The Present Illness

We're Overwhelmed Too, But We'll Take the Cool Moonshots

• Alyssa Burgart & Arghavan Salles • Season 1 • Episode 28

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Crossing our fingers to avoid nuclear war; Pentagon goes after the pope; Artemis sends back dope pictures of the moon and earth

Iran

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Credits

  • Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
  • Editing by Alyssa Burgart
  • Theme Music by Joseph Uphoff
  • Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Hey there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that's a little febrile, maybe on the verge of nuclear war, and definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arghavan Salles a surgeon scientist in your friendly neighborhood, doom scroller in residence. And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like they're EKGs full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other. Shout out to everyone listening, extra love to our subscribers and those who follow us on any platform, and a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from the Artemis II mission and part of their moon flyby going farther than any people have ever gone before. amazing. Well, we love to see that, uh you know, human ingenuity on display. science, science, science works. Tell everybody. We're glad you're here. As a note to new listeners, we often talk about topics that are intense, they can be a lot, so you may not want to listen with your little ones. And if you need to sit this one out, we totally get it. um I wanted to address something really quickly about our last episode. We um talked about the International Olympic Committee reinstating unnecessary and invasive genetic testing on athletes. And we had discussion about the history of like medical exams, the peak and poke that we talked about, genetic testing, especially in the nineties and how it was found to be just unnecessary and bad and there was no reason to do it. m But that the Olympics has continued to look for ways to police specifically who's allowed to participate in women's sports. And we're really glad that we covered that long history. It's a super harmful practice and there's no reason for it to return now. uh And a listener noted online that we had insufficiently tied that issue to the reason that these policies are back in vogue, which is the relentless attacks on the existence and the safety of trans people, particularly in the United States. so I think we nodded to that, but in retrospect, if we were to record that episode again, I think we would do that more strongly. We always want to highlight the things for you as our listeners that are going to help you understand topics more efficiently, help you understand them in that holistic space. And we want to make sure that we do that as clearly as possible. And this is a pro trans podcast. We want people of all genders to be safe. We want them to be welcome and supported in this world. we recognize that trans people are being used, they're being used by nefarious actors to try to convince us to vote differently, and to not make people feel welcome. And so we are opposed to that kind of behavior. So when we get criticism from people that we hope to support, we want to take that seriously and reflect on how really we can do better each episode. we want to do a great job. And, you know, just reflecting on our last episode, we might have done things differently to really make sure that we made those points clear. Absolutely. So, Argavan, when we were talking about what we were going to talk about today, and you were like, wow, I am feeling so overwhelmed. And I was like, me too, me too. So I thought you were going to tell us maybe a little bit about that. Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly right. You usually I pick one topic, right? You pick one topic and then we talk about two things. Usually it's more than two things because, you know, we just wander a little bit in our conversations, but we try to have like two main focuses or foci, I suppose is more correct, for our conversation. And today I just like, I really had a hard time pinning down one thing because there have just been so many things happening. And there always are, but I'm just feeling particularly overwhelmed this week with everything uh in the news and then also on top of that, you know, things in my life. So I thought we could just do a whirlwind of why it is that I am feeling overwhelmed and probably a lot of other people are feeling overwhelmed uh right around now. So we can start with, I thought, what I kind of alluded to with the nuclear war comment in the intro. um Which is talk about what's been going on in the Middle East um We know that the United States and Israel launched in illegal war against Iran We've talked about it before on our podcast and that's been going on now. Well started February 28th So we're well into this thing that I don't know was it supposed to be three to five days or something? I don't know anyway, We I think at some point we were assured it would be over in two to four weeks or something like that, but Who knows what that? what remains for us in that space. Some of the things that really accelerated the rhetoric around the war in the past week came from, no surprise, the president. he had said, the first thing he said that was, I mean, he always is saying weird and off the wall and inappropriate things. I know that we're not surprised by that. Yet he said several days ago, We are about Iran, we are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. And that was the first, I think, super jarring comment that he had made referencing the entire country. um And he has previously said things um that have been dehumanizing to the entire country, but this idea of taking the country back to the Stone Ages uh is not just goes beyond the dehumanization to destruction of the society. So that was obviously very concerning. then uh Pete Hexeth also posted that online. one of the Iranian state affiliated accounts posted a map of what the Persian Empire looked like in the. Stone ages and was like, you want to go back to this? Which is funny and I'm just acknowledging that even though the Islamic Republic of Iran is pure evil They they are very good at posting. So anyway that happened then we had Trump posting Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped in one in Iran There will be nothing like it exclamation exclamation exclamation Open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell Just watch. Praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. After that, he posted a separate post that was just Tuesday, 8 p.m. Eastern. So he threatened the entire country that something was gonna happen Tuesday night at 8 p.m. Eastern if they didn't open the strait, which I'll just remind listeners