.

01:17:27.964 --> 01:17:35.424
We've been able to replicate that from a man-made perspective as opposed to

01:17:35.424 --> 01:17:36.484
what happened naturally.

01:17:37.524 --> 01:17:40.924
Yes. Okay. That's correct.

01:17:41.664 --> 01:17:47.224
We could do that, well, largely based on Deccan volcanism.

01:17:47.224 --> 01:17:51.804
And those volcanic eruptions, by the way,

01:17:52.424 --> 01:18:03.304
they had gone on for at least 700,000 years, but in a slow way.

01:18:03.944 --> 01:18:09.544
Sometimes nothing would happen for hundreds of thousands of years,

01:18:09.724 --> 01:18:13.144
and sometimes they would go more rapidly.

01:18:14.804 --> 01:18:20.904
Once it really started, the end when it started was 66 million years ago,

01:18:21.144 --> 01:18:25.384
actually when it ended 66 million years ago.

01:18:28.962 --> 01:18:33.742
And we'll go back to Deccan volcanism. First of all,

01:18:34.062 --> 01:18:40.462
the eruptions in India are, there is about what we can see even today,

01:18:40.762 --> 01:18:46.322
3,000 meters of volcanic rocks.

01:18:46.862 --> 01:18:51.122
And it's flow after flow, always the same, flat.

01:18:53.022 --> 01:18:57.942
And it's something that nobody really could believe.

01:18:58.982 --> 01:19:01.082
Even what was this?

01:19:02.142 --> 01:19:12.582
And once we started studying that, with Indian colleagues, the French colleagues, few in the U.S.

01:19:12.602 --> 01:19:18.682
At that time, because in the U.S. it was still the impactors and nobody believed

01:19:18.682 --> 01:19:24.722
in anything cataclysmic that has to do with Deccan volcanism.

01:19:27.062 --> 01:19:30.022
So coming back to that

01:19:30.022 --> 01:19:33.762
then it was really almost a

01:19:33.762 --> 01:19:36.742
meeting of the mind to bring this

01:19:36.742 --> 01:19:46.282
all together and find out more about it and of course the dinosaurs we knew

01:19:46.282 --> 01:19:56.142
for a long time that they were all over the place by the thousands But when the Deccan volcanism,

01:19:56.262 --> 01:19:58.922
not just the Deccan volcanism,

01:19:59.162 --> 01:20:06.382
when the eruptions became more and more,

01:20:06.742 --> 01:20:19.322
then all you can see in India is that there were dinosaur eggs that never hatched.

01:20:21.743 --> 01:20:29.503
You can find thousands of them. And the reason was that in the end,

01:20:29.763 --> 01:20:36.943
they could not hatch because the volcanic eruptions were toxic,

01:20:36.943 --> 01:20:43.023
but it wasn't the toxicity that killed the baby dinosaurs.

01:20:43.023 --> 01:20:48.043
Dinosaurs, it was that they could not get out of the shells.

01:20:49.143 --> 01:20:57.903
The shells simply became very hardened, and so they died because they never got out of it.

01:20:58.723 --> 01:21:07.163
And that is actually, in many ways, is really the reason why we don't have dinosaurs.

01:21:08.915 --> 01:21:12.055
Most of them simply died, almost all of them.

01:21:13.335 --> 01:21:21.395
Yes, ma'am. You said that these ideas, that living things evolve and that continents

01:21:21.395 --> 01:21:24.595
move, are obvious to us today.

01:21:24.595 --> 01:21:29.615
But it took decades before the theories that explained them were accepted by

01:21:29.615 --> 01:21:35.835
many of the most respected and highly trained members of the scientific establishment.

01:21:35.835 --> 01:21:43.575
Yeah, there are American elected officials that say what you are espousing is heresy.

01:21:43.795 --> 01:21:48.935
How much of an impact can that line of thinking from those elected officials

01:21:48.935 --> 01:21:57.115
have on funding further research into either what you're doing or some work

01:21:57.115 --> 01:21:59.815
some of your other colleagues might do?

01:21:59.815 --> 01:22:09.315
Well, I have not had many problems when it came to NSF funding.

01:22:09.995 --> 01:22:16.475
The problem was what NASA's funding was.

01:22:17.575 --> 01:22:27.935
Because all the funding that happened by Luis Alvarez and cohorts and many other people,

01:22:27.935 --> 01:22:36.015
they basically needed this impact story because of funding,

01:22:37.015 --> 01:22:39.035
and NASA funded them.

01:22:40.315 --> 01:22:46.455
So one of the things, well there are a number of things here of course because.

01:22:47.775 --> 01:22:56.735
The story is even today is still the same for the impactors they have never

01:22:56.735 --> 01:22:59.555
changed They will never change.

01:23:00.515 --> 01:23:05.535
On the other hand, NASA has given up 50% of the funding.

01:23:07.322 --> 01:23:14.662
Means today there isn't much money there, especially not for the impactors anymore.

01:23:15.602 --> 01:23:24.362
And consequently, for me, it looks like it's a wonderful part,

01:23:24.842 --> 01:23:37.162
even at the end of the day, that we can actually, we no longer have all these stories coming out.

01:23:37.322 --> 01:23:43.282
Except, of course, there are still the films and everything that will go on forever.

01:23:44.142 --> 01:23:49.882
But actually, the scientists are no longer, the impact scientists are no longer

01:23:49.882 --> 01:23:53.142
much there because they no longer have the funds.

01:23:54.222 --> 01:23:59.622
Yeah, and, you know, the reason why I ask that question, because we've,

01:23:59.742 --> 01:24:03.142
there's actually, I don't know if you've even heard of this,

01:24:03.222 --> 01:24:06.882
but there was actually a museum, and I want to say it was in Kentucky.

01:24:07.322 --> 01:24:13.282
It was either in Kentucky or Tennessee where there was a museum that actually

01:24:13.282 --> 01:24:19.362
tries to show that human beings and dinosaurs were existing at the same time.

01:24:19.822 --> 01:24:22.322
It's all based on religion, right?

01:24:22.962 --> 01:24:27.162
Yes. And so a lot of those people...

01:24:27.874 --> 01:24:31.614
Grew up around that kind of thinking, they're now elected.

01:24:32.474 --> 01:24:37.474
And so when you talk to them about evolution, when you're talking to them about

01:24:37.474 --> 01:24:40.074
climate change and all that stuff,

01:24:40.554 --> 01:24:45.914
they have that, they're more rigid, I think, than the impactors you talk about,

01:24:46.034 --> 01:24:50.374
because their argument is totally against science.

