Dear Hank & John - 32: Broccoli-Flavored Chocolate

Episode Date: January 27, 2016

Can create fresh water by boiling the sea with a giant magnifying glass? Is suffering necessary for us to appreciate the beauty in life? What about asteroids and super-volcanos! Should a heart be judged by how much it loves or by how much it's loved?

Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John! Or as I prefer to think of it Audrey have burned dear John and Hank. Catherine have burned. Damn it, I missed the joke, we gotta redo the intro. Hello and welcome to Dear Hank and John. Or as I prefer to think of it, God I did it again. Damn it, Catherine, I'm ready, do it. Damn it, Catherine, I'm ready, do it. Ha half-sprite, half-soda water from Subway. Oh, sponsor!

Oh, man, what I wouldn't give to get some of that sweet, sweet, half-sprite, half-soda water money. I call that splight. Oh, God. wouldn't give to get some of that sweet, sweet half sprite, half soda water money. Um. I call that splyt. Oh God. Because it's so light. Because it only has like 70 calories per 12 ounces. Yeah, it's 50% of the calories. Oh my goodness.

I can't drink. I cannot drink straight sprite anymore. It is so sweet that I have to do this now in order to like even, it, it, to me, I've gotten to the point where un, uh, uh, not watered down fruit juices or sodas, to me taste like just ground up jolly rancher, like pipe straight into my mouth. I have to say, uh, I have also lost my taste for full calorie soda. I fear that this is part of middle age encroaching.

I remember being a kid and seeing all of the grown-up drinking diet coke and thinking that there was nothing on the earth sadder than these grown-up drinking diet coke. And here I am. Yeah, our mom would have just bubble water, just like flavored but not sweetened soda water. Yeah. And I remember one time grabbing one of those

and be like, well, mom likes these and having one and just thinking just how disgusting that was. Yeah, me too. And now I drink it all the time. I drink it all the time. The Laquois. Mar-a-bath-a-laquajon. Hank, as I speak to you, I am drinking a grapefruit laquois and it is phenomenal. I don't know. I don't know what was wrong with my teenage taste buds that they couldn't appreciate the subtle grapefruit notes in this So many. Can I read your short poem? Yeah. Okay. Do that. Hank, in honor last week, we

talked about David Bowie's death. It's now been like six weeks since David Bowie died, but I've just now gotten the poem together. This is actually the lyrics from David Bowie's song, Eight Line Poem. I thought I'd read today in honor of the great David Bowie. The tactful cactus by your window surveys the prairie of your room, the mobile spins to its collision. Clara puts her head between her paws. They've opened shops down the west side. Will all the cacti find a home?

But the key to the city is in the sun that pins the branches to the sky. Eight line poem by David Bowie. It's like David Bowie knew that we were going to need a short poem for today. And so he was like, well, you know, it's the 70s. I'll, uh, in about 45 years, somebody's going to need an eight line poem. Uh, and, uh, you know, it's the 70s. I'll, in about 45 years, somebody's gonna need an eight line poem. And so I'll write you on. Boom.

Well, we appreciate it, David Bowie, and all of your other gifts to our broken and only humanity as well. Hank, should we answer some questions from listeners? First, we've got some general feedback about the podcast that I want to check. I want to apologize in advance for all the times I was wrong about science.

This one is from HeyMesh who says, love the podcast, Bright Spot in my week. There's a herd of feral cows on Haida Guayi off the coast of British Columbia. I nearly drove into one on a dark night, big, shaggy thing, keep it up. So there are feral cows out there, John, and British Columbia, it does not surprise me

if they were gonna be anywhere, they would be in BC. Yeah, if I were gonna be a feral cow or a human being, and I could choose any place to live on Earth. It would probably be British Columbia. Oh, really? Well, unfortunately, you can't. Yeah, probably, just because of the, it's relatively mild climate and relative to Canada,

relative to the rest of Canada. What I'm trying to do is find a way to live in Canada, but also live in Hawaii. Ideally, Canada would invade Hawaii, but short of that, I think I'm going to have to live in British Columbia. All right, well, I think it would be great if Canada just annexed Hawaii.