was open before this war. Everything was moving fine through the strait. Nobody had any problems with oil, food, anything else moving through the strait. The reason the access to the stray has been restricted is because of the actions of the United States and Israel. And then calling them crazy bastards. And then this was on Easter Sunday, mind you, that he had posted praise be to Allah, which just is weird, right, for the US president who supposedly is Christian to be anyway. So that happened. Then um what the Iranian government, who as I said is evil, did in response to that was they asked Iranian citizens to go to power plants and bridges as though sacrificing themselves would prevent the United States from bombing them. And they did it. mean, some number of people, there's videos and photos you can see online of people lined up around these power plants um because these are. already know the US doesn't care about civilians. Right, but also neither does the Islamic Republic of Iran. Because they didn't send those people there because they thought that would prevent anything. They sent them there so that when they got bombed, the US and Israel would look worse because they killed even more people. they were, anyway, that's what they do. They use the Iranian people in every way that they can. And it's worth noting, by the way, that while all this has been happening, they've continued to execute protesters. um from even just the January protests. So they're just moving right along. And in fact, the head of the judiciary said we should be expediting these executions during war when the country is being attacked by external forces. Like, I don't know exactly who is supposed to be in charge. Like, I don't know exactly who the best people would be. But all I know is, neither of our countries have those people right now. Not a one. Not one. Not one. We are... got the worst people, as far as I can tell. Also, can I just say, like, do you remember, you know, like being a kid in the 80s in the US and like, you know, the Cold War like wasn't quite over yet. And, you know, people were still, you know, like all the comic books were still about like nuclear war and like, I remember my brothers and I used to like get in trouble for digging holes in the backyard for a bunker. And... I did not think in my 40s that I would be having these conversations again. Yeah, same, did not think that once, especially once the wall came down, like I didn't think we would be here. But humanity has so much complexity to offer. And this is part of it, the desire to destroy and the greed and the need to hold on to power and consolidate power is apparently just something as a species that we can't seem to let go of. Okay, I wanna also point out that While this has all been happening the us and israel have continued to bomb all sorts of structures in iran including There's a pastor people may not know there's a pastor institute in tehran That's a sister to the pastor institute in france and they they bombed that that's a major vaccine distributor for the region bombed, um, they bombed sherif university, which is wait, wait. So we're saying that we're anti-vax in multiple countries. That's true. That's right. We are pushing our case agenda all the way to the Middle East um So proud that he's starting a podcast anyway, um, You didn't know about that one Indeed he is But like, shouldn't he... I mean, maybe... I'm of two minds, okay? One, I think if you are supposed to be running a massive portion of the federal government, you probably shouldn't have time to do a podcast. Like, we barely have time to do a podcast, and we're just doctors. But also, like, maybe that'll be a good distraction for him. Maybe... yeah. Maybe he'll be too busy, you know, planning out his podcast content to make American, to stop making American public health worse every freaking day. One can only hope, Alisa. So yes, and back to the destruction. So they also, the US has bombed a number of schools and universities and they bombed Sherif University, which is the most prestigious engineering university in the country. there's lots of people, engineers, tech folks, CEOs here in this country in the US. who have invented things, founded companies, et cetera, who went to that university. um So they're not just bombing military structures. Well, their argument, of course, is that the military works with universities, but that's true in the US as well, right? The DOD contracts with how many universities across the country. Anyway, terrible things are happening, is what I'm trying to say. And in that context, the president said, um A whole civilization, this is on Tuesday, so he had made that threat on Sunday about Tuesday night, opening the straight by Tuesday night. Then Tuesday uh morning he said, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, reader note, listener note. We do not have any regime change. Anyway, he says, different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight. Let me finish. sort of like upside down fun house? I think it's like a reality TV show, Like show, that's how he's framing it. Like, oh, either the whole civilization is going to die or maybe something revolutionary will happen. He says, will find out tonight. Exactly. He said, we will find out tonight one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran. So. that I'm so confused though. There's so much, I mean, does he not have an editor? He doesn't have an editor. I know that he doesn't have an editor, but also like there's so many inherent contradictions. Like even if you're gonna be a diabolical wannabe dictator, pick your battles. Like what is it? Do you think that the people of Iran are... horrible and need to all be destroyed and destroy their entire culture and civilization? Or are they a great people? I'm just so lost. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the desire for internal consistency leaves us all wanting all the time um with his communications. So, you know, as an Iranian, I spent Tuesday, one, trying to get work done because still things had to be done. And then two, wondering if all that, you know, I was thinking through all the historic sites that I've been to in Iran and the beautiful cities that I've been to and my family, of course. um But the... really beyond the people, the history, like both, that would be destroyed and that, you know, we don't know, he writes very vaguely, right? Is he talking about just like a massive bombing campaign or is he talking about a nuclear weapon? My concern was because he had said a whole civilization that there's really not enough bombs to do that unless you're about nuclear weapons. But of course we can't apply logic. because these are not logical things that he's saying. But so a lot of us spent Tuesday and including non-Iranians, obviously there were a lot of people concerned about this potential threat