01:24:51.014 --> 01:24:56.894
So in a culture where you have to deal with that, how do you navigate that?

01:24:56.894 --> 01:25:03.414
How do you get around people that just, you know, they just won't accept the science?

01:25:04.174 --> 01:25:12.114
I've been in that situation for many years when I worked with the impactors,

01:25:12.374 --> 01:25:20.714
trying to convince them that what they were doing was not quite what they thought they were doing.

01:25:20.714 --> 01:25:24.414
And it I

01:25:24.414 --> 01:25:28.974
had there is a story in my book that

01:25:28.974 --> 01:25:32.694
is talking about these

01:25:32.694 --> 01:25:41.514
impactors they were all religious fanatics unfortunately there was a bunch there

01:25:41.514 --> 01:25:50.494
that actually knew more of the science but they had become it was So basically,

01:25:51.014 --> 01:25:52.994
how shall I say?

01:25:54.074 --> 01:26:03.594
I think the best story I can say is we were about five people other than 300 people in the room.

01:26:04.454 --> 01:26:08.834
So five of us were on the non-impactor side.

01:26:08.834 --> 01:26:19.394
And every time the rest of them would come and say,

01:26:20.134 --> 01:26:30.634
they would clap on the little table in front of them and yell.

01:26:32.321 --> 01:26:36.501
Believe in the impact. We believe in this. We believe in that.

01:26:36.901 --> 01:26:47.321
It was like a revival meeting all the way, and we couldn't believe this.

01:26:47.681 --> 01:26:51.541
Then one of my friends and colleagues,

01:26:52.581 --> 01:27:01.281
he is, I found out later, he is actually one of the religious revivalists,

01:27:01.661 --> 01:27:05.321
that is, his mother was one of them.

01:27:06.161 --> 01:27:10.381
And he grew up in that culture.

01:27:11.561 --> 01:27:17.161
And so he got up, knowing that he is a non-impactor,

01:27:17.161 --> 01:27:28.761
he got up and he gave the most amazing lecture he exactly like the revivalists.

01:27:30.854 --> 01:27:35.514
He would make this story. He worked,

01:27:35.654 --> 01:27:45.854
he always had his cowboy boots on and his choir of all the Texans and so on.

01:27:47.654 --> 01:27:56.074
And before he was sitting beside me before he got up and he said, watch me.

01:27:58.554 --> 01:28:02.454
And so it it

01:28:02.454 --> 01:28:05.354
was amazing so he was first

01:28:05.354 --> 01:28:08.334
he was simply quiet until the

01:28:08.334 --> 01:28:11.134
room was quiet and then

01:28:11.134 --> 01:28:20.894
he let loose i believe in the impact and then the next song volume i believe

01:28:20.894 --> 01:28:27.534
in the impact And then all these impactors started thinking,

01:28:27.794 --> 01:28:28.914
what's wrong with this guy?

01:28:29.434 --> 01:28:34.034
Is he really having a conversion?

01:28:35.514 --> 01:28:39.434
And yes, they thought he had converted.

01:28:40.534 --> 01:28:46.874
Until he started then after that and say, okay, I'll tell you what the real story is.

01:28:46.874 --> 01:28:54.394
They no longer listened to it because now they were absolutely enthralled that

01:28:54.394 --> 01:28:56.754
they now had a conversion guide.

01:29:00.856 --> 01:29:09.876
So that was one that was one of the last ones that i attended for the impactors,

01:29:10.616 --> 01:29:17.416
yeah sometimes you know you can you can try to reach people and and try to speak

01:29:17.416 --> 01:29:21.956
their language but like you said if they're if they're hung up on their belief

01:29:21.956 --> 01:29:26.656
it's really hard to turn them because I run into that in politics a lot.

01:29:28.356 --> 01:29:37.676
So before I let you go, you gave this answer about you went back home and you

01:29:37.676 --> 01:29:41.976
saw that the glaciers were gone and you kind of left it like,

01:29:42.536 --> 01:29:44.236
oh, well, the glaciers are gone.

01:29:44.396 --> 01:29:47.636
I don't know if there's much chance. You know, you kind of were disheartened.

01:29:48.516 --> 01:29:55.636
But I can't let you leave the interview like that. So let me ask you that earlier

01:29:55.636 --> 01:29:57.056
question a different way.

01:29:57.256 --> 01:30:00.976
What motivates you to keep researching?

01:30:00.976 --> 01:30:08.096
What motivates you to keep trying to find a solution to the problem or,

01:30:08.096 --> 01:30:13.516
you know, a solution to stopping the extinction? What gives you the motivation

01:30:13.516 --> 01:30:14.816
every day to do what you do?

01:30:15.996 --> 01:30:26.956
I don't know. I can't really say. I was about five years old when I started, no longer believing.

01:30:28.836 --> 01:30:37.436
And that was the time when my parents, I was one of a dozen kids, number six.

01:30:39.156 --> 01:30:48.976
And at that time, they were telling me, I don't know why, but I think they thought I was crazy.

01:30:49.756 --> 01:30:51.816
And they would say...

01:30:53.955 --> 01:31:00.015
What you need to do and what you want to do. You can do anything you want.

01:31:02.380 --> 01:31:09.360
All of my other siblings had to do what the parents said, and I could never

01:31:09.360 --> 01:31:12.400
figure out why, but it was not good.

01:31:15.780 --> 01:31:19.300
And at the same time, yeah,

01:31:20.140 --> 01:31:27.960
at the same time, they never told me why I couldn't do, why I had to,

01:31:28.160 --> 01:31:30.860
why I could do whatever I wanted to do.

01:31:30.860 --> 01:31:40.620
And so I sort of grew up on my own, and I became my own person to do whatever

01:31:40.620 --> 01:31:42.640
I believed I needed to do.

01:31:43.380 --> 01:31:50.260
So I can't really say more than that, other than that, of course,

01:31:50.500 --> 01:31:57.840
I became sort of a persona non grata in many ways for most people,

01:31:57.840 --> 01:32:00.560
because by the time I was 13,

01:32:01.080 --> 01:32:11.840
I became a person who tried all sorts of things like I would not follow,

01:32:12.180 --> 01:32:22.280
that in winters, when it was so cold and we had to walk for three kilometers in the ice and snow,

01:32:23.440 --> 01:32:30.000
that we would have to wear short skirts, basically.