And then all the people could have the Canadian laws and the Hawaiian weather. That would be the best of all things. You know what Canada doesn't have, Hank? What? Penies. Really? They don't regard her to their penies. They did, yeah, yeah, I heard about that.

Yeah, no, because they were like, you know what we should do? We should be rational economic actors in the world and get rid of pennies. Yeah. Whereas the United States government is, ehhh, let's keep spending two cents on these suckers that nobody uses to facilitate the exchange of goods. Here is the, I recently heard an argument for the existence of pennies that I agreed with. Oh, shut up.

Do you, I know, I know. I was shocked as well. Do you want to hear it? Hold on, I got to have a sip of my grapefruit with Quatt to get ready for this crap. Okay, well, I think that you will agree to some extent that it is not a terrible reason for pennies to exist. Okay, bring it. In a lot of nations that are not America, they nonetheless use American currency. America. They nonetheless use American currency. Correct. And in those places, the difference between one cent and five cents is a big difference. For example, a bus fare might be seven cents.

And going down to five cents would be economically, you know, would not work for the people running the bus line. And going up to 10 would be a huge hit to the people who take that bus. And so, like a one-cent increase in bus fares, for example, often increases in, often results in protests and like significant problems. Okay. For a couple of things. So, I just got to cut you off, because you're so wrong. All right. Okay, so in this hypothetical, this is a real thing.

World, I assume we're talking about like maybe Venezuela in 1972. No. So, but I heard this, I heard this from a congressional staffer. There is no place on earth right now where US currency is used for bus fares that are part of the public service of a country other than the United States because nowhere on Earth other than the United States is the US dollar an official currency. So putting the bus example aside, there are places where goods are somewhat less expensive than they are in the United States, or where less expensive goods are frequently traded,

or less expensive services are frequently traded in exchange for currency. In none of these places, none of them is anything worth a penny because pennies are less than worthless. But if that were true, and if someone can show me an actual example of that being true, I will slightly revise my opinion on pennies to that we should no longer mint them, except in so far as there is demand for them. And we should begin rounding immediately all of our transactions in the United States to the nearest dime. So we got another question for this. This is from Allison. It's not a question. Just another

comment. You both, especially John, like discussing how many things will lead to widespread death. I really enjoy listening to your comedy podcast, yet I find myself wondering if there is really anything in the world that will not lead to widespread death. Yeah, purell. Yeah, I guess purell will not lead to widespread death, but nothing does lead to widespread death, but nothing does lead to widespread death. Like, there will inevitably be widespread death, but the question is, will there also be

widespread birth? Right. That's sort of like, will the widespread death be spread out over a relatively long, you know, a normal sort of, or will there be spikes? Spikes is the thing you want to avoid. A nice level death rate absolutely fine and wonderful and that's, of course, what we're going for. What we want is for the same number of people to die pretty much every year. Well, ideally we'd like that number to go down. And in fact, I was sort of shocked

to find that it does go down because it seems like, oh, no, you know, people die. And so the number of people who get born and the number of people who die, and it's just like, if they should be the same, but it's really not. The number of people who die per year has decreased substantially. Yeah. Oh no, it's fascinating. It's become, it's so much better to be alive today than it was like 1500 years ago. It's almost, it's difficult to even calculate it. But yeah, the global, essentially the global death rate has dropped dramatically. Like, it's dropped by almost half.

Right, but the thing is like you wouldn't necessarily think that because the rate has decreased, that the number has decreased, because it seems sort of like, well, the number of people who die is equal to the number of people who are alive. In the long term. Well, the birth rate, to be fair.

But as they also dropped a lot. Yes. Yeah, but as rate to be fair. But as they live, as they also dropped a lot. Yes. Yeah. But as they, as people live longer, fewer people die per year because you have more years in which you can die. Right. So it, it, it sort of is counterintuitive and it took me a little while to get my mind around the fact that actually fewer people die per year,

which is neat. So yes, we want the number of people who, who die per year to go down slowly. So yes, we want the number of people who die per year to go down slowly or as quickly as possible. And no spikes. So when we talk about widespread death, what we're talking about is spikes in the death, which we really do not want those. That is what we are trying to avoid.

