Latest / The Wes Carroll Morning Show / It Continues to Be the Next Pandemic

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It Continues to Be the Next Pandemic · The Wes Carroll Morning Show

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The news, opinions, commentary, and interviews you need to start your day.
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You're listening to the West Carol Morning Show. Monday morning, eighteenth day
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of September. I'm Wes. Thanks for joining me, kicking off another week
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here together. I don't know if you're like me, but you get those
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messages that pop up on social media, specifically, I guess Facebook does the
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Facebook Memories. I know the other some of the other social media platforms do
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that from time to time, but the one that usually gets you is,
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at least with me, the Facebook Memories. They'll pop up and it'll say
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like, you have memories with the following people, and around this time a
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year, those memories are usually especially interesting. This is usually right around,
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you know, It's definitely it's not a right around. It's post Dragon Con
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for me, which I've been attending and covering it as media for you know,
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more than two decades, thanks in part to our friends at Columbus State
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University's Coca Cola Space Science Center who sponsored Dragon Con coverage and have for many,
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many years. So I see a message that will say you have memories
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with the following people. Sometimes it's people that I really only see at dragon
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Con, and I know what those posts are, and I usually like to
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click on them and revisit them. Now, not everybody is revisiting memories from
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dragon Con days. Is not all my memories that I revisit relate to dragon
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Con either. Oftentimes we'll see something that will you'll tell us, you know,
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thirteen, fourteen years ago, whatever, depending on how long you've been
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on there, and you'll see something and it'll be something that you wrote,
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just some comment or you know whatever, anything. Oh my gosh, I
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was a different human being fourteen years ago commenting on social media, and we
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all were right, We all were different with how we treated social media.
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Some, I guess, still do many of the same things. But I
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think it's evolved. I think it's different. Maybe some got a little better
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at it, and some realize that nobody cares. I don't know why people
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haven't realized that when you get on social media and you fire off a bunch
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of comments about politics, it's a way to stir the pot, it's a
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way to get people's attention. But you're not really making any progress, if
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anything, you're making it worse. You're just firing into the old echo chamber
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and hoping that people will agree with you, but or you want to fight.
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And I don't know which it is for you, but you know,
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it's different for different people. But many times we see those Facebook memories and
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we just sort of roll our eyes and we go, oh, my gosh,
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I'm embarrassed. Sometimes we delete those old things because that's gonna make it
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go away and nobody will ever remember that we said it. Probably good advice
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for a number of celebrities. There's been comedians that have tried to erase some
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of the things they've said in the past, or not erase them and had
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them come back and bite them later. In some cases, being a comedian
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is something that you do, You go on stage, you do it,
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and at some point there's an old recording of it. That used to be
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the case. Now with phones and things, there's always a way for it
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to jump back and bite you later. And even things that at a time
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socially more accepted, You probably knew you shouldn't have done it anyway, but
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you did it because you thought you were being bold and challenging something, and
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then later society tells you no, no, no, no no. You
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get no forgiveness for something that you did twenty thirty years ago. That's just
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not the way it works. So most of the time, I feel like
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you're either looking at an old photo or some pleasant memory picture of your dog
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or whatever, or your kids or something and with friends, or it's some
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of those cringe worthy comments that you make. But every now and then there's
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a gem. There's a gem that comes along and you see it and you
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say, oh wow, I said that then, And really and truthfully,
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you kind of almost forget a lot of the things that you said. But
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when they pop back in there and you look at it, and you look
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at the year, and you think, oh wow, this is something that
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I actually said all those years ago. Right, So, fourteen years ago
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over the weekend, I noticed something from fourteen years ago. It was a
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comment that I made that I have since reiterated, right as the pandemic was
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in progress and trying to wind its way down, and I had forgotten that
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I first said this back in O nine. All right, and I'm gonna
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paraphrase it. I'm not going to pull it up and quote it word for
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word, but this is the gist of what I said. And if you've
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been listening to this show, you've been following the show for any length of
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time, you've heard me say versions of this since. But in this particular
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case, I don't know that. No, not everybody would agree with me
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on what I'm about to say, and I understand that. But for me,
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I read it and I thought, oh wow, I hit the nail
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on the head fourteen years ago. I have since said versions of it,
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but I don't know that I've ever said it better than I said it fourteen
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years ago. So COVID comes along and we have this very very confusing time
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for all of us. It was a mixture of various emotions and things that
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we're all going on at once. On one hand, people were dying.