to use nuclear weapons against the people who did not start this war. know, whatever we might say about the Islamic Republic of Iran, they did not start this war. They've been at war with their own people. They did not start a war with the United States. So then, you know, around... uh I don't remember exactly what time it was, maybe four five p.m. Pacific, there was an announcement that there would be a ceasefire. And so we did not, spoiler alert, since we all are still here living to talk about it, they did not drop a nuclear weapon on Iran, at least yet. We're recording on April 9th. And I wanted to draw attention to just a few things, which is that one, Congress did nothing. So we have the president of the United States making this threat potentially to use nuclear weapons. why do we even have them? war crimes, Congress did nothing. They didn't come back to session. They certainly didn't vote for impeachment. The cabinet did not invoke the 25th Amendment. Nobody did anything except for tweet. And I guess that's better than nothing, nothing, but I can tweet because I don't have power, but we expect of our electives that they will take action. I did call both my senators and my representative. um Anyway, so that was one thing I wanted to highlight is that we now know that if the president threatens nuclear war, Congress is not going to intervene. um And that should be really disturbing to everyone, regardless of who he's threatening it against or in what context. There was a poll by YouGov that showed 23 % of those who responded to the poll in the US approved of that tweet. threat to end a whole civilization. thought, yeah, that's good. We should move. did they read it to them? I think it was written, but I'm not sure actually. It's a good question. I didn't look at the methodology of that specific poll. I'm only asking because like I'm so, I mean this is a sidebar, like polls are always fascinating to me. Like, cause if you really like Trump and you say, Trump said this, then like, yeah, there's gonna be people who are like, appreciate everything that man says. I think he's a wonderful person. The great, he's great. I voted for him and I like feeling good about who I voted for. And that's. happy that prices of everything are up and unemployment is up and the world hates us, but it's great. He's doing what I wanted him to do. Anyway, go on. You know, again, I don't know, I'm curious, because I'm trying to, I'm also trying to imagine if like, you're from YouGov and like they do phone surveys sometimes, I assume. And like, can you imagine being somebody who had to read that tweet to somebody? I mean, you just read it to me. Yeah. It's weird, it's weird. It's like the ravings of a madman, but it's the president of the United States. And that's why, you there was a lot of alarm around the world, I would say. But also, you know, I didn't see anyone from the EU, like from, I mean, I think the leader of Spain maybe said something. And I'm not saying I saw everything that existed. So maybe there were a couple of people who said things, but there weren't like, Strongly worded statements all over from other countries leaders saying you cannot do this We will come after you if you do this, know what I'm saying? Like there there there really are no checks and balances either internally in the US or externally or through the UN or any other Device that you make you think may exist for accountability for this type of action And I think that it does really show though, like how much the Overton window has been shifted, right? Like we've been on a decades long journey of Trump saying ridiculous things and Trump the politician for over 10 years now. And so it just, I remember many, many years ago when I was reading like a paper newspaper and it commenting on like the, you know, presidential candidate Trump tweeted something and I was like what happened that now we're suddenly getting our presidential election news, you know from social media and like I remember being like wow we've really things have changed um and with his unfettered social media presence, know, obviously without that little blip of him being kicked off of Twitter um He has pushed I think what anybody He's pushed the window of like what he can say and clearly just gets to say whatever he wants and everyone's like, well, there's really no point saying anything else because it might just get worse for us. That's what I feel like we're watching. Maybe I'm wrong. Mm-hmm. No, I I think you're you're at least in part right that that's why people aren't a lot people in power aren't saying anything or some of them anyway I'm sure that's part of the decision-making there um I also want to point out in case folks aren't aware that the very fact of making that threat is actually in violation of international law because it terrorizes an entire population um So that's there's all that happening and then we have Okay, let me back up. So when I first saw that in the morning, some of the earliest things, reactions I saw were from Piers Morgan saying, hey, this is a call for genocide. And I was like, Piers? Yeah, I was like, Piers, what's going on? What's going on, bro? um And then... uh I think this is the third time that we've had to be like, whoa, Piers Morgan, voice of reason. Just clocking that. it tells you more about the other person, right? It tells you how extreme the other person is In this case Trump and then I saw the next one I saw was marjorie taylor green calling for invoking the 25th amendment to remove him from office and I was like marge interesting, um, and then what I saw was underneath their posts I'll call out specifically pierce's post. There are iranians some of whom I know personally living in the diaspora saying Well, obviously he's talking about the regime, here's. And I want to just say that it's not at all obvious that he's talking about the regime because he said a whole civilization. And I think that, look, we can agree that the Islamic Republic of Iran, those folks involved in that government are terrorists. We can agree that they have held the people of Iran hostage for 46 years. We can agree that they need to be removed from power. I mean, I agree on all of that. But that does not take me to the point of believing that our country, and I'm talking about Iran now, should be bombed out of existence and our people and our heritage and our landmarks with it, which is what I understand the president to have been threatening, whether hyperbolic or not, in that post. So I was personally very distressed to see Iranians trying to convince themselves that Trump was threatening the regime and not the people of Iran. And I'm very concerned for what they are going to think is acceptable to get rid of the regime. As I said to somebody who made a comment on one of my posts, let's say they did, let's say the US or Israel did drop a nuclear weapon. Let's