And the last comment we have from a listener, this is from Lauren, just wants us to know that the insight lander, which we talked about being delayed substantially a few weeks ago, her father is the lead propulsion person at Lockheed on that mission, which is super cool. Isn't that I don't know. I just like that the world is small and that people are doing cool things, John. And well, I, I wish her father great luck getting that thing to Mars. All right, John. Uh, let's do some actual questions. Go. All right, Hank, we've got a question here from Andy who writes, dear John and Hank, I'm working on a production of the Wizard of

Oz and every day after giving the Tin Man his heart, the wizard says, remember, my sentimental friend, a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others. This rings false to me. I would love to know if you agree or disagree with the wizard and why. Thanks for your question, Andy. Yeah, so one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that things that sound like aphorisms often become sort of used in common language as if they were true even though when you really

look at them they aren't. The best example of this to me is from the book Love Story which was turned into this big hit movie. It was this, you know, tragic story. Really, the Fault in Our Stars in some ways, I like built as sort of a response to love story or trying to like address some of the things that I saw as romanticized in it. But it was this huge hit book in the 70s and the famous line from it that was in common discourse for decades afterwards was love means never having to say

you're sorry, which of course is ridiculous. Anyone who's ever been in love means constantly having to say you're sorry. And that if you don't ever say that you're sorry, what a meanie you're being to this person you love. I do think that there's something about the wizard's line here that I find troubling Because loving is is is is important just as being loved is important And I don't think that you can really fully separate them. Yeah, I I don't think that We should take what is written in especially said by characters and books as definite truth I mean obviously the wizard is supposed to be this big wise man. That's probably where the wizard comes from. Now that I think

about it, from wise, art, he's a wise art. But yeah, I think that the way that you think about love it should be the way that you think about love. Yeah, I don't buy the idea that a heart should be judged either way by how much it loves or by how much it is loved. Like who's who's doing the judging the wizard? Yeah, I don't know. I'm troubled. I'm troubled by that line even though there's a lot that I like about the wizard vase. I got another question from Brandon who asks dear Hank and John. So you know how California has a water shortage? Why can't they just hold a big magnifying glass over the sea to create water vapor and then collect that salt-free water vapor

and then condense it into usable water? Love the show! Well, I do know that in science fiction, I had seen this idea. It was not used to, in the book I'm thinking of, it was not used to create water vapor. It was used to create a number of other gases and also to build a canal. So basically burning a ditch in the earth and connecting two bodies of water. But yeah, I mean, you would have to have a way

of lifting that giant magnifying glass into the air, which would be extremely energy intensive, and keeping it there. The one potential thing you could do is actually put that in orbit or build it in orbit so that it is either a mirror or a magnifying glass that is focusing the sun's energy on the water. Now, you are also going to have a ton

of ecological consequences here. So, like, as you are boiling this water, you are also heating up the water, which means that you're changing the local, the local, like, temperature of the sea dramatically, which is going to really affect the aquatic life there. It's gonna mess up that. And then, you have to collect this water,

which you probably wouldn't do. You would probably just have it rise up and only do it on days when the wind was blowing the direction, you wanted it to blow, and then it would fall on the land, which is great because then you don't have to create any new infrastructure, you just recharge the aquifers and the water falls on the crops and it's all good.

So yeah, it is not something that would not work. It is probably more energy intensive, though, than just creating a desalination plant, which is extremely energy intensive, which is why they haven't done that yet. But they might, and in the long term, have to do that in desalination or desalination. I think those words mean the same thing. It's probably in the long term future for California, which is kind of scary. Well, I think that everyone should just move right here to Indianapolis where we have tons of water. We almost have too much of it.

It's probably difficult to move all the fruit trees that have been growing there for the last 200 years. But they do great here. Are you kidding? We can grow a tangerine like nobody's business here in India. It's four degrees outside right now. Does that affect things at all? All right, we've got another question. This one is from Catherine who writes,

