SOTU RIP?

Make Me Smart February 6^th 2023 transcript

Note: Marketplace podcasts are meant to be heard, with emphasis, tone and audio elements a transcript can’t capture. Transcripts are generated using a combination of automated software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting it.

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t know. We’ll figure it out later. Meanwhile, Marissa is checking we’ll get an answer.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh, man, who did that? Who’s in charge?

Kimberly Adams 

Jayk!

Kai Ryssdal 

Good grief and I don’t know where to start now. Hey everybody I’m Kai Ryssdal. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense whenever Jayk Cherry tells us to.

Kimberly Adams 

I’m Kimberly Adams, thank you for joining us. And to start off our week, we are first going to dive into some news stories of the day. We call those the news fix. And then we’re going to talk about a story or two that made us smile. Kai, why don’t you get going?

Kai Ryssdal 

I will go first. Because well, first um, I’m first in the rundown. That’s why I’m gonna go first. So So here’s here’s a, a random thing. And it’s not my original thought I’m riffing off Dave Von how do you say his last name? David Von Drehl Drehley?

Kimberly Adams 

Not gonna attempt it?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know. We’re gonna find it out anyway, is an opinion columnist at the Washington Post. And Dave Von Drehle D-R-E-H-L-E, correct me somebody. It’s probably like Dutch or something. Anyway, he has a great idea today, of which I am all in freakin favor, we should do away with the State of the Union speech. We should do away with the State of the Union speech. Yes, the Constitution says from time to time, the president shall give a report on the state of the nation, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Let’s get rid of it. It is it is long in the tooth, it has become predictable. And it’s a laundry list, and there’s never anything worthwhile in it. And I will let you read his column. I just think we ought to get rid of it. And also hey you kids get off my lawn, but I think I’m right.

Kimberly Adams 

I view the State of the Union the same way I view the president’s budget proposals in that it’s sort of a marker, you know, like laying out the cards of and an accountability measure. You know, if you’ve run on something, what are you doing? How much progress have you made? Are you actually even attempting to do it? What is the plan? The White House has been complaining over and over again, that the Republicans have no plan. So the onus is on the Biden administration to say, “here is our plan.” And sure, they could do that in a venue other than the State of the Union. But I think if we’ve learned anything in recent administrations, it’s that if you don’t require some of these formalities, and actually have them as formalities, you know, they can go away pretty easily.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, look I’m, I’m all in favor of the pomp and circumstance and one of the reasons I am a British history-ofile is that I really enjoy the pomp and ceremony of the royal family because nobody does pomp and ceremony, like the British Royal Family. But this is a useless exercise that has degraded into showmanship and playing to the crowd and stupid partisanship because you will not find a single Republican stand up for anything Joe Biden says except maybe right at the very end when he says, “God Bless America and God protect our troops.” Right? That’s the only thing that there’s going to be any agreement in that hall on and I would also say that if we’re counting on the State of the Union as a measure by which we can keep an administration accountable, then we failed and if we’re serious about keeping them accountable, let’s go to all the stuff that he says on all the stump speeches and the written documents and the budget plan and all of that stuff. Let’s not count on this this this, it probably is gonna take an hour and a half right? Between all the analysis and what’s her name from from Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, giving the response and all of that, it’s bah.

Kimberly Adams 

So you gonna watch?

Kai Ryssdal 

I’m not actually I’ve got a soccer game thankfully.

Kimberly Adams 

Good for you. Good for you

Kai Ryssdal 

Although, you know, I should still look I should say no so let’s be clear. I am as as involved and invested in the democratic process as anybody and were I not at a soccer game I would watch but I would be immensely frustrated. Immensely frustrated. You know?

Kimberly Adams 

I’m actually going to be at a jewelry making class.

Kai Ryssdal 

There you go. There you go. And look you’re gonna and here’s the other thing. Yes, you know, however many 10s of millions of people are going to watch it but it’s certainly down from where it was in the Reagan and Clinton and beforehand days, because we can see snippets on our phones. We’re gonna get it on YouTube. You know, you can see it whenever you want. We’re going…. I guarantee that a certain radio program whose initials are Morning Edition tomorrow is going to have I don’t know 10,12,15 minutes of it, you know? I’m just saying.

Kimberly Adams 

I don’t know I’m not quite ready to give it up yet, but I’d love to hear what other people think about it.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, let us know.

Kimberly Adams 

But again I live in Washington D.C.

