Rethinking Heroes with Cary Harrison

About Rethinking Heroes with Cary Harrison

Award-winning raconteur Cary Harrison cut through the noise – revealing the murky agendas behind today's headlines through uncompromising journalism, unapologetic advocacy, independent voices and a global audience with live listener call-ins shaping the conversation. caryharrison.substack.com (https://caryharrison.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

CARY HARRISON

Category

education · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Feb 2023

Latest episode

27 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

167 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Oct 2026

   The Big Mac Presidency: Diet Coke, Artificial Intelligence, and America’s National Food Coma

   According to BroBible (https://brobible.com/), reports about the presidential diet have described consumption of as many as 12 cans of Diet Coke a day. Twelve. That’s not a beverage preference. That’s a long-term relationship with an aluminum cylinder. The White House reportedly installed a button to summon the stuff. Imagine it: a man with nuclear weapons, military briefings, and the capacity to manufacture international crises, sitting behind a desk with a button that makes Diet Coke appear. The Greeks gave us philosophy. The Romans gave us aqueducts. The Enlightenment gave us reason, liberty, and the scientific method. America gave us a presidential soda button. And we wonder why the aliens won’t return our phone calls. Push the button. Daddy needs his fizz. To be fair, Diet Coke contains virtually no calories. Drinking it doesn’t automatically make you stupid, sick, or unfit to govern. The caffeine, however, deserves scrutiny at that volume. And as for aspartame, we’ll save the actual grim science for another show. Your arteries don’t vote. Your colon doesn’t attend rallies. And your pancreas, that poor little b*****d working the night shift in the basement of your abdomen, doesn’t give a flying diddly-frig about your political philosophy. It processes what you put into it. Keep feeding the machinery garbage, and eventually the machinery may send you an invoice. The reported lunch menu includes a well-done steak, ketchup, and a salad with Roquefort dressing. A steak cooked until it’s tougher than a landlord’s heart. Ketchup. And a salad. The lettuce is trembling. The tomatoes are preparing their last will and testament. A cucumber is hiding beneath the table, whispering, Please, God, don’t let him find me. Continued below… My work here is free because this information matters more than a paygate. The research, reporting, and analysis remain open to everyone. If you find value here and want to help keep it that way, a paid subscription is the best way to do it. Your support makes it possible to continue publishing without putting the most important material behind a paywall. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing this work with others. A few benefits to upgrading: Weekly Live radio Broadcast across Los Angeles with your calls Continuing adult education Global community, including students Inside access to the conversations and ideas shaping decisions at the highest levels—from whistleblowers to think tank analysts Find us at caryharrison.com — and for the love of the Founders, tell a friend. Please Upgrade (https://caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe) A good steak is one of civilization’s great achievements. Cook it until it has the structural integrity of a circumcised elephant, then drown it in ketchup, and you’ve turned perfectly good beef into an archaeological specimen. Somewhere, a cow is looking down from heaven and asking Jesus what the hell it did to deserve this. But lunch is merely the opening act. THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF THE DIGESTIVE TRACT According to the reported menu, dinner includes two McDonald’s Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, a small chocolate milkshake, and another Diet Coke. Two Big Macs. Two fish sandwiches. A milkshake. That’s four sandwiches and a dairy product. That’s not dinner. That’s a custody battle between the stomach and the small intestine. The estimated daily total has been reported at approximately 4,300 to 4,400 calories, depending on portions and