Dear John and Hank, I recently saw the movie Inside Out and it made me think about a quote from the Fault in Our Stars. This is a very controversial quote from my novel The Fault in Our Stars, by the way, Hank, the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate. Inside out seems to argue the exact opposite that without sadness, we can't truly feel joy. I was wondering what you two thought of inside out in its overall message, especially with this quote in mind, what would our lives be like if we had never suffered is suffering necessary for us to see the beauty in life? Yeah, I feel like John, you've thought about this way more than me, so like I cannot

really wrap my mind around this because I don't know what life would be like if I hadn't lived the way that I have. Well, of course I also don't, and I don't know if joy is sweeter for having suffered or if the more you suffer the sweeter joy becomes. What I do know is that a lot of times people use that idea as a way of telling people who are suffering what to feel, or as a way of telling people who are suffering what the meaning of their suffering is. And that strikes me as dehumanizing and infuriating. And I think that's what Hazel was responding to

in the novel when she said that. But she does say the existence of broccoli doesn't affect the taste of chocolate, does say the existence of broccoli doesn't affect the taste of chocolate, not the taste of broccoli doesn't affect the taste of chocolate, because of course the taste of broccoli does, I mean, literally affect the taste of chocolate, like if you eat it immediately before or immediately after, like it does affect the way that your taste buds respond to chocolate. If you had broccoli flavored chocolate or like chocolate with broccoli bits in it, then

broccoli which is definitely, definitely affect the flavor of the chocolate. Myself, I like both broccoli and chocolate, so I don't have a problem with this false dichotomy that Hazel is created in my book, but anyway, I can't speak to what life would be like without sadness. I do not, however, buy into this argument that we suffer so that we can learn lessons or that we suffer so that we can become better, more grateful, more joyful people. I think there are cheaper ways to learn these lessons than the kind of suffering that many people live with. there are cheaper ways to learn these lessons than the kind of suffering that many people live with.

And if I'm wrong about that, if some people find comfort or feel that their lives become richer through suffering, then maybe I'm wrong. But what I don't want to do is impose this world view upon others when they are going through hard times that they may or may not find transformative or useful. Yeah. I mean, I think that there are a lot of it isn't about joy or suffering. It's about the feeling of like what a good life is. And I'm sort of playing with this idea very, you know, cursorally here.

I don't have a lot of, I haven't really developed this, the line of reasoning, but that it's more about what is seen as a good life. And there is a lot about how we live our lives that isn't really about bringing joy into our lives. It's about how to feel as if we are having a good one. And obviously now we have a great deal more luxury just by virtue of hot water coming out of our houses

and the internet and being able to choose from a number of different cuisines every night that we did not previously have as Americans and also as humans. And so like it's nice like because those things are like hot water is a great example that is something that most people in America have, and most people in America take for granted, and what a lovely thing to be able to take a hot shower on a cool day, and every time I do that, I try to think how lovely it is, despite the fact that I've always had that luxury.

I try to remember what a great luxury it is, and that most people who have ever existed have not had that luxury. Yeah, and I see your point that you probably can't appreciate that in the way that someone who was taking their first hot shower would appreciate it. I guess for me, you know, my thinking when I was writing that was how often we hear these narratives because of the way we construct what constitutes a good life. We often hear these narratives of, well, I went through this and I came out on the other side, stronger, healthier, happier, more joyful, more grateful, whatever. But what if there is no other

side? You know, for Hazel, there really is no other side. There is not going to be a time in her life when she is what other people would call healthy. There is not going to be a time in her life when she's completely able-bodied. She's not getting better. She's just living in this sort of stasis where she's able to treat her cancer, but she's not able to cure it. And I think, saying to those, able to treat her cancer, but she's not able to cure it.

And I think, saying to those, imagining what constitutes a good life and excluding someone like Hazel, is really troubling to me. And that's where the idea came from. I certainly don't want to argue that everyone has equal access to the same kinds of joy at all times or anything like that. Yeah, I don't know. I myself have mixed feelings about the quote, but what can I do? The book came out.

Well said, John. Well said. I think that that means a lot to me as a person who likes your books a lot, and that is a very separate thing, of course, than the question. But I really do appreciate how intense and weird it is to have four years later have a book that a lot of people love and to not, of course, not feel like it is in any way perfect or something that you,

it's still something that you have mixed feelings about. And like, obviously, I think that you, I like that book a lot. I've read it several times since it came out. And it's so interesting to, you are my brother, and so I see you as my brother, and not like the sort of way I feel about my favorite authors is very different from the way that I feel about my brother.