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In some cases we knew people who died. I know people who people that
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I care about that passed because of COVID. I know people who got very,
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very sick. I know one person who actually you know, died in
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the hospital only were able to bring him back. I know people who were
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right there on the brink of passing and they managed to make a few decisions
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at the last minute that probably saved their lives. I know some who did
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not make it, people that I care about that didn't make it so when
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people are very dismissive and they say, ah, you were scared about nothing.
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You were scared about nothing. It wasn't real, and you put on
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a mask because you're stupid. And there's people that say that. I think
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that's a lot of you know, Monday morning quarterback. That's a lot of
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looking back and saying, ah, we know things now that we probably should
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have been able to figure out that. But a lot of people were scared.
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Fear was the main component of all of it, and fear and the
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reality of what it was it was hitting us all kind of at once.
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Politicians didn't really know what to do. Leaders, mayors, governors, the
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president, people in Congress. A lot of people just didn't know what to
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do. This was not something that anybody signed up for. It wasn't no
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one during their campaigns to be mayor of any city was like, I'm gonna
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be ready for when we have a pandemic and I'll know exactly what to do
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and how to handle it. I mean, that's a thing. Now,
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some drop that in. We have, certainly the governor of Florida, Rhonda
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Santis, running for president. Many have applauded the way that he handled the
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pandemic and the decisions and choices that he made to keep Florida open. Some
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question whether or not our governor in Georgia, Brian Kemp, would run for
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president and whether or not, you know, his handling of things in Georgia
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would be a key component for its certainly helped him out with his re election
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for governor, unless you're Stacy Abrahams, and then this would be like the
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first time that you think that he won. So we navigated through that,
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and then we got to a point where we were starting to kind of figure
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out some of the things we should have done, some of the things we
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shouldn't have done. There's still a few things that we're not one hundred percent
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certain about. But I can remember at one point right around as the clouds
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are starting to part for us and we're starting to see a little more clearly,
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and some of the leadership was starting to say, we're not doing this
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crazy stuff. We're not all hiding under the bed. That's not what we're
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going to do. And I remember saying that. It felt like as people
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said, well, what's the next when's the next big pandemic coming? And
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I remember saying it's already here. It relates to racism. It relates to
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the fear mongering that goes with racism. And over the weekend I realized I'd
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made an observation pre pandemic all the way back in two thousand and nine about
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the very same thing. I think this was on the heels of the Beer
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summit. You remember the Beer summit that happened and what Boston professor trying to
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get into his home. Police stop and he tells him, oh, this
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is my home. They think maybe he's trying to break in. He'd locked
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himself out. The President and I guess the police officer and the professor all
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sat down to have a beer together and talk it through and you know,
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solve all of rate Like when Fonzie went to the South and solved racism,
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or when Rocky and Apollo Creed ran on the beach and ended racism. Remember
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those those great moments and TV and movie history when racism was just so easily
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swept away and solved. You know, Fonzie on his motorcycle just driving into
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the Deep South and fixing it just with a few words. It was done.
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It was over. Racism ended. One of the things we were promised,
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by the way, but if you just vote for a black president,
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that's going to fix it all some reason it didn't, some reason, it
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seemed to aggravate things. My observation in two thousand and nine is similar to
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my on the Heels of COVID ending observation, and that it's very much like
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a virus in a sci fi movie. It's very much like some sort of
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an outbreak or pandemic in a sci fi movie when you think, okay,
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we're on the verge of making things better, we're on the verge of everybody
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starting to act right. We've had those moments in history people start to finally
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act right and treat each other with respect and dignity and do what we can
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to help one another and be there for each other. Yet, if you
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notice in those sci fi movies and in some cases in reality, you know,
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in some cases with COVID, you have people that are trying to use
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something like a virus as a weapon. They don't want it destroyed or they
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want the ability to cure it destroyed. Remember the movie Outbreak, Remember that
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Dustin Hoffmann, Cuba Gooding, Junior, Renee Russo, it was it was
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a monkey and it brought this uh, this virus into this town, and
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somebody had the monkey as a pet and they brought it over on a boat.
