If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver last night, his Main Story was on carbon offsets -- how they often don't accomplish anything that companies hope they will...or hope you think they will. It's a very good and often funny report. I did have to pause the TV and rewind a couple of times to understand the point he explains too quickly for my ears about how sometimes when a company uses carbon offsets it's actually making the problem worse. But I eventually got what he was saying. It doesn't seem to be something that happens very often, but the fact that it happens at all goes to the issue that carbon offsets aren't always what you hope they are.
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I figured that since, in my piece this morning, I mentioned the wonderful interview that Jason Kander did with Al Franken, some people may have missed it when I posted it a few weeks ago and now might like to hear it. It is thoroughly entertaining, no matter how serious the subject matter is of Jason Kander dealing with PTSD after his time in Afghanistan as an Army captain. The two are friends, and it come through clearly -- in the openness and laughter throughout. I will say what I said previously: this is highly recommended. By the way, in both this Franken interview and the one I posted this morning, they talk about Jason Kander's famous campaign ad when running for the U.S. Senate against Roy Blount. Franken plays the audio of the ad -- which is still pretty impressive, considering the point is so visual. Here is the ad itself. A few weeks back, I posted Al Franken's podcast with Jason Kander, the former Missouri Secretary of State, whose uncle is a longtime friend from my Camp Nebagamon days (and whose great uncle wrote the musicals Cabaret and Chicago). Their conversation was absolutely fascinating -- dramatic, at times harrowing and often surprisingly very funny, as Kander discussed his book, Invisible Storm, about his career and challenges dealing with PTSD from his time in the Iraq War. He was a guest last week on C-SPAN's show BookTalk, along with his wife Diana who wrote first-person commentary throughout Invisible Storm to add family perspective to the book. And once again, the conversation was absolutely fascinating -- dramatic, at times harrowing and often surprisingly very funny. Kander is very open about it all, but he seems to have crossed a major hurdle in his life and is able to talk about it from a perspective that allows him to laugh -- sometimes sardonically, but sometimes at the absurdities and sometimes in a self-effacing way. (My favorite story that he Franken has him read from the book's introduction, though isn't told his, concerns when he decided to get help and walked into a V.A. clinic. Most of the people in the waiting room recognized him -- he was, after all, the state's former Secretary of State, ran for the U.S. Senate and barely lost to Todd Akin and was at the time running for mayor of Kansas City. But the therapist did not recognize him. So, when Kander was asked if he was under any stress lately, he honestly told him what he was doing and added that he'd been also thinking of running for president. "Of what?" the doctor asked. Of the United States, he answered. The therapist, of course, looked at him with great skepticism, and asked why he thought he could do that. To which Kander honestly replied, "Because Barack Obama told me I should consider it." It's at this point, he burst into laughter saying that he could tell that the therapist was sure he totally nuts and delusional.) I'm unable to embed the 50-minute video on these pages, but you can watch it here on the C-SPAN site. It's really wonderful -- for however bleak much of the realities are, this is not an hour of angst. It's actually very entertaining in a rich, meaningful and funny way, by someone able to tells stories extremely well. I am, though, able to post a one-minute clip from the event. It doesn't do the conversation justice at the breadth of the talk, but has him explaining how most people perceive PTSD and what he hopes the book shows in contrast to that. Here's some Viewer Mail from the Late Night with David Letterman show on September 9, 1988. On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guests are Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda. I didn’t know of them before, but they’re the partners who created the popular fake-True Crime documentary series on Netflix, American Vandal, and now have a new fake-documentary series on Paramount+, Players, about the competitive world of e-sports. I’ll just note that they are very funny, and their interview with host Peter Sagal is wildly self-effacing and a hoot.
This the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:45 mark. From the archives, this week's contestant is Andy Zerman from New York, NY. I was pleased, and a bit surprised that I got the composer whose style the song is written in. But I was stumped -- utterly stumped by the hidden song. No clue. Oddly, I thought it might be one of those 'trick songs' that pianist Bruce Adolphe sometimes does, where the song isn't a popular song, but something from the classical world. It wasn't that, but it turns out I had a good reason to think that. (I shall say no more.) Even when he slowed down the song and highlighted it, I didn't know. Only when I started at the main theme and focused on that did I guess it. That one theme, when you know what to listen for, is extremely clear. But the rest is very well hidden. Nice piece, though...
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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