Sean Ongley

Tag: Economics

  • Political Dysphoria with Theresa Mitchell

    Political Dysphoria with Theresa Mitchell

    Back from hiatus, I return with a guest who represents very much the progressive/socialist/lefty voice. She is Theresa Mitchell, whose show Press Watch was on air from 1990 until 2020 on community radio. We were colleagues at KBOO Portland.

    Theresa represents the ire of my conservative leaning libertarian mutuals on Twitter, representing herself as an anarch-socialist transgender woman refugee of 1960’s Texas. There was a time that I would have more or less agreed with her on all things. These days, I just try to find our common ground, as I’m lockstep with nobody.

    Breezing through the topics of immigration, transgenderism, Ukraine, voting systems, and economics, we found agreeable points along each step of the way.

    To keep it moving, I didn’t dwell on arguments. This conversation is not meant to satisfy anyone, only reveal that we all stand on the same ground, which is Earth, and in particular America.

    Theresa cohosts a livestream with Ani Haines called This is Now: Bridge to a Better World. You can find her on Twitter @presswatch_Now.

  • Vegan Life with Sky Jack Morgan

    Vegan Life with Sky Jack Morgan

    Interview with vegan advocate Sky Jack Morgan

    As a counter balance to my talk with Texas Slim of the Beef Initiative, also a Bitcoin advocate, I had Sky Jack Morgan, host of the Vegan! podcast, entrepreneur, and Ethereum NFT guy. Could not be a starker contrast with Slim.

    My goal with The Not-a-Podcast Show is to talk to everyone about everything. It’s not easy getting liberals/progressives on the show. When I talk to Libertarians they tend to assume I fall in line with their thinking. There is hostility sometimes, but I find it gets real nasty with leftists.

    There was a moment when Sky equates myself to a child molester because I eat meat. He didn’t direct that at me personally, but he sees that as a moral equivalent: molesting animals in farms. I let it roll right past me, because it’s a trap argument to get caught in.

    This was a real test to see where I could find common ground. We ended the talk in good spirits and willing to keep in touch. That is success as far as I’m concerned.

    We talk about the ethics of veganism, the motives and goals, while I push back on the maximalism of that lifestyle/moral choice. It’s not that I have a problem with it or want to advocate for meat. I just think we have to live and let live and support the highest ethics of whatever our choice may be.

    As a coda, I made a 3-minute video chopping up three interviews, including this one, Slim, and Ross Farrier. It is a mashup that helps illuminate the argument and the common ground between us.

  • The Initiative of Texas Slim and his Beef with Big Industry

    The Initiative of Texas Slim and his Beef with Big Industry

    Texas Slim is a guy from Texas named Slim, not to be confused with the recording artist. He is on a tear against the establishment from the angle of beef, and he calls his crusade The Beef Initiative.

    Our conversation swirls around the cow as she connects to all areas of industry and agriculture. While I do not share his enthusiasm for a meat-based diet, I do not have an issue with it because I am a meat eater, and I agree that we can steward animals in a way that is good for everyone involved.

    We are domesticated ourselves. We abuse ourselves. In general, there is a lot of heart missing from our systems.

    At the same time, I own a vegan fashion brand, I’m a traditional liberal from Portland, and so I absorb vegan arguments routinely, and I’m broadly familiar with the arguments surrounding industrial farming, so I was pretty enthusiastic throughout this talk.

    Raising animals in the humane way can be sustainable and produce nutritious, bountiful, clean food. Getting away from mono cropping and more toward smaller farms with varieties of foods, that is the path forward, unless we want to go totally down the road of synthetic foods and centralized distribution systems, forever.

    This is the main thing that vegans and farmers, libertarians and democrats should be getting behind. Of course, our social environment is set to reduce this kind of harmonious discourse.

    Myself an historically left wing person now aligning more toward libertarian while continuing to have a social life with progressives and socialists has becoming quite an interesting thing for me.

    I try to be the example every day of what it means to tolerate and love everyone. Not everyone sees it that way and I have to let them go.

    This was a great talk and I enjoyed meeting him. Hope to do it again. We didn’t even get into Bitcoin, and that is a big part of his inititative.

  • Holding it Down with Chris Neff

    Holding it Down with Chris Neff

    Live Interview Recorded June 11, 2022

    It is always fun to get on a live interview with someone whose podcast I listen to, such as Cash Daddies, where I like to pick up both humor and financial information. That program is co-hosted with comedian Chris Neff.

    He was the third host to come on the show. Like Lebowski’s rug, he ties the whole thing together. The other hosts are former Goldman Sachs trader and Manhattan-based comedian Howie Dewie, and Sam Tripoli, whose conspiracy podcast Tin Foil Hat remains one of my favorites.

    Chris has been performing in Los Angeles for many years, sharing the stage with the best of them. Early in his life, surely he was chasing the illuminati dream, and landed himself a lucrative career in commercial acting.

    With the internet era, the sort of checks put out for a relative select number of actors for television royalties eventually waned. The career dried out. And in the process of all that, he started operating a small business pretty much out of his home, which remains successful today.

    As a stock trader comedian business owner, his perspective is unique and fits snug in the comedic styles of Dewie and Tripoli.

    It was great chatting with him for the hour in this interview. We talk about life in Los Angeles, the markets, creative careers, and of course the biographical stuff mentioned above.

  • The Baton Has Passed with Twin Balance

    The Baton Has Passed with Twin Balance

    We are standing at the foot of the bridge preparing to cross, pontificating on the possibilities of the other side. Mesmerized it may appear, but this is just theater. Promotion is an illusion.

    What is happening is the universe exerting its will through its honorable vessels, that is us. Twin gets into right away, discovering we both have arrived at the place of letting go and letting God, as it were.

    Twin is ready to let go of his business, Held Gear, and rather than take an offer from an investor, he decided to hand it off to a friend, which turns out to be me. I am humbled that he would observe consistency in my behavior and bestow the honor of trusting his integrity with mine, in essence.

    All he wants to do is vibe on his land, make it an expression of sustainability, transmitting good vibes through the only FM signal in Why, Arizona, at 106.9. It is not a commercial operation, it is anarchy.

    I am a former radio engineer. I could build a radio station on his property from scratch, given the time and budget, all with my hands and standard power tools. This is only one way that my life path intersects in a way that I can benefit him by leveraging Held Gear.

    We discuss the brand, its ethics, its concept and his life story in the first hour. In the second hour of this talk, it is more like another casual livestream. We get into old Portland and anarchistic cooperative artist lifestyles we lived. It’s a good talk.

    And the internet held.

    Exciting as this project is, it is always a grind, but it can be joyous. Much more will be written and published here, but the real place to follow Held Gear is heldgear.com.