Kai Ryssdal 

You know what I think? I think the crowds gonna be with me. That’s that’s all I am saying

Kimberly Adams 

I think the crowd is probably going to be with you too. Okay, so I’ll start with my lighter news item and then move to the more serious one. Because after the serious one, we’re going to need a make me smile hard. So the first one, I mean, I don’t know if it’s, it is lighter, for sure. But not necessarily good. Which is that AMC Theaters is planning to change the way that it does its movie ticket prices based on seat location. So more like, you know, traditional like live performance.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh that’s BS right there. Sorry, did I jump the shark on that one?

Kimberly Adams 

No it’s okay. I kind of knew that was coming with you. But more like live performances in starting in New York, Chicago and Kansas City, and then expanded to all domestic AMC locations by the end of the year as per Variety. And it’s called “Sightline at AMC a ticket pricing initiative based on seat location within the auditorium. Similar to music concerts, sporting events, or Broadway, movie goers will have the option to pay more or less for admission, depending on where they choose to sit in the venue. In effect, front row seats will be available to lower price, all seats in the middle of the theater will be available to higher price.” And here’s my question, are any of the prices actually going to go down? Or are they just going to be varying degrees more expensive from the base level of where they are now?

Kai Ryssdal 

That, that, that

Kimberly Adams 

Because, you know, there’s the argument that the sort of obstructed view seats, like help people, you know, get in to see shows that they might not otherwise see, you know, in various theatrical venues all over this country. And so you know, that that helps. But if it just means that you’re gonna be paying more to not, you know, destroy your neck in the process of watching a movie, it’s yet another reason for me to stay home.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, yeah, I just hmmm. Anyway, whenever. Clearly, I’m grumpy today, man, holy cow.

Kimberly Adams 

It’s Monday. A lot of people. There’s some built in grumpiness that goes with the Monday, I think.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yeah, totally true. Well, totally true.

Kimberly Adams 

All right. There’s no easy pivot to this one, which is the awful, awful earthquake in Turkey and Syria. I mean, especially those folks in Syria did not need anything else happening to them, my goodness. But, um, you know, when I saw the death toll numbers, which just keep going up, I was, I was really shocked. And you know, you and I both, you know, lived and covered a lot of natural disasters. But this is just so so bad. I mean, when I walked in here, the last I saw was something like 3700 people have been acknowledged to be killed so far, it’s probably going to go up. And Reuters has this explanation of why this quake was so bad. And sure some of it has to do with the way the buildings were put together and infrastructure. And you know, how quickly you can get help when something goes wrong. But it also has to do with the type of fault line that this is on and I was really kind of horrified to read in this piece. And I’m just going to read from Reuters here. “The East Anatolian fault is a strike slip fault. “In those, solid rock plates are pushing up against each other across a vertical fault line, building stress until one finally slips in a horizontal motion, releasing a tremendous amount of strain that can trigger an earthquake.  The San Andreas Fault in California is perhaps the world’s most famous strike-slip fault, with scientists warning that a catastrophic quake is long overdue.” That’s frightening.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes it is. Yes it is

Kimberly Adams 

But you know, I just, I feel so bad for those people. It’s gonna be a hard couple of weeks and months and just the the level of destruction. It reminds me of the tsunami in Indonesia, you know, which I know killed far, far more people but just when you look at sort of that instant and sudden and complete destruction, and just the shock initially. I still to this day, haven’t wrapped my head around that high of a death toll so quickly from that. But yeah, yeah, so

Kai Ryssdal 

All right, Jake. All right. I went first with the news. You go first with the smiles, go ahead. No, you go ahead.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, well, sorry. I’ll go first with the smiles. Marcus Galamay would never forgive me if this was not the make me smile today. So this is for Marcus

Kai Ryssdal 

Marcus is one of our, our audience, our office coordinators, we should say.

Kimberly Adams 

He, he runs everything in the LA office and takes care of us all. And it’s official, Beyonce has made Grammy history. With the win as I’m reading from the Grammy website, “Her win for Best Dance electronic album for Renaissance put her Grammy total at 32. The most of all time.” So congrats to Beyonce, who has dealt with snubs in all sorts of ups and downs over her career, especially with the Grammys. One… it’s interesting, I don’t even bother watching a lot of these award show anymore, lest I get frustrated. But I was very happy to wake up and this morning and see that Beyonce is getting her flowers. And I was also very entertained by the fact that apparently, because LA has traffic as I don’t have to tell you, she was late to the Grammys.

Kai Ryssdal 

Oh I saw that. That’s the part that I saw Trevor Noah was yes, yes, that was great. Where he was like “I didn’t think traffic could hold you up. I thought you just materialized.” Yeah, it was great.