01:32:30.340 --> 01:32:32.600
We could not wear anything else.

01:32:33.920 --> 01:32:41.080
And that's when I started to go against all sorts of rules, including I needed

01:32:41.080 --> 01:32:44.780
to wear pants, which was the worst thing.

01:32:45.980 --> 01:32:53.480
But another bad thing was that I was learning more, things on my own.

01:32:54.280 --> 01:33:02.000
And at that point, I found out a lot of things that people were telling us in school.

01:33:04.136 --> 01:33:12.616
Were not right. And consequently, I made also various, created a lot of problems that way.

01:33:14.736 --> 01:33:17.636
So, what can I say? Well,

01:33:18.656 --> 01:33:23.396
you know, President Kennedy had this favorite poem by Robert Frost,

01:33:23.456 --> 01:33:28.436
and I guess, for lack of a better term, the narrator closed that poem out by

01:33:28.436 --> 01:33:32.616
saying, and I traveled a different path, right?

01:33:33.816 --> 01:33:42.996
And people that usually are grounded in the truth tend to go a different path than the masses.

01:33:43.496 --> 01:33:49.576
So I say all that to say that you are not persona non grata with me and that

01:33:49.576 --> 01:33:56.956
I'm willing to bet there's a lot of folks that will buy your book or whatever that,

01:33:57.116 --> 01:33:59.456
or if it attended your classes or whatever,

01:34:00.016 --> 01:34:05.396
that would agree with my assessment that, you know, you're not persona non grata,

01:34:05.636 --> 01:34:10.416
you just are following the path that the truth is leading you toward.

01:34:10.756 --> 01:34:14.536
And I think we need more of you, Gerta Keller.

01:34:14.736 --> 01:34:19.536
I need, I think we need thousands more of you, not just in this country,

01:34:19.716 --> 01:34:22.476
but around the world to continue to do what you're doing.

01:34:22.856 --> 01:34:30.576
So I am glad that you chose that path because that path led us to have this

01:34:30.576 --> 01:34:35.016
conversation and it led you to write this book, The Last Extinction.

01:34:35.176 --> 01:34:39.636
So if people want to get this book, if people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

01:34:41.748 --> 01:34:45.268
I think the best thing is to just use Amazon.

01:34:46.048 --> 01:34:52.428
It's probably the easiest one. In fact, I found out that when I was in India

01:34:52.428 --> 01:34:55.708
a month ago, well, less than that.

01:34:58.108 --> 01:35:05.488
That I got a lot of people, of course, in India who were buying the book.

01:35:06.288 --> 01:35:15.328
Are very, well, they have known me for 15 years by now in working there as well.

01:35:15.728 --> 01:35:24.068
Yeah. So I think whether here or anywhere else, and one of the things that is,

01:35:24.388 --> 01:35:30.848
I mean, Amazon.com is just one of the ways it can go anywhere.

01:35:30.848 --> 01:35:41.828
Where the problem is that we still don't have access to the book in different languages,

01:35:43.048 --> 01:35:52.508
because it's still waiting until the rest is coming out, meaning the other versions.

01:35:54.828 --> 01:36:00.988
Example, in Switzerland, I cannot buy, they cannot buy the book unless they

01:36:00.988 --> 01:36:02.908
are speaking in English only.

01:36:03.628 --> 01:36:10.288
And they're all asking for German versions or Spanish versions, whatever.

01:36:11.588 --> 01:36:15.588
I got you. But all right, well, that's, you know, that's coming.

01:36:15.908 --> 01:36:21.268
So, you know, we're, you know, for those folks that want those different versions,

01:36:21.268 --> 01:36:23.848
I hope that they get them as soon as they're available.

01:36:25.028 --> 01:36:28.488
But, Gerta Keller, again, thank you for coming on the podcast.

01:36:28.948 --> 01:36:35.428
I greatly appreciate the work that you put in, and I greatly appreciate you

01:36:35.428 --> 01:36:40.148
coming on and expressing your thoughts.

01:36:40.388 --> 01:36:44.488
And like I said, I greatly appreciate you for who you are.

01:36:45.148 --> 01:36:50.488
Well, thank you. I think it was absolutely fabulous to talk with you.

01:36:52.648 --> 01:37:00.028
And I, yes, what can I say? I think you're a great guy.

01:37:01.108 --> 01:37:05.628
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. On that note, ladies and gentlemen,

01:37:05.948 --> 01:37:07.668
we're going to catch you all on the other side.

01:37:20.566 --> 01:37:27.106
We are back. So I want to thank Robynn Smith and Gerta Keller for coming on the show.

01:37:28.346 --> 01:37:34.126
If you're into art, please support Robynn's Endeavor with Print Day in May.

01:37:34.766 --> 01:37:41.226
You can go to the website and check it out and, you know, learn a little more about it.

01:37:41.726 --> 01:37:45.666
And like I said, you know, just it's a cool thing.

01:37:46.506 --> 01:37:52.606
And I was glad she was able to give some insight about the relationship between

01:37:52.606 --> 01:37:59.406
the arts and politics and go out and get The Last Extinction.

01:37:59.926 --> 01:38:01.966
That's the book by Gerta Keller.

01:38:03.975 --> 01:38:08.115
Very fascinating, very detailed about her theory of what happened,

01:38:08.115 --> 01:38:12.975
but it also gives you some insights of what goes on in the scientific community.

01:38:12.975 --> 01:38:17.315
And those are some of the things I was trying to pull out in the interview about

01:38:17.315 --> 01:38:26.575
a lot of the fighting that you see in politics kind of happens in other areas of life.

01:38:27.455 --> 01:38:34.095
So basically there's politics in everything, right it's not just politics impacts

01:38:34.095 --> 01:38:36.735
everything in your life but politics is in everything,

01:38:37.415 --> 01:38:43.075
and it doesn't matter if you're a preacher at a church or you know a scientist

01:38:43.075 --> 01:38:51.215
with a theory you're going to encounter some political dynamics in order to

01:38:51.215 --> 01:38:56.675
do what you want to do and do what you know, expose truth, right?

01:38:57.435 --> 01:39:04.355
And again, her insight into climate change and how her research kind of,

01:39:04.435 --> 01:39:11.075
you know, opened the light as far as what that impact really will be like.

01:39:12.315 --> 01:39:17.755
So I think it's a good book for people to read. And I hope you appreciated the

01:39:17.755 --> 01:39:21.475
conversation I had with her as well as with Robynn Smith.

