True Thirty Reports

This week, my guests include Jim Meskauskas and Kevin Hicks, two old media buddies from New York City. During the show, we analyze the media metrics of Ben Shapiro’s growing media empire, the far left’s fascination with antiracism, and how the confluence of these two movements will hand the House and the Senate to the GOP in the November midterms.

I hope you enjoy the show!

In This Episode:

* Ben Shapiro

* Democrat’s demise in 2022

* Liberal news media

* Batya Ungar-Sargon’s new book, Bad News

* John McWhorter’s new book, Woke Racism

* “All white people are racist”

* Why the far left is now a religion

* Neo-Marxism, Post-modernization

* Critical Race Theory

* GOP

* Intersectionality

* Robin DiAngelo

* Diversity in Marketing

Guest Biographies:

Jim Meskauskas has over twenty-five years experience in both traditional and digital advertising, strategy, media planning, buying, analytics and measurement. He is co-founder and Chief Strategic Officer of Media Darwin, a boutique-consulting firm devoted to practicing those disciplines as well as evaluating and recommending resources and integrations — technology, data and analytics, talent structure — used for accomplishing them.

He’s also a “mediologist”; What’s a mediologist? Someone who examines the uses of technology and human symbolic activity as a means of cultural transmission -- specifically but not exclusively -- through electronic media with the goal of understanding the impact on society. This includes the impact on business, political, and social activity. His likes are Star Wars merchandise, B-horror films, southeast Asian cuisine, and medieval cookery.

His dislikes are people who read while walking, the use of the word “utilize” when “use” will do, pineapple on pizza, and TikTok.

He studied literature and philosophy at UC Berkeley and read literature and history of science at Merton College, Oxford. He lives in New York City with his wife and their three rescue cats. None of them likes his medieval cooking.

Kevin Hicks has over 40 years of print/digital media sales and sales management experience. Starting at a local Seattle newspaper in their classified advertising department (“Lost dog, black lab with one ear, blind in one eye, 3 legs, cut off tail – goes by the name of Lucky“), next starting a local free-distribution TV guide in the Puget Sound (back when there were only 12 channels), to mail-order computer catalog company (Multiple Zones), a stint in LA at Petersen Publishing, then into the digital space in 1999 – Go2Net, WhitePages.com, Hollywood Media, etc. Recently founder of Savio Media – an OOH agency specializing in “In-Hand” advertising.

Personal likes/interests are cooking, sailing and more recently, rock-n-roll stardom playing guitar in a band in New York (to an audience of 3 or so). Currently living in NYC (Upper West Side), I would be more than happy to taste Jim’s medieval cooking – regardless of what his cats think.

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In my attempt to understand our transgender community a bit better, I sat down with a young man named Brit Abney to hear what he had to say. My invitation stemmed from our friendship on Facebook, and his prolific and compassionate defense of our transgender community within his own friends and followers. We talked specifically about Dr. Jordan Peterson and the controversial C-16 Bill, as well as my favorite comedian, Dave Chappelle, and his Netflix special, The Closer. During our dialogue you'll hear us debate (and disagree) on terminology related to pronouns, triggers, and microaggressions, but more importantly, you'll witness the wisdom of youth in its finest form.

I hope y'all learn as much as I did from Brit.

In This Episode:

• Postmodernism
• Dr. Jordan Peterson
• C-16 Bill and Pronouns
• Freedom of Speech
• Meta-Narrative around “woke” culture
• Nobel Effect
• Marxism vs Communism
• Bret Weinstein Example of Speech Violence
• Viewpoint Diversity
• Safe Spaces on College Campus
• Systemic Marginalization
• Controversy Over Netflix Dave Chapelle Special

 

Biography: 
My name is Brit. I live in Denver with my wife and two kids. I'm a water resources engineer professionally and a philosopher by hobby. I like to ski, hike, scuba dive, and read whenever I get time (which isn't as much as I like thanks to my two wonderful children). 

Social
IG - britlandtabney
FB - https://www.facebook.com/britlandt.abney

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This week's episode is with Acacia Croft, a long-time close friend and a highly educated person who kept me on my toes in this episode as we continued discussing around the Critical Race Theory, what’s working and what’s not working in our societal approach in education, the plight of black people, the white man narrative, and downside effects of Robin DiAngelo’s campaign. This is by far my favorite interview and I know you’ll walk away with a lot to think about as I did.