Kimberly Adams 

Like I mean, I can I’m just trying to imagine like, what that car ride was like, you know, with Beyonce realizing that she was getting a Grammy and just not being there for it. But at least she got to be there in person for the one that broke the record. And I just think it’s it’s lovely and good for her. So that those are those are my make me smiles. What about you?

Kai Ryssdal 

Totally agree. All right. So following on to my rant about oh, that’s a lot of rants, Kai, on Friday about the balloon. That was as, hopefully everybody listening to this podcast knows, was shut down over the weekend. There was a pentagon briefing today about that event. And one of the Pentagon reporters asked that ahead of NORAD. The North American Radar Defense Command, whether the F-22 pilot who shot down the balloon with a sidewinder missile was going to get a balloon kill sticker to put on the side of his airplane. You know, like when you shoot down an enemy plane, you get a little sticker of an airplane on the side of the plane.

Kimberly Adams 

People don’t know that Kai.

Kai Ryssdal 

Yes, they do. Everybody knows about stickers on planes. Everybody knows.

Kimberly Adams 

I didn’t.

Kai Ryssdal 

Write to me if you know. Yes, you did,

Kimberly Adams 

Dear Kai. I did not know that until today.

Kai Ryssdal 

Seriously?

Kimberly Adams 

No, I thought they just decorated them with whatever they wanted on the sides to be cool.

Kai Ryssdal 

No, no! You shoot down an enemy plane or in the Korean War or World War Two, you shot up a train or something. You got to train or you got a plane or you got a boat or whatever. Anyway, that’s really interesting that you didn’t know that. That’s it. That’s it.

Kimberly Adams 

You know and this highlights the, you know, the service-civilian divide, and like we can talk at length another day about you know what it means that we have an all volunteer service and a lot of people are very disconnected from it, you know, but anyhow, no, I didn’t know that.

Kai Ryssdal 

It is a pet peeve of mine. Anyway. So turns out long story short, the pilot of that plane will not get a balloon kill sticker to put on the side of his plane. Only aircraft kill stickers are allowed.

Kimberly Adams 

I thought you just said you could get it for a train.

Kai Ryssdal 

Well, that was in World War Two and Korea when they were shooting up trans. There was a lot more air to ground back then.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay, so now it’s just planes. What about a boat?

Kai Ryssdal 

I don’t know. Actually, I do know hang on a minute, cuz Jared Keller, who writes on defense matters as well pointed out the relevant part of Air Force regulations 6.6.4.6 Aerial victory Marketing, marking. “Fighter aircraft awarded a verified aerial victory are authorized to display a 6-inch green star with a 1/2-inch black border located just below and centered on the pilot’s name block. Which of course goes outside the cockpit. So anyway, there you go aerial victories only aerial victories only.

Kimberly Adams 

Oh, and circling. Hmm. Marissa just pointed out that my Beyonce thing might be half a make me smile because Beyonce did get snubbed for Album of the Year.

Kai Ryssdal 

She did not get Album of the Year. Yeah, I knew that.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, I saw that. And I was originally like, ignoring all of the Grammy coverage because I not only saw that, but I think whoever won was something like “Oh, this never happens.” And everyone’s like, “this always happened.”

Kai Ryssdal 

It was freaking, it was freaking Harry Styles. It was Harry freaking Styles. I actually honest to god I only watched for about 10 minutes but I saw the two big things: Beyonce materializing and whatever the hell Harry Styles was wearing.

Kimberly Adams 

Yeah, no, I was. I was I was, what was I doing yesterday? I was probably. Oh, I know. I was. I was plant… I was working with my plants. I was doing some indoor gardening. Yeah, yes. Oh, all right. I think that is all we have

Kai Ryssdal 

That is all the stuff we have and then some. Tomorrow we’re gonna do a business of sports betting. Super Bowls coming up. I like to choose by the way. We’re gonna talk about gambling, the sports industry, the sports economy, especially in the last couple of years, how you know, during the pandemic, gambling took off, sports gambling took off, so we’re going to talk about that.

Kimberly Adams 

Okay. We’d love to know if you have parti-participated in sports betting or if you have a question or thoughts on this or anything else that you hear on the show. Thoughts on Beyonce, we want to hear it we’re at 508-827-6278 Although I should say no Beyonce trash talking will be tolerated in this form. Just know 508-827-6278 or 508-U-B-SMART. You can also email us at makemesmart@marketplace.org.

Kai Ryssdal 

Courtney Bergsieker produced today. Jayk Cherry drove. Ellen Rolfes writes newsletters. Antonio Barreras interns for us.

Kimberly Adams  

Marissa Cabrera is our acting senior producer. Bridget Bodnar is the director of podcasts. And Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital. Marcus if you are listening, we do this for you.