Snakes & Otters Podcast

Robert takes the captain's chair to lead the guys through an appreciation of the groundbreaking art of Vincent Van Gogh. An exploration of a tragic genius and his amazing legacy. 

Code of Honor time again listeners and Francis captains us through Spock, William F. Buckley and the Gospel of Matthew. Bonus, we get to hear all about why Robert despises the ST:OS episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." And there are glasses raised to writer DC Fontana, RIP.

Our quotes this time:

• Robert – “Change is the essential process of all existence.” (Spock)

Robert captains our third Rome episode with an exploration of the Christian era of the Roman Empire. He challenges Martin and Francis with the question, did the adoption of Christianity hasten the demise of the Empire in the West? Robert takes a contrary position starting with Mike Aquilina's The Church and the Roman Empire and Martin concurs using Peter Heather's The Restoration of Rome.

Fourth week so that means a pop culture episode! The guys wax nostalgic about all the great Christmas TV specials from The Grinch to A Charlie Brown Christmas. The guys drink a toast to all the great creators and voices of these shows, from Charles Shultz to Thurl Ravenscroft. Merry Freaking Christmas All! 

Robert captains a seriously deep episode on the father of Scholasticism, Doctor of the Church Thomas Aquinas. Francis is in awe and Martin works hard to keep up. 

Reading much of Thomas Aquinas is a magnum opus unto itself, but his great masterwork, the Summa Theologica (often just called the Summa) is available online for free and in its entirety on the New Advent website.

And believe it or not, his Wikipedia page does a very good free biography of him and of his many great contributions to learning.

Second Friday once again so time for another "words to live by" episode. Robert starts us off this time, and we consider the nature of freedom and humanity through the words of Shakespeare, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and J. Michael Straczynski. 

Yes, we're serious. 

Our quotes this time:

• Robert – “Respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)

In the second episode of our planned 4 part series on all things Rome, Martin puts the guys through their paces on the Roman Empire. He hones in on the idea of the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. Was it real? Martin brings in Adrian Goldsworthy's Pax Romana to start, and Francis counters with Edward Luttwak's The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.

November has 5 Fridays and you know what that means!  That's right listeners . . . HOOPAJOOB!  Say it with us, HOOPAJOOB! That means anything goes!

In this hoopajoob episode, Martin wants the guys to examine gratitude in the modern world. We've got much to be thankful for in this life. Why don't we show it more?

Remember when the networks would advertise sitcom episodes with "Tonight on a very special 'Blossom'" or "Tonight on a very special 'Facts of Life'" and it meant a character was going to smoke weed or lose her virginity?

Yeah, well we aren't doing that.

What we are doing is staking a claim to our podcast ground.

Give a listen. This is who we are and what we're about.

That's right, 4th Friday means a pop culture episode. Francis leads the guys with enthusiasm for a fun and insightful look at Star Trek's complex bad guys, the Klingons. Bad guys? Well, OK, to quote Trevor Slattery, "hey, it's complicated". 

There are so many Star Trek moments that the guys recommend in this episode, but if you're looking for a really cool resource in print-kindle format, try The Klingon Dictionary by linguist Marc Okrand from 1992 where the entire Klingon Language is laid out, complete with grammar, syntax, pronunciation and much more.