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And if somebody got the monkey as a pet, and suddenly everybody starts
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getting this virus and they're spreading it around in this town, and person after
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person is catching it, and they try to do everything they can to to
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shut it down, right, they want to They want to try to find
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a cure. They have to find the monkey, the original patient zero for
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this virus, and they have to shut it down. Sorry, I'm gonna
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give some spoilers for a really old movie, but you have. The government
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is basically saying, well, we're just gonna drop a bomb on this town
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and just kill all the people there. That's the best way we're gonna We're
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gonna lock them all in. We're gonna block them in with the military,
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and then we're gonna drop a bomb right on this town, ending the virus
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and then preserving the virus as a potential weapon that we can use later when
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we need to with you a situation, a government, a war, or
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whatever. We can use it against our enemies. And then we have it,
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so we have to wipe out the people who try to help make things
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better sound anything like what's happened to different people who've tried to be the peacemakers
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in the race wars over the years. Sound anything like I don't know people
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being assassinated that are trying to promote not judging people by the color of their
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skin, but the content of their heart, their character. Does it sound
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anything like that at all? Anyway? So we have these people that see
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we have moments where it seems like racism might get a little better and we
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might all learn to just cooperate. And I think for the most part people
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really do. But we have the people who don't want to lose the weapon.
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They want to keep it alive. And I always talk on this show
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about picking at the scabs, and I feel like every time we start to
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heal just a little bit, the racism cut or scar starts to heal up
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a little bit right the wound, and people just pick at the scab.
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They want to keep the bleeding going. They want to find a way to
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keep it alive. Now, is everything completely better? No, No,
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we don't don't. We don't have all the people cured, right, There's
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just not And that's not going to happen. We're not going to cure people
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of Maybe someday we'll get to a point where there's almost none, but history
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tells us that there will always be somebody it's going to carry that torch in
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the name of the racists. But does that mean that the good people who
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want to do good things shouldn't try to make sure that the virus is eliminated
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and killed and everybody move on. We know now that people took advantage of
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COVID in a lot of ways. We don't have to go into those.
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I've talked about those on the show over the last two years, three years.
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We know that there's a chance we're going to see all of that again
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next year when we start with the ballot boxes and we start with the ballot
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harvesting, all those things, and there is going to be that talk that's
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coming, that is absolutely coming. There's talk about, oh, you got
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a mask up, you gotta have a mask on. We can't be out
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in public without a mask on because you're going to spread it around. That's
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just the early talk about whatever's coming next year, right. I mean,
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you can feel that, can't You can sense it, and it certainly does
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feel like when it comes to racism, when it comes to the people who
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profit from it or benefit from it, and it's always somebody that finds some
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way to benefit, whether it's power or financial or both, that all seems
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to kind of hover around the same like it orbits. It's that moon that's
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orbiting around the same planet. Right. It just feels like somehow power and
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money always seem to be there. And I said, I don't know a
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year ago, year and a half ago, somewhere in that range, that
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it just fell like that was gonna be the next full pandemic unleashed. And
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it's not that it's new, but it's certainly been weaponized much more and more
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effectively, I think, sadly over the last at least since unfortunately, oh
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eight, that's when it was supposed to get better, wasn't it. That's
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when there was some promise of we can all make this better by doing this
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and clearing this particular hurdle, this unthinkable hurdle. Everybody said, oh,
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they'll never be a black president. And if only we can clear that hurdle,
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that's going to help make things better. He's gonna help make things better.
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And I remember the inauguration. I remember thinking, you know, this
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isn't my guy, this isn't my party, but it's historic. It's worth
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tuning in to see because this is a big moment, a big moment in
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history. And then every time he tried to pass something and someone said on
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policy, I can't support him, Oh, you're racist. Nobody wants to
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be called a racist. Nobody wants to be accused of that. Nobody wants
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to be told that they're racist. Nobody wants to be told you're gonna kill
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grandma if you don't put a mask on in public, if you don't go
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get a vaccine. We're going to tell you a bunch of different things about
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this vaccine that don't always end up being the case in some cases. You
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know, you're you're not going to be able to catch COVID if you get
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this vaccine, Oh, you won't get as sick with it. Well,
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this is just a kind of try to help it not spread quite as much.