And yet you are also one of my favorite authors. So it is, it's always really interesting to hear you talk about the complexities of your relationship with your work. Thank you. I mean, it's definitely a difficult thing to have something out in the world for years and years after you were last able to touch it and change it. And of course, you know, I've changed and learned since then. But you never know if that makes you a better writer or a worse one.

I always think about W.H. Auden, you know, later in his life going back and revising all of his poems, and he felt so strongly that he was making them better and he was making them so, so much worse. There's, you know, probably the greatest most quoted line of W.H. Audense Poetry is we must love one another or die. And he later edited that to we must love one another and die, which is more true but less good. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha That was a really different message. It's like he for God, what's different? In the intervening years. Yeah, there's a lot of examples like that where you just, you read the edited versions of the poem

and you're just like, oh my goodness, how did you convince yourself that this was a step in the right direction? So my feeling is just that, you know, all of my books, you know, even the day after they come out, I have to say to myself, like, this is something that I did in a period of my books, you know, even the day after they come out, I have to say to myself, like, this is something that I did in a period of my life that reflected my very best attempt to, you know, write the best story I could, and that's all it is, you know, like, it's a snapshot

of that time, of the creative output that I was capable of in that moment, or in those years, or whatever, and that's all it can be. And you have to let go of it, and you have to let it have a life that's separate from yours. I mean, one of the weird things about having the fault in our stars come out and reach such a broad audience is that lots of people have interpreted it in ways that I am frankly uncomfortable with, you know?

Books belonged to their readers, but there is still an author out there thinking, no, no, no, that's not what I meant at all. And you just have to live with that. You know, like if you hear from someone that the Faulkner stars taught them to be grateful for every day, even though Hazel makes fun of that, within the very text of the novel, like you just have to let it go. He said clearly not letting it go.

Okay, here's another question, John. It's from Adam who says, dear Hank and John, you recently, you spent a lot of time talking about your apocalypse fears. As a geoscientist, I was distraught to learn that some of the most exciting and potentially devastating geologic catastrophes didn't make the list. John, have you considered how far from the Yellowstone Supervolcano you live?

Hank, do you- Uh, how ready do you think humanity is to deflect a large asteroid if one were discovered to be about to strike us? These, along with sudden rapid climate change are my top three apocalypsees, the ones that tend to keep- keep me up at night. Uh, those are all potential apocalypse that I am aware of. The Yellowstone Supervolcano does not bug me that much.

Despite the fact that I live very close to it. Wait, what is the Yellowstone Supervolcano? How is it going to kill all of us and when is it going to erupt? So, Yellowstone National, have you ever been the Yellowstone, John? Yep. So Yellowstone National Park is.

But I'm never going back. One of the most, frankly, if the Yellowstone Supervolcano were to erupt, I think the Yellowstone National Park would be the best place to be, because you wanna die fast. Oh. Oh, good Lord. Okay.

Great. It depends on which way the wind's blowing, literally. But the Yellowstone National Park is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It is a really, a fairly untouched wilderness, but one that has a road running straight through the middle of it so that you can go see some of the more spectacular parts of it. And those spectacular parts are generally driven by geothermal activity. The park itself is mostly inside of a caldera of volcano that I don't know how long ago it was, but it was a very long time ago that erupted and cast ash over the majority of North America. All right.

It is erupted many times and we are aware of, we can sort of see in the geological record four or five of those. And it is the big, at least one of the biggest volcanoes on Earth, it is, when you are inside of the Yellowstone Caldera, you do not feel like you are inside of a Caldera because it is so large. You basically just feel like there's some mountains around,

but really you are in a crater that was formed when a huge, like basically, you know, an area of like, I would not be surprised if you could fit Rhode Island inside of it, though I'm sure you can't. A very large area was just ejected into the atmosphere and that where what then happens

is a long period of time that does not have normal amounts of sunlight, which changes the weather very dramatically, and it potentially would result in an inability to grow food. And that would be the thing that would kill a lot of people in America. It would probably have a really significant global impact as well, but there would be a lot of people in America who would just immediately die, just by being buried in ash. This is not likely, though. This is not something that happens every five years. No, this, this, it's, you know, people will say like, we're due for one.