say the leaders of the IRGC and the IRI were not in some kind of bunker and they actually got killed. But then so did my family and so did your family and so did all these I listed various landmarks, all gone. We feel good about that then because I would not let me be clear. That is not a price that we should be willing to pay. um so that's, and then, sorry. And then on top of that, then they announced the ceasefire Tuesday and then Wednesday. Well, and then the bombing continues. I should just point out Israel bombing, Iran, Iran bombing um Israel. And then yesterday, Wednesday, there was a massive bombing campaign from Israel into Lebanon with over 100 bombs dropped in a period of about 10 minutes in many civilian spaces. So even though there's been this announcement that there was a ceasefire, which by the way, the Pakistani government was involved in kind of negotiating, if you will, this ceasefire and their tweet, because now we're doing politics by tweet, as you said, their tweet clearly says that Lebanon was included in the ceasefire. So even though Trump said, yeah, we have a two week ceasefire, the terms of that were apparently never really agreed upon. Apparently there was never a written document that everyone signed. um Anyway, so it's not at, we're not as at as stable a point as some folks might think or hope that we are at this moment. So that's, that's enough. I mean, I always think of a ceasefire as like a really nice little, hold your breath, see how long it lasts. not the be all end all. Yeah, there has to be a more meaningful long-term agreement. And we've seen this with Gaza as well, right? How long ago was the last ceasefire called in Gaza? But every day I'm reading news of journalists and other people in Gaza continuing to be killed. Russia is still demanding Ukraine give up more and more land and continuing to, you know, that war is not over either. Also, another war that we were told was going to be really short. Couple weeks. was supposed to be over on day one of Trump's uh second term. Anyway, okay, so all that to say, you know, as an Iranian, yeah, that's already a lot, but then there's everything else. Do you wanna hear a short run through of some of the other things? Okay, so Kanye West was announced to be headlining a festival in the UK. The same Kanye West who calls himself a Nazi, who has worn a swastika necklace, worn a t-shirt with a swastika, wrote a song and uh put out a song called Heil Hitler, who has said slavery was a choice, wore a short shirt that said white lives matter, has um come out on Diddy's side making fun of Cassie. um Anyway, stand up, citizen, right? So this festival selected him. So I should back up and say he had two back-to-back performances at a stadium that were sold out in the US. He made $33 million in those two nights. can't, anyway, there's lots of thoughts about that. That happened and then after that, at least in the chronology that I saw the information, then after that he was announced to headline this festival and there was widespread outrage. And there was a lot of talk about what gets a person canceled because there's been a lot of pushback folks may not have seen around Chapel Rowan who was a young woman, singer, very popular. about almost anything she does and says people are mad at her. And it almost feels like people are more mad at her than they are at Kanye for being a Nazi. And it is, you you and I were talking about moral injury before this. It is really hard as a woman, as a person who cares about justice, as someone who would love to see Nazis eradicated from our society or at least banished to corners where they can't harm other people. um It is really hard to watch someone who has said and done the things that he's done be continue to be elevated like this and so the good news here is that the UK banned him um from entering the UK and then what's really interesting is that the people in charge of the festival they obviously were getting a lot of heat multiple sponsors pulled out like Pepsi was one of them pulled out after they announced Kanye. pulled out because somebody wouldn't platform Kanye West. That's funny. Well, that's what I mean. Like they're pulling out because they can't use their own corporation to like make money off of somebody who's horrible. Suck a duck, folks. I mean, at least they I mean, I think it matters, though, that like these corporations and I don't remember the work for that I saw in a row that pulled out. They put pressure on that festival, as had people been putting pressure on the festival. The festival put out a statement that was like, we believe in forgiveness and blah, blah, blah. I it was wild. was like you would think that he, I don't know, like accidentally went over a curb while he was driving or something like. It was a very weird statement. So they basically said, no, we're not backing down. We believe in forgiveness. This man will be our headliner. And so then the UK government said, bet he can't come into the country now. Now what are you going to do? And then the festival said, okay, we're not going to have a festival anymore. Like what a wild move. Like rather than remove a literal self-proclaimed Nazi from your lineup, you just cancel a whole festival. They honestly, they probably couldn't afford to put it on. They probably couldn't afford to put it on. Yeah, I have no idea. But anyway, they were doing fine before they announced him as the headliner. And then they announced them as a headliner. loss, loss, lost a bunch of sponsors, stood by him rather than standing on principle. They would say that they stood on some principle. It's a wacky, wacky, wacky principle if it is. And then lost their whole festival. So that's a thing that's been playing out over the last week or so. The price of everything continues to increase. The price of gas, price of eggs, price of anything that you care about is increasing. How about the insider trading? That one's really weighing on me quite a lot. Every single thing that this administration is doing, are counting on us. I'm going to say. So we don't know exactly who, but there's all these prediction markets, which maybe we should do like a whole episode on these prediction markets. you can bet on, for example, this is a rumor. have not fact checked it, but what I saw was that there had been somebody who placed a bet on whether Trump was going to tweet the word Allah. Yeah, yeah, I did hear about this. right? And so somebody made a lot of money on that very strange turn of phrase that you normally do not hear from the US president. There have been, if you recall, was that, was a couple of weeks ago when he threatened Iran, like one of the times that he threatened Iran, and then just before the markets opened Monday morning, he was like, oh, actually, we're giving them five more days, right? So then the markets opened. with the price of oil or