In This Episode:

• Critical Race Theory in the Zeitgeist
• Continued talking points from Dax Devlon-Ross
• Educating the public
• White Man Narrative
• Intersectionality
• Polarization of our society
• Robin DiAngelo
• Anti Racist Platform
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Media’s continued role in today’s narrative

Acacia Croft is a veteran educator serving schools and communities for over 15 years in both public and American international schools overseas.  She started her career in public service as the executive secretary for State Representative Albert J. Price Sr. in the Austin office assisting the constituency of District 22 in Jefferson County.  

Upon graduating from the University of Texas at Austin she joined Peace Corp and became a volunteer in Honduras, CA. She extended her service as a Peace Corps volunteer coordinator in Tegucigalpa working closely with the Secretary of Education.  During her time in the Peace Corps she supported local government and facilitated municipal initiatives focusing on civics education, health, community development and social responsibility. She is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Upon returning from her Peace Corps service she embarked upon a career as a LOTE middle school teacher in Title 1 schools.  She served in various public schools in Texas and was chosen to participate in a teacher exchange program with the American International School in Lagos, Nigeria.  She taught in Nigeria for a total of 6 years where she began her Masters in Counseling but fell short by one semester due to the Ebola epidemic.  During the 2014 Ebola epidemic she was among the core group of expat teachers to transition the school to a virtual platform.  Returning stateside in 2017, she returned to the classroom at the high school level and was then recruited to lead Census outreach and partnerships for k-12 organizations in the greater Houston area.

As senior partnership specialist Acacia is able to identify, cultivate, develop partnerships and strategic alliances with school districts, campuses, social service agencies, municipalities, businesses and other community stakeholders to conduct Census outreach and education.  She coached a team of 8 partnership specialists to educate, initiate and collaborate with community members and leaders   Acacia was responsible for the strategic development of outreach in the EC-12 community during the Census, post onset of Covid 19 pandemic, and post Census.  She executed and cultivated both external partnerships with the community as well as internal partnerships with operations and other regions.  She coordinated regional summits, collaborated with leadership and HQ initiatives as well as established innovative tactics in order to embed and corroborate the need for Census awareness and education.

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This week's episode is with Tom Morris, my friend and favorite philosopher. During our chat, we explored the origin of ideologies, their importance, their dangers, and how we as a culture need to better understand what they are doing to us. We talked about Gilgamesh, Tolstoy, Aristotle, and Kung Fu on a New York City subway. Oh, and we came up with a few ideas on how we can all start to get along a bit better. I hope you enjoy his wisdom as much as I did.

In This Episode:

• Ideology and its root
• Andy Norman and religion
• Educating the public
• Democracy today
• Safe Spaces
• Critical Race Theory & Robin DeAngelo
• Tribalism
• Philosophers of today
• Media’s continued role in today’s narrative

 

Dr. Tom Morris, is a native of North Carolina, a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead-Cain Scholar, and the recipient of a double PhD from Yale University. He has gone from being the most popular professor at The University of Notre Dame, where he taught for 15 years, to now serving as the world's most active public philosopher, authoring over 30 books, including national business bestsellers, while bringing the wisdom of the ages to many of the biggest and most successful companies in the world in over 1,200 public talks. 

He’s the author of books like True Success, If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Philosophy for Dummies, If Harry Potter Ran General Electric, Socrates in Silicon Valley, The Oasis Within, and his newest book about challenge and change, difficulty and delight is called: Plato’s Lemonade Stand.

His work has been covered by television networks like ABC, NBC, and CNN, and in most major newspapers and magazines around the world, including the New York Times and the Economist. His philosophical discoveries are changing lives and revolutionizing businesses all over the globe. He’s also been described as the world’s happiest philosopher. 

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When a Liberal and a Leftist Walk Into a Bar...What happens when two well informed people pull up the proverbial barstool and start a friendly debate over our world’s current issues?  One hell of a conversation, that’s what.  Join me this week with guest Zachary Kihm as we have a lively discussion about critical race theory, the patriarchy, and equality! 

 

In This Episode:

• Media embellishing narratives
• Defunding the Police
• Dangers of Ideology
• Where Leftists push too far
• Preventive measures for crime
• Mental health funding in a broken system
• Patriarchy
• Segregation and Intersectionality
• Universal basic income (UBI)

 

Zachary Kihm is a social worker at Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, currently working with formerly homeless adults. He is also a graduate student at McGeorge School of Law, two classes away from receiving his Master's of Public Administration. Politically, Zachary is involved in local, state, and national politics. 