But what that means is that they occur within a certain number of years from each other and that we're sort of roughly around, like we're inside of the time in which this could happen again. But if it were going to happen again, there would be a number of tremendous geological changes that we would be seeing. These options happen after a lot of pressure starts building up underneath the caldera. And what you would see is literally the ground would be rising at the rate of feet or meters per day. Oh, God. So that we're nowhere near that, though there is like flex in the ground in Yellowstone that it will rise and fall

by feet and meters per year, which is really remarkable. And they've only been doing research on this stuff for the last 50 years or so, but we are not seeing anywhere like the kind of geological activity that would result in the Yellowstone Supervol erupting. So, basically, my guess is that we are thousands of years away from that volcano erupting. All right. So, it does not concern me. What about the asteroids? Asteroids are more of a crapshoot, which is why I don't concern myself with them, because you can't really know, and what we're doing right now to try and get a better,

get a better handle on the, you know, the near-earth object is, I think, appropriate. And if we identified a near-earth object that was going to strike Earth that was large enough to be concerned with, I would actually kind of like to see humanity band together and take care of that because I feel like it's something band together and take care of that, because I feel like it's something

that we could take care of. And I would like to see us do it. Don't you also think though, that we might have a lot of debates about whether the asteroid is really gonna hit Earth or whether the science might be wrong about this and how this is gonna be a future generations problem, not our problem. No, I think that NASA, probably NASA would find it first. They would ask other observatories

with it on the order of days to weeks to confirm and then it would be confirmed. I don't think that it would be, it's not, it's, it's pretty easy to figure that stuff out. So you're saying there would be widespread scientific agreement that this asteroid was about to hit Earth. My counter argument to that would be climate change. Yeah, I think that asteroids are much scarier than climate change. Despite the fact that climate change is actually a much more significant threat. And I do agree with Adam.

That's going to say. I'm much more worried about climate change than I a much more significant threat. And I do agree with Adam. That was gonna say. I'm much more worried about climate change than I'm worried about asteroids. And that's saying something because I can worry. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha. All right.

Well, I think we've spent a lot of time on Adam's question, but it's dear Hank and John, so we can't not spend time talking about the apocalypse. Speaking of which, Hank, did you know that today's podcast is actually brought to you by sudden rapid climate change? Sudden rapid climate change? A thing that many people think is impossible. Just not scientists.

This podcast is also brought to you by broccoli flavored chocolate. Uh, something about which John feels ambivalent, because, in fact, broccoli in this case does affect the flavor of chocolate. And of course, this podcast is also brought to you by California's Water Shortage. California's Water Shortage. Don't worry, we'll put a huge magnifying glass in space. I love it, we're going to do one last question, John, is that sound okay to you?

Sure. Alright, this one is from Palo, who asks Dear Hank and John. I just found out that the amazing Stephen Colbert is a fan of the mountain goats that his favorite planet is Mars, and that he's basically the biggest token geek the world has ever seen. I think that's just one step away from becoming a lifelong nerdfighter. Is there any secret plan that has evolved about how to act in these kind of situations? What shall we do? Crash the Late Show with an army of puppy-sized elephants?

Well, you know, Hank, I had the chance to meet Stephen Colbert, not too long ago. And the coolest thing about it, I mean, I was generally very, very impressed with him. He came in and talked to me a bunch about the show. He was like, I play a character, I'm not really that person. And I was like, I've seen the show, man. And he was like, Oh, thanks. Thanks. Thanks for your support. I was just like, do people come here who haven't seen the show? Anyway, in between segments of the Colbert Report, his previous show, he played the exact same neutral milk hotel song every time. And he told, I was like, I love this song,

and I love this album. And he said, yeah, I love it too. He said every taping, I try to find someone in the crowd who's singing along with it and lock eyes with them, and then we sing the words together. And I was like, that is so cool, Stephen Colbert. That is so like, I'm so glad that you told me that after our little bit together, because I could not have handled meeting you if I knew it before.

This is a very unrelated story, but I was at a hockey game recently. The Mozilla has a very small hockey team. And what's the mascot? The mascot is Slash, who is a wolf. They are the mollors. I'm very ambivalent, or I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I do not like that our hockey team is called the mollors and that the mascot is a wolf,

because there is a lot of like sort of anti-wolf sentiment in this part of the country, and I am not a part of it. But anyway, I was at this hockey game and shut up and dance by Walk the Moon came on. One of my favorite songs of 2015. And a girl is walking to her seat and she's singing along with just these dead, dead eyes. And she's not up in dance.