what actually gets eaten. That’s an estimate, not a medically verified food diary. Still, it’s a substantial pile of food—or food-like product. Why settle for moderation when you can consume enough sodium to make a sea turtle reconsider its entire existence? Forget the Statue of Liberty. Build a 200-foot-tall Big Mac in Washington, D.C., with a Diet Coke fountain on top. Etch a patriotic inscription into the bronze: GIVE ME YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR HUNGRY MASSES. AND MAKE IT A FUKKIN’ LARGE. Convenience conquers cuisine. Branding conquers taste. The drive-through becomes our national cathedral. And the government? Well, it can wait until everybody’s finished chewing. Share (%%share_url%%) ENTER THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CIRCUS Now comes the technological sideshow. An Irish publication reportedly fed 33,000 of The Administration’s social media posts into seven artificial intelligence systems to obtain what it characterized as a brutal assessment of his health. Thirty-three thousand posts. Seven AI systems. One enormous digital bleep sandwich. Somewhere in a data center, a computer is being force-fed political rhetoric until its processors sweat like a hooker in a revival tent. The fans are spinning. The servers are glowing. And we arrive at the question nobody should be too stupid to ask: What the hell can artificial intelligence actually tell us about somebody’s health? AI can analyze language, identify patterns, compare statements, and summarize enormous quantities of public information. What it cannot reliably do is diagnose dementia, psychiatric disorders, or cardiovascular disease simply by swallowing a politician’s social media feed while he’s guzzling Big Macs and ruminating over senatorial buttocks. Seven computers agreeing with one another doesn’t transform speculation into medical science. Seven mirrors can give you seven reflections. None can tell you what’s happening inside the jackanapes standing in front of them. I couldn’t independently verify the report’s complete methodology or exact findings, so I’m not going to manufacture an AI verdict and pass it off as medical fact. We’ve already got enough BS circulating without asking a supercomputer to poop out another load of it. Can AI help scrutinize powerful people? Absolutely. Can it identify inconsistencies and examine public behavior? Certainly. Can we responsibly use it to diagnose someone we’ve never examined? No. Does eating fast food prove you’re an idiot? No. If it did, half the country would be legally required to wear helmets. Although, come to think of it, that might not be the worst public policy proposal ever floated. The proper standard is evidence. And that standard must apply to everybody. Otherwise, that’s not critical thinking. That’s tribalism wearing a laboratory coat and masturbating in front of a mirror. Share (%%share_url%%) Here’s where the greasy spectacle becomes more interesting than a presidential eating disorder on parade. The real story isn’t simply what The Administration eats. It’s what we consume. We live in an age when information is available at the touch of a button, yet thinking has somehow become an optional accessory. We’ve got decades of nutritional research, but a famous person’s dinner order becomes a national mystery requiring the combined resources of the FBI, NASA, and the International House of Pancakes. Meanwhile, the actual business of government is sitting in the waiting room, holding a number and wondering whether anybody gives a flying hamster. The portions are enormous. The intellectual fiber is practically nonexistent. And sooner or later, everybody gets the bill. We want to watch him shovel something into his mouth. Fine. Public figures should face scrutiny, and the presidency shouldn’t come with a lifetime membership in the Church of Untouchable Puckfists. But entertainment isn’t evidence, and ridicule isn’t accountability. The Cary Harrison Files — KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles / Fridays 10am PST More at caryharrison.com, Instagram: RealCaryHarrison or youtube: @CaryHarrison · Text or message us any time: 310-737-TALK This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe (https://caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   26 Oct 2026