01:39:22.635 --> 01:39:28.435
So some interesting things happened this week. We had a Supreme Court case.

01:39:30.469 --> 01:39:37.929
That came up. There was this guy in Mississippi who was, he's like one of those

01:39:37.929 --> 01:39:42.329
street evangelists and he was, you know,

01:39:42.489 --> 01:39:45.829
calling women who were coming out at this particular concert.

01:39:46.169 --> 01:39:49.649
I think it was a country concert from when I remember.

01:39:50.929 --> 01:39:56.109
And he was calling the women whores and jezebels and all that.

01:39:57.389 --> 01:40:02.469
And the local police arrested him. I think it was Brandon, Mississippi,

01:40:02.749 --> 01:40:03.769
which is in Rankin County.

01:40:04.409 --> 01:40:09.689
They arrested him for, you know, being a disturbance and obstruction and all that.

01:40:09.829 --> 01:40:15.249
And so not following the rules of where you can protest.

01:40:17.569 --> 01:40:23.009
So he didn't challenge the conviction. He went ahead and paid the fine, all that stuff.

01:40:23.329 --> 01:40:28.469
But he challenged the law that they used to convict him.

01:40:29.449 --> 01:40:34.729
And so there was some case in 1994 that basically said you really can't do that.

01:40:35.469 --> 01:40:39.529
And so up until they got to the U.S. Supreme Court, that was what they were citing.

01:40:39.709 --> 01:40:44.549
It was like, look, you know, you can't be convicted of something and turn around

01:40:44.549 --> 01:40:46.909
and say it's unconstitutional. Right.

01:40:47.649 --> 01:40:52.229
I think you kind of have to, like, fight the conviction or whatever,

01:40:52.589 --> 01:40:56.949
or be in the process of fighting your conviction still. Right.

01:40:57.575 --> 01:41:02.035
Before you can, you know, while you're challenging the constitutionality of it.

01:41:02.555 --> 01:41:07.015
Well, the U.S. Supreme Court said, no, not really. If it's an unconstitutional

01:41:07.015 --> 01:41:13.075
law, then he has the right to challenge that, regardless of his legal status.

01:41:13.995 --> 01:41:20.255
Now, it didn't overturn the conviction. It just said that he has the right to sue, right?

01:41:20.255 --> 01:41:25.115
So that's an important case that y'all need to bookmark,

01:41:25.295 --> 01:41:29.995
especially when it comes to some of the stuff that's getting ready to happen

01:41:29.995 --> 01:41:35.535
with voting rights and all the other dynamics that have been taking place,

01:41:35.535 --> 01:41:41.195
all these protests that have been happening with the president and his decisions,

01:41:41.195 --> 01:41:51.335
especially as this military action in Iran is taking place. There will be protests on that.

01:41:51.715 --> 01:41:54.455
So that's something to pay attention to.

01:41:55.275 --> 01:42:03.195
Then in Ohio, an artist named Afro Man won a case for free speech.

01:42:04.255 --> 01:42:12.475
And his scenario was that the police came to his house allegedly looking for

01:42:12.475 --> 01:42:15.175
somebody who was kidnapped. mapped.

01:42:16.875 --> 01:42:20.155
And, you know, they searched through the house and all that stuff.

01:42:20.155 --> 01:42:24.495
And so he caught everything they did on his security cameras in the house.

01:42:25.175 --> 01:42:31.635
So needless to say, they didn't find what they were looking for,

01:42:31.855 --> 01:42:33.815
at least what they said they were looking for.

01:42:33.935 --> 01:42:39.675
But they took $5,400 that he had in the house.

01:42:39.835 --> 01:42:42.415
They took that, he seized that, right?

01:42:43.695 --> 01:42:47.415
And one of the officers proceeded to help himself and said.

01:42:49.364 --> 01:42:53.084
To a slice of lemon pound cake that was in the kitchen.

01:42:54.084 --> 01:43:01.984
So Afro Man decided that being the artist that he is, and his most popular song

01:43:01.984 --> 01:43:07.644
was Get High, I think is the name of it, Because I Get High or something like that.

01:43:07.784 --> 01:43:12.124
But it was, and it's an old song.

01:43:12.284 --> 01:43:17.804
When I say old, it's like over 20 years ago that he made this song.

01:43:19.004 --> 01:43:24.844
And but it was very very popular i was kind of like a it didn't get a whole

01:43:24.844 --> 01:43:26.424
lot of radio play but it was kind

01:43:26.424 --> 01:43:32.084
of the song that propelled him into the discussion as far as artists go,

01:43:33.004 --> 01:43:39.924
and and he's always kind of been that cutting edge kind of guy and he actually

01:43:39.924 --> 01:43:42.944
ran for president i I think, in the last election.

01:43:44.524 --> 01:43:49.884
So he decided to, I don't know if he made a whole album, but I know he made

01:43:49.884 --> 01:43:54.044
a song called Lemon Pound Cake, but I think he made a whole album off of the

01:43:54.044 --> 01:43:56.524
experience with the police officers.

01:43:58.224 --> 01:44:02.304
And so the police officers caught holy hell,

01:44:02.844 --> 01:44:06.904
from the town residents because of what they did to Afro man,

01:44:06.904 --> 01:44:14.564
even to the extent where people were calling 911 asking, what did you do with Afro Man's money?

01:44:14.844 --> 01:44:19.104
Now, he got 5,000 of the 5,400 back.

01:44:19.764 --> 01:44:24.504
And so people were calling and saying, well, where's the rest of his money? Literally calling 911.

01:44:25.924 --> 01:44:32.124
So these police officers, including the sheriff, decided to sue Afro Man for

01:44:32.124 --> 01:44:36.824
defamation. And they just had the case and a jury.

01:44:37.284 --> 01:44:45.064
It wasn't a judge civil case. Most of these cases, the judge usually makes a

01:44:45.064 --> 01:44:48.524
decision, but I guess the plaintiffs thought if they had the citizens...

01:44:50.472 --> 01:44:56.912
His peers that they would, you know, and you don't have to have absolute proof, right?

01:44:57.172 --> 01:45:00.092
It's the preponderance of the evidence in a civil case.

01:45:00.492 --> 01:45:06.432
And so they thought with a jury trial, they would get the verdict they wanted. Well, they were wrong.

01:45:07.012 --> 01:45:11.172
And that was a miscalculation on their part. If people are calling 911 asking

01:45:11.172 --> 01:45:13.852
you, what have you done with this man's money?

01:45:14.252 --> 01:45:17.412
It's probably a good indication that the citizens are not on your side.