Very fun, you know, sort of summertime. And she's just like singing, sitting just every word, but like she's somewhere else. She does not know that she's singing along. She's thinking about her algebra test and how she did very poorly on it. But she is mouthing those words to shut up and dance. No problem. And I was just like, I've never seen a more sad person singing along to walk the moon's shut up and dance.

Hey, do you know where walk the moon formed? Indianapolis, Indiana? Incorrect. They formed at my alma mater, Kenyan College in Gambiro, Ohio. Oh, interesting. Wow, so many famous people coming out of Kenyan College. So many. You, those guys.

Allison Janney. I don't know who that is. She's the press secretary on the West Wing, and also she's been in a million movies. Oh, CJ Craig. Yeah. I know, she's great. I love her. She's great.

Let's move on to the news from Mars and AFC Wimbledon. Hank, do you want to go first or do you want me to or do you want to do rock paper scissors? Oh, I want to do rock paper scissors, John. All right, ready? One, two, three. Three. Paper. I did paper two.

Okay. One, two, three. Paper. Scissors. Oh. Did you wait to say scissors until after I'd said paper? No, not just a little bit of a lag. Oh, I don't know.

I don't know if that was lag, but okay, you go first. It's just a little bit of a lag. All right, we got some news from the federal government on December 18th, 2015, and I know that's a little dated now, but we're catching up still from the break. President Obama signed the spending bill, the budget that funded the federal government through the fiscal year of 2016, which included $19.3 billion for NASA, an increase of $1.3 billion from last year.

So a huge hunk of that is going toward the line item that includes Orion and the Space Launch System. And that is the new rocket that is going to be taking astronauts to the Space Station and beyond. And beyond includes possibly an asteroid mission. Also includes possibly a Mars mission. And that actually got more money than they asked for, which is great because that is sort of on the trajectory

toward getting big payload missions to Mars. Bigger payload missions than we've been able to do before and that could potentially include having humans involved in those missions. So thank you to the federal government for continuing to fund NASA and the humanities reach into the next, the next, our next foothold in the solar system that could hopefully be Mars. Woo!

And congratulations to the United States Congress on passing its first budget in like seven years. It's just amazing work guys. So proud of you. and congratulations to the united states congress on passing its first budget in like seven years it's just amazing so proud of you people said you could never do it that you'd only fund the uh... fund the federal government for a week at a time uh... and you did that you kicked the can down the road for like years and years but then finally you did it assigned a budget

great work guys in a fc winbledon news and uh... Hank, AFC Wimbledon, as I'm recording this, still hasn't played a game since they're astonishing, astonishing 4-1 victory over Cambridge United, which was good, also for their goal difference. But Hank, the under 18 team, which I talked about beating Newcastle last week, now Hank, I'm sure you recall what happened. The reason AFC Wimbledon was formed in the first place, right? Yes, I know all about that story. And basically that there was a team Wimbledon FC that had a wonderful history going back to the 1800s and then it was stolen away from them

when the English Football Association, the governing body of English football, declared that Wimbledon FC would be moved, and do you remember where they were moved to? They were moved, don't, John, I don't. Milton Keynes. Yeah, that's not ever gonna stick. And so they became, they called themselves the MK Dons because they claim some semblance of history associated with Wimbledon, which is complete crap.

And they need to stop saying that. But they're just a franchise, basically. They're not a real football club. However, they play as if they were a real football club. And in Milton Keynes, they have some support. And I don't begrudge people who began supporting them after the move. Anyway, long story short, occasionally, AFC Wimbledon will play Milton Keynes, the franchise. I once heard, by the way, Hank, a radio commentary

of a game between AFC Wimbledon and Milton Keynes, in which at no point did either of the announcers say the word Milton, the word Keynes, or any of the player names. They were referred to only as the franchise, and they would be like, and now the franchise's right-winger has the ball. And now he has passed it to one of the franchises forwards. It was amazing.