   The Sanctified Arse, and Other Miracles of God’s Own Party

   Brother Jasper Culpepper By Cary Harrison | The Cary Harrison Files ,,,where Jesus bench-presses the Roman Empire, the Democrats control the weather, and the sanctity of your heterosexuality depends on your voter registration. Christian YouTuber Gabe Poirot (https://www.foxnews.com/video/6390932471112) says he encountered Jesus during an eighteen-day coma after an electric-skateboard accident. His six-foot Savior had burning white-and-red eyes and enough testosterone to keep a pickup dealership solvent for three quarters. Finally, a Messiah evaluated by county-fair standards. Can He open a pickle jar without assistance? Poirot is entitled to his experience; an eighteen-day coma isn’t an official press conference from the Almighty. Matthew 5:44, on loving one’s enemies, remains inconvenient for anyone rebranding Christianity as a testosterone supplement with a cross attached. There’s a difference between Jesus being a Republican and Republicans being convinced Jesus would vote Republican. The first is theology. The second is a business model. The Gospel According to the Male Derrière Enter Fox News host Jesse Watters (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/10/quick-hit-anti-lgbtq-fox-host-says-can-get-away-with-ogling-other-men-because-hes-straight/), explaining why a Republican gentleman can admire another man’s body without compromising his heterosexual credentials. The occasion was the President’s praise of Senator Jon Husted (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/10/donald-cant-stop-fawning-over-jon-husted-im-studying-his-body/)—posterior, jawline, hands, athleticism. Watters added that Senator John Thune (https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/10/quick-hit-anti-lgbtq-fox-host-says-can-get-away-with-ogling-other-men-because-hes-straight/) looked like an Olympic swimmer in a locker room. A man’s gaze now depends on whom he votes for. Republican admiration? God’s handiwork. When it's Democratic admiration, there’s an emergency hearing on Western civilization. “Thou shalt not gaze upon thy neighbor’s buttocks unless thou hast established thy heterosexuality through the appropriate political channels.” Who doesn't want to look at that? There’s nothing shameful about being gay or recognizing another man’s attractiveness (or lack, thereof). The absurdity is policing everyone else’s masculinity while building escape hatches for your own behavior. That isn’t moral clarity; it’s a hotel revolving door where every guest claims to be checking in for business. Share (%%share_url%%) Friends, Romans 2:1 is inconvenient for anyone demanding a private exemption. Rules are absolute until somebody important breaks them; then they become nuanced and available in a pocket edition for campaign donors. The Democrats: America’s Official Meteorological Menace Rain ruins your picnic? Democratic sabotage. Drought threatens your crops? Democratic sabotage. A hurricane changes direction? A politically motivated weather event. No scientific evidence offered; this is a sermon, not a congressional hearing. Genesis 8:22 describes creation’s rhythms, not congressional districts. Scapegoating the opposition saves us from examining ourselves—especially when the electric bill arrives. The Mortal Sin of Enjoying Yourself Ecclesiastes 3:13 recognizes the goodness of eating, drinking, and enjoying one’s labor. A dangerous passage: it suggests pleasure without a theological grand jury. Ice cream is sugar, fat, and the promise that life might be worth living for five more minutes. Even the humble straw has become a masculinity test. A bed encourages sleep; sleep threatens productivity. So every luxury deserves suspicion. A hotel view? Vanity. A hot shower? Extravagance. A steak? Gluttony with garnish. A vacation? Desertion from the struggle against people who disagree with you. Air-conditioning at seventy-two degrees is the opening act of moral collapse. First, you enjoy the climate-controlled room. Then you develop empathy for people who can’t afford one. Next, you question the party’s position on climate change. The descent into apostasy is swift. Share (%%share_url%%) Pay-Per-View Salvation Friends, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (https://www.nhpr.org/2026-10-13/why-does-pete-hegseth-want-to-livestream-an-execution) proposed livestreaming a military execution, invoking biblical traditions of capital punishment. Hallelujah! Leviticus has entered the streaming wars. Forget cooking shows. Imagine America’s Next Top Execution, sponsored by patriotic merchandise and premium cable subscriptions. Christianity’s central symbol is a man publicly executed by the state. His Cross isn’t a commemorative souvenir from a successful government deterrence campaign. Turning an execution into entertainment isn’t biblical interpretation. It’s a divine shopping cart: take the commandments you like, leave the inconvenient ones in the aisle, and blame the Democrats when the checkout total comes due. Friends, A Final Word from the Pulpit Matthew 7:16 says we know people by their fruits—not slogans, merchandise, or denunciations. Their fruits. Awkward for a movement inspecting everybody else’s anatomy. The Lord knows your heart; the party knows your voting history; Fox News explains why the rules don’t apply to the people you elected. Now go forth, my children. Sin responsibly. Repent selectively. Keep your thermostat unnecessarily uncomfortable. When life offers a pleasant afternoon, a comfortable bed, a delicious meal, or the company of somebody attractive, remember: God may be testing you. Or perhaps you’re simply having a good time. Amen, and God bless God’s Own Party. The Cary Harrison Files — KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles / Fridays 10am PST More at caryharrison.com, Instagram: RealCaryHarrison or youtube: @CaryHarrison · Text or message us any time: 310-737-TALK Text or leave a voice message: 310-737-TALK This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe (https://caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   17 Oct 2026