01:45:18.112 --> 01:45:25.372
Nevertheless, they had a jury trial, and the jury said that Afro Man didn't

01:45:25.372 --> 01:45:31.872
defame them, that he had the right under the First Amendment as an artist to do what he wanted to do.

01:45:31.972 --> 01:45:35.912
And the basic argument was it was his cameras, it was his house,

01:45:36.572 --> 01:45:40.752
that he got all this material from to write the songs. It was his experience.

01:45:41.372 --> 01:45:45.812
And so he decided to tell his side of the story and he did it in the form that

01:45:45.812 --> 01:45:54.132
he's famous for which was music and you know there were some people that were

01:45:54.132 --> 01:45:56.052
kind of shocked by it but not because,

01:45:56.954 --> 01:46:02.034
you know, are advocates of the First Amendment. But this is a big thing because,

01:46:02.574 --> 01:46:07.954
you know, there have been some young men here in Atlanta for example and other

01:46:07.954 --> 01:46:13.914
places that are artists and they have been using their lyrics to try to get criminal convictions,

01:46:14.774 --> 01:46:18.574
against them for stuff that they say on their records.

01:46:19.674 --> 01:46:21.914
Yes, I'm old. I still say records.

01:46:24.054 --> 01:46:33.254
And so this is a This is a big deal because this is protection for artists to

01:46:33.254 --> 01:46:36.814
express themselves, you know,

01:46:36.954 --> 01:46:39.734
because I don't know any other place.

01:46:41.534 --> 01:46:47.814
Maybe a jury might have found him responsible, but I don't really think so.

01:46:47.814 --> 01:46:55.634
I think this is just a classic case of, you know, people understanding what

01:46:55.634 --> 01:46:59.314
the First Amendment is about and understood that he had the right to do that.

01:46:59.814 --> 01:47:06.614
And because he did it as a parody, right, he wasn't necessarily doing a documentary

01:47:06.614 --> 01:47:13.434
by music. He was, you know, doing a parody of the officers and their actions.

01:47:14.034 --> 01:47:19.714
So they basically said no harm, no foul. You know, if your ego's bruised, so what?

01:47:19.894 --> 01:47:23.154
You kicked in the man's door and commenced the action.

01:47:24.754 --> 01:47:27.994
So that's a case that you need to...

01:47:30.154 --> 01:47:38.874
To. So, you know, the court systems are about the only thing really going,

01:47:39.074 --> 01:47:42.194
you know, that is somewhat stable.

01:47:42.414 --> 01:47:47.894
You're not going to get rulings that you want all the time, but,

01:47:47.894 --> 01:47:54.014
you know, there are cases that are out there that, you know, we just,

01:47:54.314 --> 01:47:57.534
you know, and they may not get all of the attention,

01:47:57.834 --> 01:48:03.314
but it's just reminders that in all this chaos and confusion and cowardice,

01:48:03.374 --> 01:48:09.854
that there's one institution that still you got a shot at, and that's in the judicial system,

01:48:10.354 --> 01:48:12.334
civil or criminal.

01:48:12.874 --> 01:48:15.954
Probably more civil, you have a better chance than criminal,

01:48:16.074 --> 01:48:22.134
but we just need to pay attention to those kind of things, and I wanted to bring those cases up.

01:48:22.194 --> 01:48:29.034
There was another case I was thinking about, but it slipped in my mind at this particular point.

01:48:29.274 --> 01:48:35.334
So I won't belabor and go on, but I just wanted to highlight those two.

01:48:36.234 --> 01:48:43.454
And there was one other thing I wanted to talk about dealing with,

01:48:43.454 --> 01:48:47.894
there's a correlation I wanted to make, right?

01:48:49.365 --> 01:48:56.705
So in Georgia, where I'm based, as of this moment, there is no black person

01:48:56.705 --> 01:49:00.685
that is a Republican that serves in the state legislature.

01:49:01.125 --> 01:49:05.485
The Georgia legislature is majority Republican, both in the House and the Senate.

01:49:05.485 --> 01:49:11.825
They actually have a trifecta here in Georgia where the both houses of the legislature

01:49:11.825 --> 01:49:18.385
and the governor's office is occupied by Republicans, or at least the majority

01:49:18.385 --> 01:49:19.345
in the House and the Senate.

01:49:20.445 --> 01:49:26.825
And so there's an effort to recruit black Republicans. They had this big thing.

01:49:27.005 --> 01:49:31.585
There's this cool place called the Freight Depot in downtown Atlanta,

01:49:32.045 --> 01:49:36.385
not that far from the Capitol, actually. and they use it for events.

01:49:36.505 --> 01:49:41.365
The Black Caucus usually has their events there and I've been there a few times.

01:49:42.945 --> 01:49:48.305
And so they had an event there and it was highlighting, I think there's like

01:49:48.305 --> 01:49:55.165
35 Black Republicans that are now on a ballot to run for either a statewide office,

01:49:55.865 --> 01:49:58.865
or one of the legislative seats.

01:49:59.205 --> 01:50:02.805
And one of the nuances is that Thank you.

01:50:04.921 --> 01:50:11.161
Republican Party paid the qualifying fees for those Black Republicans.

01:50:11.421 --> 01:50:15.301
So as long as you weren't running against a Republican incumbent,

01:50:15.301 --> 01:50:21.461
you were running against a Democratic incumbent, the state party paid your qualifying fee.

01:50:21.681 --> 01:50:26.121
And that's like 400 bucks for a state legislature, but if you wanted to run

01:50:26.121 --> 01:50:29.901
for the Supreme Court, which is supposedly nonpartisan, you know,

01:50:30.361 --> 01:50:34.161
whatever you wanted to run for, they pay, if you were a black Republican,

01:50:34.321 --> 01:50:35.921
they pay for that, right?

01:50:37.081 --> 01:50:42.321
Which I thought was kind of interesting because, you know, these are the same people.

01:50:44.201 --> 01:50:54.101
Who challenged a black venture capital fund for creating grants for black women,

01:50:55.712 --> 01:51:01.432
start-up businesses. And they said that was kind of, that was unfair because

01:51:01.432 --> 01:51:04.692
you were just targeting black women.

01:51:04.952 --> 01:51:11.212
It didn't give Asian women, it didn't give Latino women, it didn't give anybody

01:51:11.212 --> 01:51:13.792
else a chance to get this money.

01:51:13.952 --> 01:51:17.332
It was only geared for black women, right?