He runs two local political organizations -- Progressive Democrats of America Sacramento and Social Democrats USA (SDUSA) Sacramento -- and serves as Vice-Chair of Political Affairs for the Young Democrats of America (YDA) Hispanic Latinx (HLC) Caucus. He was recently elected as a Councilmember for the American Society of Public Administrators (ASPA). Personally, Zachary enjoys sports, reading, and watching anime/shows/movies.

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zachary.kihm

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KihmZachary

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zachkihm/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachary-elias-kihm-255b3aab/

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In my attempt to figure out the “Defund The Police” movement, I sat down with my buddy John Snetsinger, a recently retired Lieutenant of the Santa Rosa Police Department. We talked a bit about his personal story, his time as a detective, and the many ideas and proposals he has to help the lives of both police officers and the cities they serve. 

In This Episode:

• Proper training within departments
• Field Tactics
• Ethics in Law Enforcement
• Implicit Biases
• Defund the Police and how that term is detrimental
• Additional funding for precincts
• When programs get cut
• Preventive measures for crime
• Mental health funding in a broken system
• False narratives of defunding
• Qualified Immunity

 

John Snetsinger is an experienced, and recently retired Lieutenant with over 27 years working in law enforcement. 

John began his law enforcement career in the city of Belmont, California. Three years later, he joined the Santa Rosa Police Department as a patrol officer. He served as a Field Training Officer, and spent 5 years as a detective, investigating crimes of sexual assault, domestic violence, and computer forensics.

In 2004 John was promoted to sergeant.  During his last 10 years in this role, John supervised the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, was part of the team that established the Family Justice Center and supervised the SRPD School Resource Officers. 

In 2014, John was promoted to lieutenant, and continued to give back to the community by being on Verity’s Board of Director for 8 ½ years.

John remains active in his community and is now honing his skills as an artisan.  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-snetsinger-231b57160/

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In an attempt to understand the complexity and controversy of something called Critical Race Theory (CRT), I sat down with my buddy Dax-Devlon Ross to hear what he had to say. We talked a bit about his personal story as a black man, his time in law school, the reasons he wrote his remarkable book (Letters To My White Male Friends), and why he chose a career in the field of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. During some of our dialogue you’ll hear me laugh when it seems a bit inappropriate… probably due to the absurdity of the ever present racism woven into our culture. I’m gobsmacked about what I have learned over the past few years, and my chat with Dax is only scratching the surface.  

 

In This Episode:

• Representation in the marketing industry
• Differences of diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI)
• Exploitation of the black consumer base
• Biased opinion of “exceptionality” versus “normal”
• Woke Updates and whitewashing vernacular
• Bret Weinstein and Ideological dangers
• Contempt for black people and how it’s rooted in racist history
• Ben Shapiro
• Moving beyond constructs and understanding opposing views

Dax-Devlon Ross has led a career as an educator, non-profit executive, equity consultant and journalist with a focus on social justice. After receiving his Juris Doctorate from George Washington University, he joined New York City Teaching Fellows where he taught in middle and high schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He later helped lead the national training and replication team at the Posse Foundation, one of the country’s foremost college access organizations. During his tenure at Bank Street College of Education, he managed the school’s partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. 

As the founding Executive Director of After-School All-Stars New York and New Jersey, Dax built, from scratch, a team of 60 full and part-time program, development and operations staff serving more than 1,500 students across two states. Thereafter he served the organization as its inaugural northeast regional executive director, managing five chapter executive directors, while overseeing regional growth strategy, partnership development and management, donor stewardship, board governance and chapter operations.

For over a decade, Dax’s social justice consulting practice has focused on developing disruptive strategies to generate equity in workplaces and education spaces alike. Dax’s clients have included: The Anti-Defamation League, The New World Foundation, The Posse Foundation, Fund II Foundation, Bard College, Kean University and more.

Dax is the author of five books and his journalism has been featured in Time, The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review and other national publications. He was the winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Investigative Reporting Award for his coverage of jury exclusion in North Carolina courts. He is currently an investigative reporting fellow at Type Media Center, an alumnus of Coro Leadership New York and a member of NationSwell Council.

