Ce-le-brate Good Strikes, Come On!
A much-needed catching up
Bonjour from Paris! (Bonjour means “hello” in French).
Missed us? We missed you, each other, and the sound of our own voices. That maybe explains the fact that neither of us could shut up on this one, in fact we almost forgot we were recording and maybe went a little more vulnerable than expected (people like that stuff, right?)
I am making my way back to NYC now from Israel, which feels heavy as you can imagine. I looked this up - since our last episode 2 weeks ago, 39 soldiers have fallen in battle. THIRTY NINE. This is insane in such a small country, where everyone knows each other, and every time the IDF releases names of soldiers we all hold our breath because it could be our neighbor, cousin, friend. Even if you don’t know someone, your Facebook feed tragically reminds you that you are only 2 degrees of separation away. They represent all of our society - Jewish and Druze, immigrants and “Sabras”, young and old, low-ranking infantry kids and seasoned commanders, religious settlers and lefty hipsters, 20-somethings who just returned from traveling through India and fathers in their 40s who still fight like lions. Take a moment to look at some of their faces:
It feels a little cliche to call these men “our heroes” but they truly are. The gains Israel is making against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza are significant, and essential for our survival. This is not hyperbole. Hezbollah terrorists had bunkers and weapons so close to the border, they could look across into living rooms of Israeli families. They were locked and loaded and ready to invade. Each one of these cells that is dismantled is a potential Israeli life saved, tragically sometimes at the price of another. These men truly gave their lives for others.
OK! Deep breath. In this episode, we catch up about the holidays, Iran, the beef between Johnny Depp and Rabbi Sufrin, and of course our election ambivalence.
Speaking of the election, there’s a saying in Hebrew for little kids - מה שיוצא אני מרוצה! -which translates in rhyme to “whatever comes out, I’ll be satisfied”. It’s usually directed at a frustrated child who wanted the blue popsicle and got the red one, and needs to learn to deal with his disappointment without whining. Anyway, this pretty much defines our attitude towards the next administration, which will probably suck either way but we will learn to live with it and maybe even pretend to be satisfied. We both agree that we are pretty exhausted by the “the sky is falling” crowd, as captured perfectly by former guest
in this tweet:
If you want more deeper insights, I recommend the Ben Shapiro/Sam Harris debate on
. I know people have strong feelings about these two (Ben and Sam - not to mention Trump and Kamala) so perhaps you have already made up your mind before listening - but I found them both incredibly convincing. Of course Sam is hotter, so there’s that…but that’s a whole different debate. Anyway, I kind of agree 100% with Sam Harris and 100% with Ben Shapiro. Come at me in the comments, bro.Links:
"Was he riding a normal bike or a unicycle?" really made me laugh. Always asking the important questions, I love you two so much!
I love when I have a 3 episode backlog. Here we gooooooooo