01:51:17.652 --> 01:51:26.212
They support this guy named Edward Bloom who is suing every college he can get

01:51:26.212 --> 01:51:31.492
a chance to about their admissions policies, right?

01:51:31.692 --> 01:51:34.252
You're offering scholarships to these black kids.

01:51:34.672 --> 01:51:39.832
You're admitting these black kids, but you're not admitting these Asian children

01:51:39.832 --> 01:51:41.832
or these Latino children or whatever.

01:51:42.412 --> 01:51:45.352
They're saying that's discriminatory, right?

01:51:45.812 --> 01:51:54.512
But they think it's okay to pay the filing fees for black people to run as a

01:51:54.512 --> 01:51:56.452
Republican. in an election.

01:51:57.552 --> 01:52:05.132
So if you're a Latino and you wanted to run for a statewide office or a legislative

01:52:05.132 --> 01:52:10.872
seat in the state of Georgia and you went to the, the Republican Party didn't pay for your fee to run.

01:52:11.312 --> 01:52:17.172
You're Asian. They didn't pay your fee. But if you're black, they paid your fee.

01:52:17.952 --> 01:52:23.492
And so the question I have is, what's the difference between a venture capital,

01:52:24.472 --> 01:52:33.332
organization using their money to support Black women starting a business and

01:52:33.332 --> 01:52:38.772
a political party using their money to recruit Black candidates. What's the difference?

01:52:40.624 --> 01:52:43.904
The obvious, which is self-service, right?

01:52:44.364 --> 01:52:49.224
Because Black women trying to attain wealth is against the agenda,

01:52:49.224 --> 01:52:57.164
but Black people touting the Republican platform of denying Black people wealth is okay.

01:52:58.664 --> 01:53:05.124
It's, you know, this is part of the hypocrisy of why they can't get any Black

01:53:05.124 --> 01:53:07.624
folks to vote for these candidates.

01:53:07.904 --> 01:53:12.384
And even if these candidates run, the majority of Black people that vote are

01:53:12.384 --> 01:53:13.564
not going to vote for them.

01:53:14.144 --> 01:53:19.604
There's one young brother, he's running for the U.S. Senate here.

01:53:20.804 --> 01:53:26.904
Now, he's up against a current congressman, Mike Collins, and a few other folks.

01:53:28.464 --> 01:53:34.084
He's not going to get the nomination. But he's running, and if you didn't know

01:53:34.084 --> 01:53:36.304
he was Black, You just looked at his platform.

01:53:36.424 --> 01:53:39.504
You just thought he was just another white Republican.

01:53:39.684 --> 01:53:43.884
You thought he was like this Rick Jackson guy who's just come out of nowhere

01:53:43.884 --> 01:53:48.444
and given Burt Jones grief as far as running for governor in the Republican

01:53:48.444 --> 01:53:50.184
primary. You couldn't tell.

01:53:50.704 --> 01:53:55.084
You know, he's trying, his brother's trying to get in the November election

01:53:55.084 --> 01:53:57.124
against John Hosoff. Right.

01:53:58.476 --> 01:54:03.556
And, you know, he's talking the same thing about, you know,

01:54:04.636 --> 01:54:11.776
God only recognizes two genders and, you know, same-sex marriage,

01:54:12.016 --> 01:54:16.976
you know, marriage is sacred, it's not supposed to be same-sex.

01:54:16.976 --> 01:54:19.456
All the old hits, right?

01:54:21.096 --> 01:54:26.636
And again, they don't seem to get that because, you know,

01:54:26.796 --> 01:54:30.916
people of a certain faith, they understand what you're saying,

01:54:30.916 --> 01:54:38.636
but you still are missing the big part of that whole tolerance thing, right? Right.

01:54:39.536 --> 01:54:49.996
See, you can't tell people how to live their lives and deny them their wealth.

01:54:50.756 --> 01:54:55.916
Right. And Americans have been trying to tell you all this for a long time,

01:54:56.076 --> 01:55:04.456
but you seem to get just enough people in positions to hold that authoritative line.

01:55:04.456 --> 01:55:14.636
Now, wherever you personally stand on the LGBTQ issue or just anything, right,

01:55:15.276 --> 01:55:23.716
you know, it's one of those things where it's like people have the right to live their lives.

01:55:23.716 --> 01:55:28.316
And the most important thing that we're supposed to remember,

01:55:28.776 --> 01:55:34.396
besides tolerance, for all these folks that always use the Bible for their political

01:55:34.396 --> 01:55:37.336
backbone or philosophy, whatever,

01:55:37.716 --> 01:55:44.456
is that if you go to the very middle, if you split the Bible in half,

01:55:45.056 --> 01:55:47.816
you will come to Matthew 7.1.

01:55:47.976 --> 01:55:51.416
And it says, judge not that ye be judged yourself, right?

01:55:52.670 --> 01:55:56.530
Have the right to judge people on how they live. We don't.

01:55:56.690 --> 01:56:03.010
We do it, but we really don't, especially if we ascribe to Christianity as a

01:56:03.010 --> 01:56:04.950
faith. That's not our job.

01:56:05.490 --> 01:56:12.550
God does that. Our job is to try to spread the good news, which was what we

01:56:12.550 --> 01:56:18.490
called a great commission, and live our lives according to that great commission, right?

01:56:19.150 --> 01:56:26.310
And the most important thing is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, right?

01:56:26.490 --> 01:56:31.850
So if your neighbor is not the same as you, you don't have the right to hate them.

01:56:32.670 --> 01:56:37.670
Your obligation is to love them as a creation of God, just like you were created.

01:56:38.950 --> 01:56:41.030
Which you have a better chance.

01:56:41.610 --> 01:56:45.010
You already beat the odds because you had a better chance of winning the lottery

01:56:45.010 --> 01:56:47.390
than you did being born, right?

01:56:47.830 --> 01:56:49.850
So you already defied that odd.

01:56:50.930 --> 01:56:56.810
And you want to squander your blessing by hating on people that are different than you, right?

01:56:57.250 --> 01:57:00.370
You've built a whole political culture on that.

01:57:00.970 --> 01:57:07.050
If you want to evangelize about what you believe about marriage and all that stuff, that's fine.

01:57:07.350 --> 01:57:09.650
There's plenty of churches that need preaches.

01:57:10.610 --> 01:57:16.150
But if you decide to take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States

01:57:16.150 --> 01:57:20.150
and the Constitution of the state that you live in and the laws thereof,

01:57:20.850 --> 01:57:25.350
then you have to understand that there are people that are not of your faith

01:57:25.350 --> 01:57:28.150
that are citizens of that state or of this nation.

