rant · moment 14 of 21
Grandmother's Botched Hospital Procedure and Institutional Trust
from The Pilot! · #15
Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.
4 minTim tells the story of doctors puncturing his grandmother's esophagus during a routine test at a top hospital and downplaying it, using it to argue institutions like hospitals and Fox News are a mix of good and bad, and laments that nobody in politics or public life has any fun or personality anymore.
- 37:30Tim's grandmother had her esophagus punctured during a routine test at St. Francis hospital, and doctors initially tried to hide it.
- 38:02When confronted about the puncture, doctors casually admitted they usually make this mistake in the lower right area.
- 38:24Fox News serves an important function in the media balance against MSNBC, presenting a necessary point of view.
- 38:37Nobody's fun during election season—everyone posts seven-paragraph status updates trying to change minds instead of having real conversations.
- 38:54Tim would be impressed if Bernie Sanders and his supporters coalesced into an actual movement instead of just dropping out quietly.
- 39:11Public figures used to get drunk in public all the time, like Hitchens and William Buckley, but now we're trying to eliminate characters.
- 39:27Popular culture is now populated by bland, homogenous people afraid of saying the wrong word, worried everyone disagrees is sexist or racist.
- 39:58Tim grew up around characters—drunks, drug addicts, thieves, liars, degenerates—great people you learned a lot from and had to watch your wallet around.
- 41:00Tim used to hang out in crack houses and spent a decade doing acid, ecstasy, LSD, shrooms, morphine, ketamine, and snorting cocaine.
Fox NewsBushwick, BrooklynWilliamsburgMSNBCBernie SandersSt. FrancisWilliam F BuckleyChristopher Hitchens