 

 

https://dax-dev.com/

Twitter: @daxdev

IG: @daxdevross

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Brad Berens and Joey sit down and continue the controversial topic of Safe Spaces on college campuses as Part 2 of the series, Are Safe Spaces Safe? The titled book The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions And Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt continues as the topic of debate between Brad and Joey.  Another great conversation between two intellectuals offering different perspectives.

In This Episode:

• The Coddling of the American Mind (Continued)
• Marginalization of communities within universities
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Benefits of a Safe Space within universities
• Hypersensitivity and Intersectionality
• What is working within universities

 

Brad is a futurist and a historian, or “futuristorian,” and this means that he’s a digital strategist, consultant, editor, writer, critic, public speaker and thinker: mostly about media and technology (new and old), how changes in those evolve in a dynamic with behavior and culture (high and low), marketing (traditional and interactive) and how the things that audiences do with what they watch have a huge impact on who they are.

Brad was most recently the Editor in Chief of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and currently acts as a Strategic Advisor for the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future, where Brad leads a handful of exciting projects; he’s also Principal at Big Digital Idea Consulting.

It surprises some people to learn that Brad got his start thinking about media, culture and what audiences do with them as a bona fide Shakespearean scholar and stage historian. With a Ph.D. in English from U.C. At Berkeley, he spent years as a teacher and scholar, giving talks about Shakespeare all over the world. From Shakespeare to the internet can seem like a crazy transition, but when you learn that much of my academic work concerns how Shakespeare invented the modern audience — how he created the way we watch movies, TV and other forms of mass culture today — Brad’s weird career trajectory starts to make a bit more sense. You can see his TEDx talk about Shakespeare as a business genius to get a sense of how his first career and subsequent work slam into each other.

For an even more impressive overview of Brad, you can read his full bio at https://bradberens.com.

 

Website:

https://bradberens.com/

Twitter: @bradberens

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradberens/

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Professor John Durham and Joey sit down and chat about the controversial topic of Safe Spaces on college campuses. This issue was explored at length in the book, The Coddling of the American Mind, How Good Intentions And Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation for Failure, by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt. The banter and debate that follows is worth a listen.  

 

In This Episode:

• The Coddling of the American Mind (book)
• Brands taking a stand in a stronger way
• Safe Spaces within universities
• Safe Spaces within corporate America
• Trigger warning & microaggressions 
• Are liberal ideologies dominating our top universities?

 

Professor John Durham is CEO and Managing Partner for Catalyst S+F (www.catalystSF.com). John has amassed one of the strongest resumes in marketing with a specific focus on digital marketing and advertising sales since 1995. 

John was formerly President of Sales and Marketing for Jumpstart Automotive Media, successfully engineering the company for sale to Hachette Filipacchi. Prior to his role with Jumpstart, John was EVP, Business Development for Carat Fusion and President of Pericles Consulting. 

John has also been responsible for overall management of Winstar Interactive (www.winstarinteractive.com) as President/CRO. At Winstar he ran the site specific rep firm for over six years. He oversaw the management of nine offices and sixty employees. 

John is also a professor at the University of San Francisco and a certified wine collector, knowledgeable in all varieties and selection. You can consider John a sommelier of marketing.

 

www.catalystSF.com

Twitter: @thedurham

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Dr Adam Dorsay and Joey disassemble the traditional idea of what it means to be masculine in this world and how crucial it is to, even now, recognize individuality and embrace the paradigm of living in your emotions today.

In This Episode:

• Men and emotions
• Beginning a new relationship with emotions
• Masculine archetypes in history
• Evolution of masculinity
• Recognizing individuality
• Challenging traditional paradigm
• TedTalk experience
• Numbing out
• Loneliness versus solitude

 

Dr. Adam Dorsay is a certified executive coach and licensed psychologist working in private practice in Silicon Valley. He specializes in assisting high-achieving adults (including professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, and professional athletes) with relationship issues, stress reduction, anxiety, and attaining more happiness in their lives. 

 

In 2016 he gave a well-watched TEDx talk about men and emotions and, more recently, he delivered a TEDx talk on friendship in adulthood. He is also a resiliency expert who has created programs for companies including Facebook and DigitalOcean. He is the host of a psychology podcast called SuperPsyched in which talks with guests about psychology through the eyes of experts from NBA coaches to bestselling authors in the field. Adam is happily married with two young boys and a hypoallergenic 33-pound Australian Labradoodle therapy dog, who lives at his home and works at his office.

 

www.https://dradamdorsay.com/

Twitter: @super_psyched 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-dorsay-psy-d-a582a2/

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