There is unfortunately still one Milton Keynes player who was a Wimbledon player and I have never heard a player booed that consistently over 90 minutes in my entire life. I felt bad for the kid. He was just signing the only professional contract that he had access to. It felt like he couldn't say no, but boy, who has he lived to regret it?

Anyway, okay. The under 18 team, every time AFC Wimbledon plays Milton Keynes in any capacity, whether it's the, you know, the seven year old girls team, the, you know, the 13 year old boys team, whatever it is, it is a big game, right? Because this is the team that essentially forced AFC Wimbledon into existence by stealing away the club. So it is a big game. Like it's essentially a game,

like for instance, when Milton Keynes and AFC Wimbledon play, the AFC Wimbledon supporters always sing to the Milton Keynes supporters, who were you, who were you, who were you when you were us? Who were you? Who were you? Who were you when you were us? Which which I think puts a nice period on on the situation so when the under 18 team played Milton Keynes It's a big big game even if it's just a youth game and AFC Wimbledon one two one sending the franchise right where it belongs to

Ignaminity. Yeah. Ignaminity. Yeah. Yeah. Who were you when you were us? It's just that that is the greatest chant I've ever heard in football. It's good. It's just so perfect. The other one they sing is stand up if you own your club because everybody who supports AFC Wimbledon is also an owner of the team. I should add, by the way, Hank, that AFC Wimbledon, not because I am a celebrity

sponsor of the club or anything, AFC Wimbledon sent both of my children, Christmas cards, my children are both members of the junior dons. They sent both of my, which costs like $25 a month. If you're under 18, you can be a, not, not $25 which costs like $25 a month. If you're under 18, you can be a, not, not $25 a month, $25 a year. If you're under 18, you can be a junior don for $25 a year. If you're over 18, you can own part of the club for only like $80 a year and you get to be an owner of the team and support this great institution. Anyway, they sent Henry and Alice both cards signed by a bunch of the players, including autobiocaine Fenwa, Henry's favorite player.

It was so cool of them. They do that every year. They send Henry and Alice birthday cards and Christmas cards every year signed by the players. It's so sweet. It's so awesome. I think it says a lot about the kind of club that they are. Yeah, so I wanted to say thank you for that as well.

All right. I appreciate that. Thank you to the AFC Wimbledon for being pretty cool. I think cooler than most football clubs, though that does not necessarily manage to hold my interest. They are a lot cooler than most football clubs. And don't worry, all the talk about Mars bores me as well.

All right. Thanks for podcasting, John. What have we learned today? Well, we learned that there are feral cows on an island off of British Columbia living my dream. It's pretty remarkable. We learned that John Green has complicated relationship with the things that he's created and has to just let them go which he cannot do.

And of course we learned a new reason to fear the end of the world, a gigantic Yellowstone volcano and or comet coming from space and or rapid climate change. And of course we learned that the things that Hank and John are scared about and not people dying, was that we are in favor of people dying at the same or lower rate than they currently are, but what we want to be afraid of are the spikes. Avoid the spikes. We hate the spikes. We are strongly opposed to spikes. And we learned of course that the Wizard of Oz is a truly wise art.

I wonder if that's the actual etymology of that word. I would be interested to find out. And in fact, I'm going to find out while you do the outro here. Well, I already looked it up. It is from Wise Ard. Literally. I don't know what an art is, but I'm clicking on art. Oh, it forms a noun. It's like saying a wisee guy, like a wise guy. Or a drunkard.

A drunkard. A drunkard, yeah. Drunkard. Wizard. All right. Ah, ah, ah, neat. Thanks for makingunkard. Wizard. Alright. Ah! Ah!

Neat! Thanks for making a podcast with me, John. And confirming that my etymology is correct. You wise, Ard. Uh, that word, by the way, Ard, really reached its, uh, it's pinnacle back at about 1730. And it's been steadily declining in significant sense, but we still have wizard and drunkard. That's something.

Alright, thanks so much for listening to Dear Hank and John. You can email us at Hank and John at gmail.com with your questions. You can also use the hashtag DearHank and John on the Twitter where I'm John Greenhank is Hank Green. The podcast is edited by Nicholas Jenkins. Our theme music is by Gunnarola, and as we say in our hometown, don't forget to be awesome.