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All the different things that you get told. Nobody wants to be called
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racist. Nobody wants to be accused of spreading racism. Nobody wants to be
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lumped in with other racist people. Nobody wants that, well, I guess
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other racist people do. But good people who want the world to be a
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better place don't want to be lumped in with that, So you try to
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avoid it. And you think, oh my gosh, this is the fear
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mongering, this is the fear tactics that go with it and keeping people divided
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and reminding people. There's some people who want to do this with a pandemic,
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and there's some people who want to do this, and they're extreme opposites,
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and they're just they should hate each other and they should not vote the
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same with each other on anything. Right. Never fourteen years ago, pre
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pre pandemic, I saw this as a as a plague. Then anyway,
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it's just occasionally, occasionally, not often. There's a lot of things I
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said fourteen years ago that I just cringe and go, why didn't I say
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that thirteen, ten, twelve years ago? Whatever? But this was a
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jewel. This was a gem that I actually enjoyed revisiting over the weekend.
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Today's show brought to you by Columba State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center,
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Inspiring and educating the youth and future STEM leaders and STEM career holders that really
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of all ages. I mean they do it for school age kids as school
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aged kids visit the Coca Cola Space Science Center. But they also do it
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through their university programs where you can learn engineering, astronomy, physics, and
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the careers in space and stem fields are booming right now, and you can
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learn more about maybe getting your degree on their website CCSSC dot org. While
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you're there, also check out some of their upcoming programs. They've got this
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incredible collaboration that they do with the Schwobe School of Music from Columbus State University
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called Music under the Dome. It's unlike any concert experience that you can get
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anywhere else. It's one of those things that when you're watching it in Columbus,
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Georgia, you think, is this really in Columbus, Georgia. I
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mean, this is a major city attraction that happens right here in Columbus inside
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the planetarium at the Coca Cola Space Sign Center and the new season of Music
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under the Dome. Check out upcoming dates for the shows and also check out
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when the next Astronomy nights coming up where you can get outside. Sometimes you
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do it at the Cocola Space Science Center. Sometimes you get outside somewhere outside
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the city lights, you don't wan any light interference, and you can do
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that as well upcoming Astronomy Night events. Also on their website, it's CCSSC
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dot org. As Shaan Cruzen says Charlie Charlie Sam Sam Charlie dot org.
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I just remind you that it stands for Coca Cola Space Science Center CCSSC dot
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org. Today's show brought to you by Overhead Door Company of Columbus. For
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do those as well. Seven h sixty five eight forty five hundred seven h
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six three five eight forty five hundred O DC Columbus dot com more West Carroll
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Morning Show. Right after the break, TikTok was hit with a three hundred
22:25
sixty eight million dollars fine for violating Europe's data privacy rules. They've got regulators
22:32
that you know, oversee big tech in Europe. Arguing that the social media
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app failed to protect children's privacy by creating a sign up process that was confusing
22:41
to teen users. Why are people still using TikTok? I mean, I
22:45
haven't we learned enough about the dangers and hazards of apps owned by Chinese Communist
22:53
Party. I know people that have just recently signed up for TikTok, or
23:00
maybe they just weren't using it before and they've just decided to start using I
23:03
don't know which it is, But why, why, Why haven't we learned
23:07
yet that TikTok bad? There's other apps to do similar things that just happens
23:12
to be the popular one and the one that's probably creating the most complications and
23:19
potential hazards. But anyway, according to a new study, two thirds of
23:23
all car sales around the world could be electric vehicles by the year twenty thirty.
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That's what a new study says. The biggest reason for the optimism is
23:34
the lowering of battery prices. As technology continues to improve, the prices of
23:41
EV batteries continue to drop. If the trends continue, electric vehicles could be
23:45
the same price tag as gas vehicles in Europe in twenty twenty four and twenty
23:51
twenty six in the US, the goal is for evs to be as cheap
23:56
to buy as gas cars and then cheaper run. Maybe it's headed that way.