whatever was going in a direction that was more favorable. And so if you had bet that that was going to happen, you made a lot of money. So there's a lot of this type of stuff happening. What happened this week was that somebody had placed, and I'm not a stockbroker. I should do more of that. But anyway, this is what I read. I'm too stressed by all that, I'm too stressed by all that financial stuff. It's too late for me. Well, we could figure it out. We're just too busy doing other things to have time to figure it out. But anyway, so somebody did a 52 place to 52 million. I don't know what the right terminology is. But anyway, 52 million dollars short on oil right before this announcement that there was going to be a ceasefire. They made 174 million dollars in three hours. uh And so there are. That's like that happening every time we have this um shift back and forth in what Trump says is going to happen in the war. And even the Iranian government has called him out on it and said that all he's doing is market manipulation because he'll announce that they're like in negotiations and the Iranian government will be like, we're definitely not in negotiations. He's just telling you that to manipulate the market. There are similar things around how long Caroline Levitt does her press conference, something that she herself has complete control over because she decides when she leaves. And you can bet that it's gonna be more or less than 45 minutes, for example. Anyway, all these things are happening all the time. And some people, either affiliated with this administration, relatives of, we don't know who, some people are making a lot, a lot of money by being informed just before these things happen and then placing bets on things that seem very improbable at that moment. So they get these long odds and then they make a lot of money. Do know what I'm laughing about? Do you remember when Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading and like nobody else did? Yes. Correct. People have brought that up. People have been like, can we revisit why she had to go to jail and none of these people, nothing is happening. I mean, it's worth noting, I can't remember if we talked about on the show, but they have forced out a bunch of people at the FTC and that's who would be holding them accountable. And the woman or a woman who was very high up in the FTC resigned recently, I think because she was trying to investigate these things. And there are folks in... Congress, by the way, who are trying to investigate all of these bets that are happening. I don't know where that will go, but they are trying to make some efforts. Okay, the next thing is the Pentagon threatened the Catholic Church. That's cool. So. oh a deep Catholic cut. A deep cut. but also what I mean, they're basically as I understand it, they were upset at what the pope the pope has been for. Listen, I'm not a Catholic. I don't really believe in organized religion. But for folks who haven't been following, the pope has been really outspoken about treatment. first pope who is an American-born person. Correct. Correct. And he's been very outspoken about we need to be welcoming to immigrants. We should not be bombing people. know, like he's been pretty clearly opposed to almost everything our government is doing. And so he made an address recently where he talked about this and the and what I understand is that the Pentagon summoned, it says the Pope's ambassador, somebody who reports to Pope and told him the United States military has the power to do whatever it wants. warning the church to take their side and then they invoke the Havinion Papacy, which is apparently... I only know what it says here, but why don't you tell us? Okay, this is why I'm saying it's deep cut. and I I can't remember the name of the person who was the Pope at this time, but basically the French were pissed at the Catholic Church. They were like, you're all not being nice to us. You're not doing the things that we say. They kidnapped the Pope, kidnapped the Pope, tortured him, did some other bad stuff to him. Eventually he died. And so, they ended up making it so that the subsequent pope had to live in France for like, I don't know, some number of papacies, like eight popes had to live in France. And so this was a way that the French deeply influenced what the pope would be able to do. And so when they say, we're talking about invoking the, know, Abignan, whatever, they're saying like, we're considering kidnapping the pope. and doing some bad stuff. So literally the pope canceled every single event for the US 250, which is, by the way, also, I find hilarious because there are so many people in this administration who have converted to Catholicism as a way towards getting into these like power groups and whatever. And I'm like, backfiring on you now, dummies. COVID's backfiring, they're being shown to be disingenuous, I think. Anyway, okay, so there's the Pentagon threatening the Pope. We've talked about ICE many times. There was some data that I just saw today that we are on track this year, 2026, to have more deaths in ICE detention than during the peak of the COVID pandemic, which is so cool. And then I saw another... Reporting actually from one of our locals a San Francisco Chronicle about people being denied medical care in ice uh In detention centers uh People who've had a stroke and weren't taken anywhere people there was a man who was having rectal discomfort and instead of getting treatment for what was uh Actually turned out to be an abscess that in he became septic and I do not recall if he survived because they told him he had hemorrhoids or something like that. So, you know, that's cool. practicing medicine without a license? I don't know. I don't know what all is happening. In the meantime, except for that it's bad, that's what I do. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense and is very terrible. And other connection that I think is worth making is, know, when we think back to, you know, all of the reckoning around racism in the United States, which like certainly the things that are happening now are backlash against the efforts towards anti-racism. We think about people being harmed by the police in many ways and in many cases from being denied medical care. Mm-hmm. And when we look at ICE, we see how this is a just a larger, bigger scale, all happening at once. And because we don't have video inside of these detention centers, I do think it's harder to capture people's attention about how terrible this is. There's no accountability and in the meantime, there's all these other awful things happening that take our attention away from ice Because there's just so much happening all the time while the over this past week our vice president em Famously converted Catholic has been campaigning for Viktor Orban in Hungary and then No, I am not kidding you and he has