Ep. 46 Statute Of Limitations On Tweets, Time Magazine's Gretta The Grouch, I Yelled At My Kid, Weird Retirement Arrangements

Welcome to the final episode of the Modern Moron… for 2019!  We finish the year by finishing our conversation with the Senator, recorded just before Christmas.

The Senator thinks there should be a Statute of limitations for tweets and public statements which a public figure can be held accountable for?  Sound like bullshit? Me too.

We discuss the origin of the word Chick as slang for a woman.

He tries to tell me again that I am high maintenance, yet he doesn’t want to be held accountable for his text to me that I am “worse than any chick on the planet.”  

I bring up the interview I did with The Senator’s daughter and her recent tattoos and the talk he is going to have with her when she comes home from college.  Somehow this leads to a discussion about the environment.

Our lack of knowledge on the subject fulfills our once-per-episode obligation to justify the name of the show.  We have no clue about anything remotely specific about environmentally hazardous materials that are being produced by different countries and we prove it.

Unfortunately this turns into a conversation about Time Magazine’s Person of the Year Greta Thunburg.  In fact, I go into full okay-boomer moron-mode in a rant about Greta. (drop) I’ve listened to it way more than you ever will debating on whether I should leave it in the episode or not because I am not kind towards Greta.  She’s just a kid and I’ll bet she never expected to get this much attention and now she’s literally the poster child for environmental action. Her latest poster is the cover of Time Magazine. I feel like some people are going to be so disturbed and disgusted with my rant that they won’t listen ever again.  So should I have taken it out? Interesting question. If I start second guessing about the content of this tiny podcast and try to please who I think might be a target audience or leave out content because I don’t want to alienate anyone, this show will become complete milk toast and it wont’ have ANY value, not even to myself.  It kind of goes back to that old saying, “you can please some people all the time, and all of the people some of the time… but you can’t please all the people all the time. I can’t please everyone and I shouldn’t try. But I shouldn’t be shocking just for the shock value either and what’s shocking or crude to some is ... entertainment to someone else.  See the inner turmoil I am constantly living with? It’s so hard to be me.

And then… THEN… I see a photo of Greta with her family; her little sister, her mother and father… her father.  And I think, “if some jackass like me went off on my daughter like that, I’d want to beat his ass.

So, for the most part It is an unpopular position to say that I am not really a fan of Greta even though I agree with much of her point of view.  I would have much preferred to have Andrew Cooper and Alex Schulze as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. They founded the company 4 Ocean which is cleaning up our oceans and rivers.  Andrew and Alex were college grads who took a post graduate vacation to Bali to do some surfing and found beaches with more garbage than sand. Think I’m kidding? Look at the photo’s.  So they started the 4 Ocean Project and are now making an impact.

Or how about Boyan Slat?  I’ve mentioned him on this program before.  He is a 25 year-old Dutch inventor and entrepreneur who creates technological solutions to global problems. He is the founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup; a Dutch foundation which develops advanced systems to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.

As The Ocean Cleanup’s CEO, he currently leads a team of about 80 people, but spends most of his time on research and engineering, through which he co-authored about a dozen scientific papers and multiple patents.  Interesting… why patent something that is going to help clean up the world?

On September 8th of 2018, the world’s first ocean cleanup system was launched from San Francisco, soon after followed by deployment inside the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

I think my issue isn’t with Greta Thunderbird.  I think my issue is with Time Magazine. I don’t think Time Magazine’s goal is to truly find  someone who has made the greatest impact on our society or more accurately on our planet. I think Time magazine’s goal is to sell magazines.  They took someone who had received a lot of clicks, likes and views and funneled them to time magazine. If Time is truly interested in journalism, why didn’t they make us more aware of the causes of Boyan Slat or the founders of the 4 Ocean Project?  Or any of the thousands of scientists and philanthropists who are making change through action. I’ll bet Time Magazine has a well phrased response that justifies their choice and it will be unwritten that it includes selling more magazines.  

Speaking of hypocrites… because after all aren’t I just complaining about a complainer?... we join my conversation with the Senator as we discuss how there should be a law or statute of limitations on the responsibility a person must be accountable regarding their tweets and other public statements.  Isn’t that THE perfect topic for this show?

Boyan Slat: https://www.boyanslat.com/

Boyan Slat’s Project: https://theoceancleanup.com/

The 4 Ocean Project: https://4ocean.com/cleanups/

These 20-something surfers started a company that’s pulled 1 million pounds of garbage out of the ocean