01:57:29.010 --> 01:57:34.490
You have to understand them. And so you have to respect people where they are.

01:57:34.990 --> 01:57:40.670
And you have to protect people from folks that don't get the memo, right?

01:57:40.830 --> 01:57:44.350
Because there's a lot of people in the United States, and it's growing by the

01:57:44.350 --> 01:57:47.630
day, that don't ascribe to any religion at all.

01:57:49.501 --> 01:57:54.781
So they shouldn't be discriminated against because they don't believe what you believe.

01:57:55.441 --> 01:57:58.661
And you can't force feed that into them.

01:57:59.101 --> 01:58:06.281
But then they wonder why black people are not gravitating to the Republican Party.

01:58:07.781 --> 01:58:13.541
So that means that you need to understand black history in the United States.

01:58:14.301 --> 01:58:21.001
We just went over the fact that the first blacks that showed up were stolen twice.

01:58:22.661 --> 01:58:29.281
The 20 black folks that showed up in Jamestown, Virginia, a British colony,

01:58:29.541 --> 01:58:32.581
were actually supposed to go somewhere else to Portuguese.

01:58:33.241 --> 01:58:38.661
Had because it was the Portuguese slave traders that got those 20 people initially.

01:58:39.141 --> 01:58:45.001
I think it's from Angola. And then a British ship pirated them and took them

01:58:45.001 --> 01:58:49.081
and whatever other cargo they stole from the ship, right?

01:58:49.381 --> 01:58:51.441
And that's how they ended up in Jamestown.

01:58:52.381 --> 01:58:58.221
So just that little tidbit of history will tell you that black people are not

01:58:58.221 --> 01:59:06.241
friendly to any kind of philosophy that's going to tell them how to live, right?

01:59:06.801 --> 01:59:10.761
Now, you can guide people, which is what religion is.

01:59:11.401 --> 01:59:17.761
You can give people options to choose in their own free will how to live their

01:59:17.761 --> 01:59:21.561
life, whether it's Christianity or Islam or Judaism.

01:59:22.501 --> 01:59:26.781
Yes, there are black people who are Jewish, right, all over the planet.

01:59:27.721 --> 01:59:35.861
So people can choose how they want to live but you can't force feed it into

01:59:35.861 --> 01:59:38.501
them, you can't oppress them into it, you can't.

01:59:40.193 --> 01:59:45.673
The submission to live a life. That experiment has been tried with Black people

01:59:45.673 --> 01:59:47.833
in the United States for a long time.

01:59:48.493 --> 01:59:54.193
And generation after generation after generation has rebelled enough to the

01:59:54.193 --> 01:59:57.133
point now where a Black person could be President of the United States,

01:59:57.153 --> 01:59:59.093
a Black person could be Vice President of the United States,

01:59:59.133 --> 02:00:00.753
a Black person could be a billionaire,

02:00:01.753 --> 02:00:07.013
a Black person could be a face of a sport, a Black person can fight a lawsuit

02:00:07.013 --> 02:00:10.493
against police officers over free speech.

02:00:11.513 --> 02:00:19.233
Each and every time, each and every generation, we have shown you that we don't

02:00:19.233 --> 02:00:20.693
want to be told what to do.

02:00:21.553 --> 02:00:25.453
And we're not going to support a political party that doesn't get that memo.

02:00:26.973 --> 02:00:32.213
You're always going to have a few. Like you said, you got 35 people to run this time, right?

02:00:33.133 --> 02:00:38.673
And if they believe that of their own free will, and that's what they want to do, then so be it.

02:00:39.553 --> 02:00:44.013
But when you try to get into a position to enact a law that's saying you got

02:00:44.013 --> 02:00:49.313
to live this lifestyle, you're going to have rebellion. You're going to have a problem.

02:00:50.193 --> 02:00:54.973
Regardless of how you personally feel about it, that's not your job.

02:00:55.953 --> 02:01:02.533
Your job is to protect individual liberties and the general welfare.

02:01:03.033 --> 02:01:08.993
Provide for it. That's it. That's spelled out in the preamble of the Constitution.

02:01:09.493 --> 02:01:15.413
That's it. Everything else is to kind of set those things in order that,

02:01:16.562 --> 02:01:21.522
go to war, Mr. President, you've got to get Congress because Congress represents the people.

02:01:21.742 --> 02:01:26.502
You have to have the people behind your desire to go to war with another nation state.

02:01:27.202 --> 02:01:33.182
That's why it's set up that way. It ain't about your feelings and your bones or wherever.

02:01:33.802 --> 02:01:36.922
There's a process. And I get it.

02:01:38.082 --> 02:01:42.542
Despite what other character flaws you have, I get it that because you were

02:01:42.542 --> 02:01:45.782
a CEO, you're used to making a decision and things start happening.

02:01:45.962 --> 02:01:47.442
That's not how this works.

02:01:49.622 --> 02:01:54.562
Congress has to have a say-so in it because they represent the population.

02:01:55.282 --> 02:02:00.602
That's why it was created first. That's why they get sworn in first.

02:02:02.663 --> 02:02:12.783
The madness, right? So if the Republican Party wants to get black people in,

02:02:13.043 --> 02:02:18.003
then it has to talk about what they're for instead of what they're against.

02:02:18.483 --> 02:02:23.283
Their political platform has to be about things you are going to do to help

02:02:23.283 --> 02:02:27.483
people as opposed to things that you're going to do to restrict people.

02:02:28.063 --> 02:02:33.183
But as long as certain elements within that party are the dominant party,

02:02:33.443 --> 02:02:35.323
then that's how that's going to go.

02:02:36.163 --> 02:02:42.043
Now, people may give you the time of day if you say the right thing about groceries

02:02:42.043 --> 02:02:48.163
being cheaper or, you know, you promise the sky will always be blue, whatever.

02:02:49.183 --> 02:02:51.543
Gets them to vote your way, right?

02:02:51.943 --> 02:02:57.163
But the reality is that the American people are tired of anybody's let alone

02:02:57.163 --> 02:03:02.783
the federal government, which gets trillions of dollars from us to protect our

02:03:02.783 --> 02:03:05.443
individual liberties and to promote the general welfare,

02:03:05.723 --> 02:03:08.423
telling us how to live our life.