24:03
I don't know. I still feel like we're somehow supporting Russia, who's
24:11
having their fuel purchased by China to help produce these things. It just seems
24:15
like we're we're on the wrong side of you know, we talk all this
24:19
about sending funding to Ukraine to support with we aren't we helping Russia by China
24:26
buying fuel from them, buying from their reserve. Anyway. I just feel
24:30
like that doesn't seem like that might not be a good idea. I mean,
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I understand if your goal is electric vehicles, if that's the intention,
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But if it's just still using a lot of fuel to I don't know anyway.
24:45
All right, let's talk about diamonds, because apparently producing diamonds in a
24:53
lab. Yeah, not the old school, you know, naturally produced diamonds,
25:00
but grown in lab diamonds are really catching on. So rather than you
25:06
know, mining the earth for diamonds, the lab grown one surging of popularity
25:11
A affordability, be sustainability, and of course certainly if you can't tell the
25:18
difference, and many people struggle to do that. Obviously, experts, diamondologists
25:25
or whatever they're called. I don't know, but they say that interest in
25:27
lab grown diamonds has grown by nearly three thousand percent over the last five years,
25:33
and they say that they cost about eighty five percent less than natural diamonds
25:40
and physically and chemically identical to mind diamonds. A recent survey had seventy percent
25:48
of respondents saying they did not see a difference between natural and lab grown diamonds,
25:55
and as more people become aware of the lab grown diamonds, the popularity
26:00
continues to grow. Seventy one percent of people that were part of this survey
26:04
said they believe that lab grown diamonds will become the new norm in the future,
26:10
and it's just a matter of time if they become so popular that the
26:12
price, of course will go up. And then to have those exotic natural
26:18
diamonds, Oh, those are going to really be pricing, aren't they.
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I don't know, or will those come down? Do you feel like you
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need a nap during the work day? If it's true, you're not alone
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to survey found that twenty five percent of working Americans say that they struggle to
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get through the work week without taking a nap on the job. I would
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guess Monday might be a better nap day, right, Today could be a
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good one. It seems peak nap time, according to those surveyed. Oh
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it's not Monday. See what I did there. It's actually Wednesday, nine
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thirty nine am. That's pretty early in the day if you have an eight
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o'clock start or nine o'clock start, nine thirty nine seems early. Sixty five
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percent of respondent said they feel the urge to nap before noon. Twenty six
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percent say that a nap has become such a part of their work schedule they
27:07
actually bring a pillow to the workplace. On average, the typical nap at
27:11
work last fifty one minutes Wednesday. Wednesday, middle of the week makes some
27:29
sense. The nine thirty nine doesn't make sense unless like a morning radio guy,
27:37
nine thirty nine like the halfway point of your day. That seems about
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right if that's the case. And as far as bringing a pillow to work,
27:44
if you don't feel comfortable actually bringing a pillow to work, A bunch
27:48
of Taylor Swift t shirts rolled into a ball, stuffed into another Taylor Swift
27:52
t shirt works as a great pillow. I can't say that from a personal
27:57
experience, or can I. That'll do it for this Monday edition to the
28:03
show. Thanks to our sponsors and patrons. Thank you for listening. I'll
28:07
catch you back here tomorrow morning. This is the West Carroll Morning Show powered
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dot com. Have you checked out the Made of Stars podcast yet? Well
28:52
you probably should. The Georgia Association of Broadcasters as named Made of Stars the
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best podcast series at the annual Gabby Awards Every Thursday. Doctor Shaun Cruising from
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Columba State University's Coca Cola Space Science Center and I talk about the week space
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news, including what's going on at NASA as well as companies like SpaceX,
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Blue Origin, Axiom Space, and Boeing. Plus, we fill you in
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on what's happening beyond our atmosphere, throughout our Solar System, and into the
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deepest known regions of space. Check out best podcast series Gabby Award winning Made
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of Stars. New episodes every Thursday on Spotify, Apple, Google, or
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wherever you listen to your podcast