been saying things like You know, it's inappropriate for a head of state to be threatening their allies. Hello, pot, kettle, Black much. compare, yes, in. I saw a I know, but I saw a poll that said, I don't know if it's real or like how accurate I should say it's real, but I don't know how accurate it is, but saying that Orvan lost like 3%. Support from JD Vance being there. I don't know. I like to believe that I don't know if it's really true I did not once again look into the methodology of that um But he's been over there and he's backed up the president and his threats to nuclear weapons Basically he earlier in the week. He said, you know, we have tools that we haven't used yet that are available to us in this war Pete Hegseth has been pressuring the uh army chief uh Driscoll to resign I should say that Driscoll has been supportive of Promoting people who deserve to be promoted including Black people and women in the military Despite Pete Hegseth not allowing that and so that has been at least one source of friction one can imagine there might be other friction around what is legal and appropriate in the context of the war at least he's trying to hold up the appointing of three one-star generals, right? All of whom are Black. I have lost track of the details, but he's blocked actually the promotion of multiple. I think it's like, I don't wanna say a number, but I think it's actually many more than that. But most recently it was four people who were to be promoted um and some of them were Black people and two of them I think were women, although I could be wrong. I will fact check that in the show notes, but women and Black people. There was somewhere mentioned that the reason he was holding up these promotions was because the president had said he didn't want to have to stand next to a Black woman, which seems, yeah, totally like a legitimate. reason when you are trying to supposedly run a meritocratic organization, which is what they keep telling us over and over again. Okay. In the meantime, let me just highlight a couple of good things. Okay. I have more negative things in the interest of moving along and not being super depressed. So, uh, one thing is over 80 elected officials have called for the, either the 25th amendment or an impeachment or both of Trump this week. That's a lot. That's a lot. I know that we are all kind of losing faith. I should speak for myself. I am losing faith in whether our structures that are meant to put a check on this man or any person in that office are at all functioning, but there are some moves being made. We need some Republicans to join though, and so far, none of them who are still in office seem to have done that, but that was something. um Tuesday was also an election day in several places and we had really positive results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Oklahoma. all different things, but Wisconsin, for example, now has a majority liberal Supreme Court, which is a major win. And there have been shifts in the, like very positive shifts toward the Democratic Party in a number of other places, even if the person who was running was a Democrat didn't win. So that's happened. and I think what's uh also helpful to talk about Wisconsin is that is the state where Elon Musk had poured a boatload of money into trying to influence how many Supreme Court justices, whether they had a liberal or conservative justice. Yeah, you mean one of the places he was trying to commit election fraud. Yeah, true. And then the other thing I wanted to talk about just for a couple of minutes is what I also mentioned at the beginning, which is the Artemis II mission. And there have been so many really positive and uplifting moments from it while all this other stuff has been going on. So it's been really hard. to in some ways feel some hope that we still believe in science, we can still achieve. Somebody in my messages was like, hope for what? And I said, hope that we can achieve great things together when we choose to work together, when we believe in science, we can do incredible things. mean, these four individuals went farther away from the earth than anyone else ever had. That's pretty incredible. And as we mentioned last week, the first woman and the first Black person to go that far and to reach the moon. They had songs every day that were chosen to woke them up. One of them was Pink Pony Club. Shout out to Chapel Rowan again. So people can get that playlist. They have sent back incredible photos of the moon and even the Orion capsule and then the moon and then the earth all lined up. You see the earth so small. so small from that perspective. There's Earthrise and Earthset photos. Anyway, there's the eclipse. There's so many, so many incredible photos. I would really encourage folks to check those out if you haven't seen them. There's been the photos of the staff, or sorry, the crew on the ship hugging each other, having fun. They have a little stuffy named Rise, who's a zero gravity stuffy, who's part of the team designed by a second grader. They had a phone call with the Canadian Prime Minister, which I thought was really cute, where he was like, but can you please tell me that you're going to stick with maple syrup instead of Nutella on your pancakes? Because there was a jar of Nutella floating around in the capsule. Nutella got the best ad ever out of this. There was probably the most touching moment was when they got to the moon and they were able to get closer visualization than really anyone ever has before with their own eyes and identified a crater that had not been named before. And they named it after Reed Wiseman's wife who had died of cancer in 2020. So that's Carol. And it was a really emotional, I mean, I'm getting emotional even talking about it. It was a really emotional moment for them all. And now, when he comes back, he and his daughters will be able to look up at the moon and see their mom. Anyway, sorry. I'm a little sensitive and it was a really beautiful moment. And then we also had Jim Lovell, who was part of the crew that had previously held the record for having gone the farthest away from the earth. And he passed away last summer, but he prior to that had recorded a voice message for this crew because he knew this mission was coming. And I'm so sorry. I'm really emotional about all this. Anyway, he said. I listen, I saw a seaworthy tears better out than in, okay? It's natural. It's good for you. He said, welcome to my neighborhood. really, just a beautiful message handing off that record and being proud of them and to think that he recorded that. Who knows if he knew he was done. I don't know that story, but certainly in the latter part of his life. It's really beautiful. So yeah, it gives a little bit of hope that. We're not all awful, even though some of us have indulged our worst sides and some of the people who indulge the darker