02:03:09.303 --> 02:03:14.463
If you're constantly running into a situation where 80% of a particular group

02:03:14.463 --> 02:03:17.723
doesn't like what you're saying, maybe you need to change what you're saying.

02:03:18.563 --> 02:03:22.783
If you don't know which way another group's going to go, it might be 51%,

02:03:22.783 --> 02:03:25.743
one election, and then there might be 40 the next.

02:03:26.663 --> 02:03:30.783
You might need to be consistent in what you're saying and your actions.

02:03:31.603 --> 02:03:36.623
If you say, all I'm going to do is deport criminals, and then you start deporting

02:03:36.623 --> 02:03:41.503
everybody, that's not following what you said. That's lying to people.

02:03:42.063 --> 02:03:45.323
And then you wonder why people are not supporting you the next election.

02:03:47.503 --> 02:03:51.363
It's just basic common sense, and I understand common sense and common.

02:03:51.483 --> 02:03:53.503
A lot of people are reminding us of that.

02:03:53.723 --> 02:03:58.443
And it's not about chaos and confusion and cowardice either.

02:03:59.543 --> 02:04:04.663
American leadership is about being courageous. It's about being innovative.

02:04:05.183 --> 02:04:07.523
It's about caring for people.

02:04:08.123 --> 02:04:14.703
It's about standing up for the citizens instead of putting them down or restricting their freedoms.

02:04:15.703 --> 02:04:20.323
And until you get that memo, you're not going to have people on your side.

02:04:21.303 --> 02:04:26.323
And for my friends on the Democratic side, if you want to be true American leaders,

02:04:26.483 --> 02:04:29.123
then you've got to stay consistent.

02:04:30.083 --> 02:04:37.043
You have to. If you are going to be the alternative to a party that wants to

02:04:37.043 --> 02:04:42.323
restrict human beings, then you have to be consistent in fighting for the rights of every human being.

02:04:42.323 --> 02:04:48.663
Even if it ain't popular or politically convenient, right?

02:04:49.103 --> 02:04:53.363
There were decisions that your parents made that you didn't agree with.

02:04:54.283 --> 02:05:00.723
But once you became a parent, then you realized, huh, now I get it.

02:05:03.401 --> 02:05:08.481
Because the parent was over you, the parent was responsible for you.

02:05:09.021 --> 02:05:14.681
You didn't ask to show up here. They contributed and brought you into this world.

02:05:15.561 --> 02:05:20.721
They were the ones playing in the casino of life in the universe.

02:05:21.941 --> 02:05:28.201
And they won because you showed up. So they had a responsibility for you.

02:05:28.941 --> 02:05:33.761
And so those of us who are given the opportunity to serve in the public,

02:05:33.761 --> 02:05:39.361
we have to have that same mentality that we have a responsibility for the people that we represent.

02:05:40.461 --> 02:05:44.661
And we have to be consistent in that. You can't be everybody's friend.

02:05:45.261 --> 02:05:49.141
You've heard people tell parents that you can't be your child's friend.

02:05:49.141 --> 02:05:50.941
You have to be their parent.

02:05:51.921 --> 02:05:56.121
So you have to be their shepherd. You have to be their protector.

02:05:56.301 --> 02:06:02.661
You have to be their provider. You have to be the person that promotes their

02:06:02.661 --> 02:06:10.881
general welfare and to develop them so that they can have the free will to dictate

02:06:10.881 --> 02:06:13.781
how they want to live their lives,

02:06:14.221 --> 02:06:15.841
their individual liberty.

02:06:17.141 --> 02:06:21.541
I'll be glad when this foolishness that we call the U.S.

02:06:21.621 --> 02:06:25.221
Government right now is over and that the

02:06:25.221 --> 02:06:28.081
majority of the people figure out what

02:06:28.081 --> 02:06:35.561
their role is really supposed to be so but until that time me and countless

02:06:35.561 --> 02:06:42.501
others will continue to remind them that they have a responsibility and not

02:06:42.501 --> 02:06:45.481
a mandate to dictate to us,

02:06:46.301 --> 02:06:50.541
when you get out of this dictating how we're supposed to live our lives when

02:06:50.541 --> 02:06:52.641
you get that mentality out of your system,

02:06:53.601 --> 02:06:58.561
you'll have the most productive America history has ever recorded or seen.

02:07:00.728 --> 02:07:08.528
Catering to people who defied the odds and made ungodly sums of money and equate

02:07:08.528 --> 02:07:11.068
that with intelligence and talent and all that stuff.

02:07:11.768 --> 02:07:17.208
It has to be a certain aspect to that, but if you master a skill,

02:07:17.328 --> 02:07:20.828
that doesn't mean that you are a master of the universe, right?

02:07:21.648 --> 02:07:26.248
I'm just saying. If you have the ability to make money, that doesn't mean that

02:07:26.248 --> 02:07:28.708
you get to tell me what to do with my life.

02:07:29.768 --> 02:07:36.048
So, you know, just some thoughts Just something that was on my mind I wanted

02:07:36.048 --> 02:07:41.368
to bring out those court cases But I really wanted to get that out Because I'm not against,

02:07:41.988 --> 02:07:47.208
If you know me I've always said my dream scenario in life Would see a black

02:07:47.208 --> 02:07:52.428
person running as a Democrat nominee And a black person as a Republican nominee

02:07:52.428 --> 02:07:56.468
For President of the United States I would love to live to see that.

02:07:58.748 --> 02:08:04.188
But we got to have reform in both parties for that to happen.

02:08:04.988 --> 02:08:09.688
We got to take cruelty out of one. We got to take fear out of the other one.

02:08:10.348 --> 02:08:17.208
And once we do that, once we take cruelty and fear out of our main political thought and strategy,

02:08:17.908 --> 02:08:22.168
then it's possible to see two Latinos run against each other for president or

02:08:22.168 --> 02:08:25.628
two women, let alone two black folks.

02:08:26.468 --> 02:08:32.508
Right? Because society will be freer. And because fear and cruelty are human

02:08:32.508 --> 02:08:37.508
elements that are fueled by supernatural forces, it's going to be hard to eradicate it.

02:08:37.908 --> 02:08:40.128
But if we could just get it out of politics.

02:08:42.238 --> 02:08:48.298
Moment we would have. If we could get it out of government, then we could debate

02:08:48.298 --> 02:08:56.958
the real merits of an issue honestly and openly and stop creating issues where there aren't.

02:08:57.458 --> 02:09:04.698
So, I appreciate y'all listening. I appreciate y'all support. And until next time.