Beer and Conversation with Pigweed and Crowhill

P&C each review a different beer: Ex Patriot IPA from Three Weavers, and Blackbeard's Breakfast from Heavy Seas. The founding fathers said that our form of government only works if you have virtuous people. Why would that be true? What is it about the American style of government that requires personal virtue? And what virtues are meant? What does "self governance" mean, and how does it fit uniquely into the American system? If people won't govern themselves, will they be governed by somebody else?

Is there a fundamental human nature, or is it malleable? This is a key difference between the left and the right. The right takes humanity as a given, and tries to create a structure that accommodates man as he is. The left has a vision for a better society and tries to tweak man to fit in. Conservatives are willing to tolerate equality, so long as it doesn't get in the way of freedom, but liberals are willing to tolerate freedom so long as it doesn't get in the way of equality.

In their first quarantine version, P&C discuss shame vs. guilt, and how a shame culture differs from a guilt culture.  Guilt stems from the feeling that you have violated a moral norm. You can have guilt over something you've done alone in the dark. Shame requires an audience. It's related to how others perceive you.  Shame culture might also be called honor culture, and it leads to a very different sort of society. Guilt may be no fun, but it makes for a better culture than shame. 

Should employers have a say in what employees do on their own time? The old standard, back in the 80s, was that the only thing that mattered was your ability to do the job. That was the standard progressive view. Bill Clinton's sex life was irrelevant as long as he was doing his job well. The new standard is harder to parse, but the boys do their best to meander their way through it.

P&C drink and review Purple Monkey Dishwasher, by Evil Genius Beer Company, and then discuss the dread math of human life. We like to say that every life is infinitely valuable, but do we mean it? Are we willing to eat better to extend our lives one year? Are we willing to reduce the national speed limit to 20 mph to save highway deaths? Should we all wear helmets all the time? There's clearly a math to life. We're willing to spend a certain amount to save a life, but there are limits.

A "vertical" is a comparison of the same beer across several years. In this quick episode, Pigweed and Crowhill compare the 2019 and 2017 versions of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout to see if there's any point to cellaring a beer. Then they compare these beers to a homebrew version. 

Post-modernist thinking is characterized by skepticism and the rejection of grand narratives. It questions the idea of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, science, or social progress. They call particular attention to the contingent or socially-conditioned nature of knowledge, and say that our knowledge claims and value systems are a product of historical or cultural discourse, or societal hierarchies.

Coronavirus has become much more serious than the boys thought a couple of weeks ago. But how do we evaluate this? What is an over-reaction, and what is an under-reaction? Can we compare how the virus behaved in South Korea and Italy? They're very different cultures, with very different populations.  There are a lot of things we still don't know, but it seems there may be some lasting effects of coronavirus. The boys review and discuss. 

St. Patrick's Day 2020 has got to be the worst. The bars were closed. It was surreal. The boys drink Guinness and reflect on the classical Irish beer, and the day.

Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was one of the most cunning, intelligent, despicable bastards P&C have ever heard of. His burning desire to create a colony -- despite the prohibitions in the Belgian constitution -- led him to back-handed, sneaky and horrific tactics, using a famous explorer to carve Leopold's own personal kingdom out of the Congo River basin. Meanwhile, in Europe, Leopold is being praised as a humanitarian. It's a horrific story.

Who was the genius who decided to make the U.S. economy so dependent on China? We brought these monsters into the World Trade Organization -- with "most favored nation" status -- on the silly hope that more capitalism would change them. As a result of George Bush's foolish Chinese policy, we now have Huawei -- a Chinese telecom company -- installing spyware everywhere in the world.

1. Don't be a hypocrite. But isn't hypocrisy the tribute that vice pays to virtue? 2. Kissing cousins. Since we've allowed same-sex marriage, should we allow cousins to marry? 3. MLB, the NFL and "African Americans." Is an English black female an "African American"? 4. When are earbuds appropriate? 5. Pigweed's war on fun. If we're worried about energy consumption, we should eliminate things like cruises, vacations, second and third homes, etc.

Pigweed and Crowhill drink and review Manor Hill's Farmhouse Ale, then discuss the two political parties: Democrats and Republicans. Then there are the "big three" of other parties: the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, and the Constitution Party. But there are quite a few more. The boys review the list of also-ran parties, which includes about a hundred communist and socialist parties, then they discuss parliamentary systems and democracy in general.

In this episode of "Nooze and Booze," Pigweed and Crowhill tackle the Coronavirus. Where did it come from? How deadly is it? How contagious? Will this become a pandemic? What do we know about this latest threat to civilized society? Should we all panic, or is this just swine flu all over again? 

P&C drink and review Crowhill's Brown Ale, then discuss the strange history and beliefs of Mormonism. Joseph Smith started out as a treaure-hunting huckster, and somehow convinced people he was able to translate an unknown language with his magic eyeglasses. The early history of mormonism is ugly and bloody, but they eventually make it to Utah, where they settle down under Brigham Young. Mormonism has a series of odd beliefs about God, human history, salvation and other issues.