sides of humanity are right now in power. There are still really, really wonderful people out there and this crew of folks haven't been watching their videos, like they're really funny. They did a little uh intro video to the intro theme of Full House where they're like in the capsule. So it'll be like one of them, like Christina Koch and They see they show her like doing something and then she like turn in the theme song is playing and she like turns to the camera and then waves and then they've got her name just like how they used to do in the in the sitcom intros back then and then then you go to read and then you go to Victor, you know, like and then you go to rise the little stuffy. Anyway, it's very cute. They're they seem like lovely people. Obviously, I don't know them personally, but as somebody said, like we're all developing very parasocial relationships with these folks and hoping that, you know, they make a safe reentry. which is another, that's like the next high risk part of their journey is their reentry, which is happening, I believe tomorrow, April 10th. So anywho. it makes me wonder, uh you uh my parents both have a lot of, you know, people in their age range, people who in that boomer generation, you know, deep memories of the launch to the moon and, you know, of Kennedy's speech and... You know, and obviously there was, it was a space race and it was like us versus the Russians. And like, there was all of that part of it as well. But it is interesting the sort of wonder when you talk to people who lived through that era in the sixties. And I wonder how many kids today or, know, people, people like yourself who've been following this really closely. uh There is something I think really wonderful about saying, wow, we have done something incredibly complicated that should absolutely not be possible. And I always hope that that energy can also get taken to the things here on Earth that absolutely should be possible. Like, it should not be. There's so many things I think that we're facing now that absolutely do not have to be this way. And it would require a lot less ingenuity. to fix those things here on Earth than it takes to get a handful of people off this planet and to swoop around the moon. Absolutely, healthcare, access to high quality food, access to housing, employment. letting people live their lives. Yeah, yeah, without the government trying to tell us who we can marry or what we should do with our own bodies, what health care we're allowed to engage in. Anyway, I agree. um It's both inspiring to see, you know, people so far away from our planet. A few folks had said, you know, jealous of them being so far away from Trump. Good for them. um But then Trump called them. Oops. Anyway, we had to have a phone call with the president. They were very nice about it. that's their boss, so there's that. Yeah. But anyway, so there is the, as you said, awe and wonder and it's inspiring to see that. And then like you said, then we look at what's happening here and why can't we have some of that same energy for very relatively easy fixes that could really improve quality of life for so many people here. I think we can. I think that it is possible. I think it's a little harder to like focus folks on some of these things, but you know, I don't think it's impossible. I'm hope. remain, I refuse to not have some amount of hope despite being a generally cynical person. I always try to keep a little bit, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. have to. well anyway I'm sorry, you've let me ramble on about so many things, um but I... I think it was very important to do that. Don't you think? Do you feel better now that you like kind of dumped it all out there? Um, maybe. I I had a whole topic prepared for today, and I'm just gonna save it for next week. It's no big deal. Trust me, it'll still be terrible next week, folks, and don't worry. um I routinely travel with folks who are non-binary, and so I'm gonna have a whole story all about uh bathrooms and how it shouldn't be this goddamn hard to find a bathroom for your friends. um But... Trust me, that story will be just as relevant next week, So, I think it's time for take two in Call Me in the Morning. Okay, why don't you go first since I've been talking, talking, talking. Listen, I like to practice my listening skills. They're important. I mean, you probably know this. I don't know if all of our listeners know this, like, you know, doctors, it used to be that doctors would routinely, in the 80s, it was like after 18 seconds is when doctors would interrupt a patient. You know, now, and then it, it went down to 11 and I'm pretty sure it's sub 10 now for sure. Um, so yeah, whenever I'm like with a patient or I'm like with a friend or whatever, I'm like, I should like just listen, just see what happens, you know, cause it's. not my natural state of being. I'm usually like, woo, let me talk. I was absolutely, no, I was absolutely one of the most annoying kids in every class I was ever in with being like, call on me. I have thoughts, I have thoughts. So, you know, any opportunity to soothe that piece of myself, I take it, I take it. So I actually, I hadn't thought about this when, You and I were prepping for this episode, but um you know, I talked a little bit about Unicorn Day and how that's something I was looking forward to. And I mentioned how I feel like we, this was our fourth annual at our hospital. My friend and I put on this party. It's all about just honoring the amazing people that we work with. We buy a bunch of food, we show up and we put together a really dumb party and everyone gets a unicorn headband. And we tell everybody that we're lucky that we get to work with them and that not everyone. is willing to take care of kids. And I felt like this year it reached some sort of, there was some like communal gelling that happened. Cause when we did it the first year, I sort of thought it would be a one-off. uh but then people kept asking for us to do it. And I was like, I guess they like really like it. So we should do it again. So once a year we do this bananas thing and it is a the day that we're recording on April 9th. It is International Unicorn Day today, by the way. Happy Unicorn Day to you. Amazing! Happy Unicorn Day to you! Thank you. uh And my girlfriend and I always just throw it like sometime that's around this time that we can both get the day off. So it's not, we don't usually have it on April 9th. uh But tomorrow when this episode comes out, it'll be April 10th. And uh we are gonna be featured in the pediatric anesthesia article of the day, which is a very widely read newsletter amongst pediatric anesthesiologists, so it's very niche. They almost always, I mean, it says it in the name. They take an article, people analyze it, and they present it, it's to give you a little insight into what's been going on in pediatric