Signs of Senility and Bay Area Blues

In this episode, Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler explore dementia and the Oval Office, California politics — tech power, decadence and wealth — and San Francisco worse than the 1970s to which the experience of Eli and Shelby Steele attests.

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23 thoughts on “Signs of Senility and Bay Area Blues”

  1. Brian Majeres

    I think President Biden was referencing a Tyrone Power movie from the fifties, “Pony Soldier”, where the Chief of the Cree Indians says, “Pony Soldier speaks with tongue of snake that rattles”

  2. Another fascinating discussion.
    Thank you.
    It gives one a slightly increased awareness of the environs of an upcoming drive on I-10 then up I-5 through Kettleman City and past Weed northbound to a burb north of Seattle.

  3. Jerry M Dagna

    MORE SAMI! LESS JACK WHO TALKS MORE THAN YOU. HE LOVES THE SOUND OF HIS OWN VOICE. COME ON! WERE WAT TO HEAR YOU NOT SO0ME EGO HACK

    1. Pooters upon you, Jerry. Jack barely talked this episode, except to read prompts. Listen to the weekend podcasts if our resident lovable New Yorker with a CV a mile long so annoys you as to require ALL CAPS.

    2. Jerry you are such an exaggerator. Seriously dude. I may be many things but “ego hack” — you don’t have a clue. Or a clue about a clue. But I love you anyway. Smooch!

      1. MSNBC BREAKING NEWS: Former NRO Editor Smooches Cis-Man on Rogue Academic’s Blog.

        Former Hard-Right Editor of MAGA-Adjacent website National Review Online, Jack Fowler, was caught in the act of digitally smooching a reportedly Cis-gendered man this Friday. In what many say is a disturbing trend, the smooching event took place on the personal website of rogue classicist Victor David Hansen, a known member of the Right-Wing Hoover Institute and unrepentant raison tree farmer. Experts say that there is a growing link between raison tree farming and Cis-Genderedism which may lead to Far Right acts of terror such as same-gender-smoocing (sgs). Expert on the subject, Watercooler Wanda From Copy Editing, warns that SGS may lead to shopping at the GAP and even Mormonism. Before being burned at the stake by an rightly enraged group of Yale Freshmen, Fowler is rumored to have protested:”Geez! What the effin… You guys, I have a wife! I was just being cute as a way of turning the other cheek”. Our expert, Wanda, has informed us that “turning the other cheek” is a Catholic teaching that can lead to families of Amy Conner Barret proportions.

        1. Marge Desiderio

          Thank you James, I’m still laughing. I can just picture Jack at the stake saying that. I Like both Jack and Sami. Keep up the posts.

      2. Thomas O'Brien

        I agree with you, Jack. Please continue doing what you do–great interviews. I love your intro music, too!

  4. California will have a huge state pension problem beginning next year if the U.S. economy collapses this year. 6 of my 7 closest friends are all state or county employees and are looking to retire or are already retired as they are all in their 60’s. This added to the State support of existing illegals , homeless and the incapacitated, an El Nino year and the potential for a huge influx of refugees if China crosses the strait in the near future does not portend well for the Golden State.

  5. barbara deSpan

    Re Amazon: I have been banned (for maybe 2 years) from posting reviews on amazon for ANYTHING I have purchased. I can not find out WHAT I HAVE done but I assume it had to do with a book called: ‘The Davenport Orphans’.. I took exception to a comment by the author that touted the Kennedy family for donating so much money to causes for mentally handicapped people. I commented that the author failed to mention that probably it had to do with guilt because Joe Kennedy forced a lobotomy on his ‘teenage daughter’ who was ‘acting up’ and became a vegetable. For that they have trained me like a seal..no chance of getting my views out. Every now and then I try to post a review on something other than a book and I am still banned.

  6. I think your comments and history lessons of high wealth and low morals is something we all feel! The lack of morals in the inner city is dangerous but the lack of morals among the upper class is perilous! The College Admission Scandal itself is testament, they don’t care how or why they get an education only that they have one. For some pointless superficial accolade. The extreme left themselves don’t care what people believe or how they behave only that they have some superficial monetary status or class level. Just another leg of meritocracy removed!

  7. I had a classics buddy who compared every CA roadtrip an odyssey. He said In N Out, with its crossed palms was a sheltered cove. When my college buddies and I took a road trip, we labeled LA “Mordor” and Ventura County was Ithilian. The Ruby Mountains were Caradhras and Elko was Rohan.

  8. Victor – Beware of the Political Puppeteer

    When Joe Biden finished his speech with saying “God save the Queen, man,” I understood his remarks not to be a sign of dementia but only to be jovial or joking. It was a playful and cynical distortion of the traditional conclusion to a presidential speech with “God bless America.”

    Also, Biden’s indecisive exit from the stage looked exaggerated and faked. He knows that people believe him to be declining mentally and may be using that perception to gain sympathy with his current investigations into bribery.

    It may very well be that Biden and the democrats are using his mental decline to manipulate the public to gain an advantage in his eventual resignation. It is to their advantage that you perceive his actions as “no fault of his own.” Thus, his exit from the stage was deliberate and purposeful.

    Politicians think ahead to anticipate how the public may respond to their actions and create advantages for themselves by using the public’s likely response to their advantage. Don’t be fooled.

  9. As a government-union bus driver I have dealt a lot with the mentally ill, the drug addled, and the criminal underclass over the years. Assaults are common and incidents range from spitting to grievous violence. State law prohibits our union from spending our dues on political issues that promote better working conditions, but we can voluntarily contribute to a separate fund. I give it $5/pay check. Thanks to our lobbying efforts it is now a felony to assault a bus driver. It used to be a gross misdemeanor in most cases.

    A few years ago a friend of mine was beaten by some young punk over some perceived slight. My friend is about 6’2″ and 225 lbs. and could’ve easily taken this POS if he hadn’t been sucker punched while buckled in the seat. When the police and our supervisor eventually arrived

  10. …the first thing the supervisor asked him was, “do you think you could’ve done something to prevent this?”

    Sorry, but I don’t trust management to look out for our safety and well-being.

  11. There are still pockets of sanity in California. Here on the Monterey Peninsula our biggest moans and bitches are about prices and tourists packing our best restaurants and not, blessedly, human feces on the sidewalk and aggressive homelessness and panhandling.
    Yes, there are some ‘unhoused’ downtown Monterey and some minor crime but driving and parking your car in San Francisco makes it 5X more likely that you’ll be broken into vs. the national average.

  12. thevoiceofkebap

    VDH, Victor Dirty Hanson that is. The stories about San Francisco sound familiar. Back in the day West-Berlin was a nightmare in the 70ies all the way into the 80ies. What made it that way? Well, there was mandatory military service in West Germany but with a catch. The occupying powers had signed treaties that allowed for no German military in the city. In other words: relocate to West-Berlin and you would stay out of the military. That exemption concentrated the entire anti-America crowd including any kind of weirdo in the city. On the other hand civil service enjoyed extra money. Then there was the elite like David Bowie who felt the lowpoint of civilisation would inspire better art and chose to live there. Even today Berlin is the only German city where cars are burned. Many immigrants told me that the opposite is what they like most about West-Germany. You can park the most expensive car in the poorest neighborhood. And guess what, the neighbors would watch over the car rather than damage it.

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