anesthesia. And the editor uh made a very unusual decision to feature a a personal essay that was written by two of my colleagues about Unicorn Day, and I can't believe it. They decided to cover it, and it's very sweet. uh the editor is determined that everyone should have Unicorne Day and I'm like, I don't know, I mean, I'm gonna say what I said to my friend the very first time is you can't make everyone have fun. But maybe pediatric anesthesiologists will say what my friend said to me, which is, I think you can. uh love that so much. So I put up a reflection on my sub stack, which I have been just, I also have been overwhelmed. I've also had a lot of things going on my personal life and the world. so I wrote a reflection about it on my sub stack and then there will be this other piece tomorrow, which, uh you know, part of me feels a little bit like it's gonna like float. It's, you know, it's been this like cute, sweet little thing that our treatment center has. There's like 300 people who work in this area. And I feel a little bit weird because I feel like it's like gonna get out and do something else and become something else But I hope it'll become something glittery and wonderful sure it will. I love that. Spreading the forced fun far and wide. So I'll put links to those. I'll put links to both of those in the show notes. What about you? Okay, well, I came across this video, I come across a lot of videos of animals where I'm like, I feel that. And so this one was somebody filmed themselves trying to get their dog out of bed in the morning. And the dog is, I'm not good at what breed any dog is, any animal, I'm not good at that. So anyway, it's a small dog. It's a small kind of, almost crusty looking dog. And the dog is like tucked in, like under the blankets, on the bed. And as she approaches, it's already like snarling at her. Like, argh. Don't wake me up. Don't wake me up. come on, it's time to go for a walk. Everybody's ready to go. Dog is like so mad. And she's like, you don't want to miss it. We can't go without you. He's like looking at her. The dog's name is Eddie. He's like looking at her like, what are you doing here? uh Anyway, she tries for like, I guess it's almost a minute where she's like, come on, we got to go. It's time to go for the morning walk. Don't you want to eat? Aren't you hungry? She says at one point, aren't you hungry? Don't you want to get up? And Eddie did not want to get up. And in fact, in that minute anyway, Eddie did not get up. And that is how I feel a lot of mornings. It's a good thing I live alone because if someone came to wake me up, I'd be like, argh. That's funny. Anyway, so yeah, I will put a link to that video so everyone can meet Eddie. Do you have a hard time getting your dog up? My dog? Not too much. He's not a morning dog, which I appreciate because I'm not a morning human. um And so that works out well. um But yeah, usually once I'm up and about, he'll get up. But it's, I can't even tell you if there's been a single time when he's like tried to wake me up, which is what my mom's dog is like. My mom's dog is an early morning dog. So he's constantly waking people up in the morning. um But no, once I'm up, Hopper's usually like, okay, now it's time to go. But until then he's like even if I'm like awake, but I'm like reading in bed or something He'll look up because I like shift positions and then he sees I'm not getting up and he just puts his head back down Anyway, I really appreciate that about him Anyway, oh I did have one other very short thing which is that NASA has made available as wallpaper several of the photos from the Artemis 2 So if anybody's looking for yeah, so baby's looking for a wallpaper for their phone Probably actually I'm gonna look at these right now. So what I didn't know is people are looking for, there's an entire Flickr that has like all of their photos. So you don't have to look at just what they posted on their account or what other people post. So that's a cool resource. But then they like specifically formatted a bunch of these for wallpaper on a phone. So, I don't know if you, yeah, if you want to be like enjoying, sorry, I just said that wallpaper for your phone. So if you want to be enjoying these photos or be reminded that we can. as humans do incredible things when we put our minds together. You could download some of these photos and have them on your phone. And also I would be remiss if I didn't just shout out all the women who were involved in that mission because it wasn't just Christine, or is it Christina? I'm sorry, I don't remember. uh Cook, who's up there, but there's all sorts of women who've been involved in NASA, very different from the 1969 trip to the moon. Many, many women have been involved in contributing to the success of this mission. And that for me as a feminist is pretty cool to see and I hope that's going to inspire future generations. So, you know, there are some good things happening. It's a lot of dark out there, but there are some good things happening. Excellent. Well, I just found the Artemis II Flickr account and no complaints. No complaints. I'm gonna use some of these as zoom backgrounds. That's what I'm gonna do. I love that idea. um And I did just fact check myself just to make sure because I felt so bad. is Christina Cook, not Christine. I don't know why I was confused on that. But anyway, there you have it, folks. um I think that's it for this week's episode. uh If you didn't like what you heard, this has been This Past Weekend with Theo von. If you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to The Present Illness, leave us a review, maybe your rating, and tell other folks to check us out as well. We know that you're not tuning into Manosphere podcast, so we're gonna look forward to seeing you back here. Make sure to follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at The Present Illness, and you can stay on top of all of our TPI-related news. We will be back next week, although next week, I should point out, we have a special guest. I will not be there because I am going to take some time off, which I really sorely need. So thank you. um And Alyssa will be back with our special guest, Dr. Laura Jones, and there will continue to be hot takes, doom scrolling, and some laughs. Until then, agitate, hydrate, take a nap. See you next time on The Present Illness. Production by Arghavan Salles and Alyssa Burgart. Editing by Alyssa Burgart Social media by Arghavan Salles. Original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This shows for informational purposes. It's meant to be fun, and it's certainly not medical advice. Please take your medical questions to a qualified professional.

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Alyssa Burgart, MD, MA

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Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD

Host