   When Facebook Decides Your Gay Bar Is a Threat to Civilization

   Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, drag queens, drag kings, gender-fluid quantum amphibians, and everybody who’s ever had a Facebook account suspended for the heinous crime of showing a man in a dress having a better evening than Mark Zuckerberg has had in his entire life: Welcome to the digital apocalypse. It’s brought to you by Meta (https://about.meta.com/), the multinational corporation that figured out how to turn human communication into a multibillion-dollar business and then hired an army of algorithms to prevent people from doing it. Today, we’re talking about censorship. Not the vintage variety, in which a 1950s bureaucrat in a gray suit confiscates your newspaper because it contains a photo of a naked ankle. No, this is the modern version: automated, opaque, and administered with the customer-service instincts of a queefing vending machine. You can appeal, naturally. You can explain yourself to the Meta machine, pleading your case to a faceless corporation that knows more about your private life than your mother does. And somewhere in Silicon Valley, an algorithm may decide that a drag queen, a discussion about transgender people, or an LGBTQ+ community announcement constitutes a threat to civilization. Meanwhile, the internet remains perfectly capable of delivering conspiracy theories, political propaganda, miracle diets, fraudulent investment opportunities, and videos of men inserting increasingly improbable objects into increasingly improbable bodily cavities. Apparently, that civilization has its priorities. Continued below… My work here is free because this information matters more than a paygate. The research, reporting, and analysis remain open to everyone. If you find value here and want to help keep it that way, a paid subscription is the best way to do it. Your support makes it possible to continue publishing without putting the most important material behind a paywall. Thank you for reading, subscribing, and sharing this work with others. A few benefits to upgrading: Weekly Live radio Broadcast across Los Angeles with your calls Continuing adult education Global community, including students Inside access to the conversations and ideas shaping decisions at the highest levels—from whistleblowers to think tank analysts Find us at caryharrison.com — and for the love of the Founders, tell a friend. Please Upgrade (https://caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe) The Algorithm Has Entered the Bar Gay bars in Texas have reportedly faced Meta account restrictions after posts involving transgender people and photographs of drag queens were flagged. And that’s where things get interesting. A gay bar isn’t merely a place where people drink overpriced cocktails, flirt with strangers, and watch shirtless men dance beneath a disco ball. It’s a community institution. It’s where people find friends, spouses, chosen families, and the occasional gentleman whose shirt appears to have been manufactured from dental floss and raw optimism. It’s where people gather when the rest of the world would prefer they disappear. These establishments can also be essential centers for organizing, fundraising, advocacy, and sharing health information. Now imagine that the principal communications platform your community relies on suddenly restricts your account. Your customers can’t find you. Your announcements disappear. Your followers may stop seeing your posts. Promoting an event or distributing information about health services becomes considerably more difficult. And getting an explanation may be roughly equivalent to asking a particularly stupid toaster why it burned your Pop-Tart. You haven’t necessarily been silenced by a government. You’ve been silenced by a private company that owns a substantial piece of the digital town square. How are these decisions made? Are the rules applied consistently? Can users understand them? And when an automated system makes a mistake, is there any meaningful way to correct it? You should care even if you couldn’t care less about drag queens, gay bars, or the latest argument over which pronouns belong in the English language. Today, it’s somebody else’s community. Tomorrow, it might be your business, political organization, news outlet, nonprofit, or ability to tell the world that your local government has its head lodged so far up its bureaucratic backside that it’s begun issuing permits for the procedure. Share (%%share_url%%) Meet Jet De la Isla That brings us to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where Jet De la Isla (https://www.facebook.com/) has built businesses and community institutions at the intersection of tourism, nightlife, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and public service. Jet is an entrepreneur, LGBTQ+ activist, and community leader whose businesses include Jet’s Private Boat Tours, Jet’s Naked Beach, and Club Jets. He’s also a founder of the Vallarta Gay+ Community Center, a nonprofit providing health services and community support. In other words, Jet operates in the real world, where community isn’t an abstract concept cooked up by a marketing department. It’s people showing up, spending money, building relationships, supporting one another, and occasionally behaving like tourists in places where the scenery deserves its own Instagram account. But Jet says he’s experienced a troubling pattern of censorship. Following Meta’s removal of several personal and business accounts, along with a large LGBTQ+ Facebook community he helped build, he’s speaking out about what he believes is a broader problem affecting LGBTQ+ communities and businesses. The circumstances, scope, and rationale for those removals deserve scrutiny. So does Meta’s response. The Questions Meta Should Answer (Watch above to see the full Jet interview) 1. What happened? Meta removed several of your personal and business accounts, along with a large LGBTQ+ Facebook community you helped build. Which accounts were affected, when did the restrictions begin, and what explanations did Meta provide? Were you ever told precisely which posts or activities supposedly violated its policies? 2. Is this a pattern? Have you communicated with other LGBTQ+ business owners who’ve experienced similar restrictions? Are there enough common details to suggest a recognizable pattern, or are we looking at separate incidents that require further investigation? For years, social media companies have marketed themselves as champions of connection, inclusion, and self-expression. Bring your authentic self, they say, provided it can be monetized, categorized, advertised against, and processed by a content moderation system apparently designed by confused raccoons. You built the neighborhood. You organized the block party. You attracted the customers. You created the social network. Then the landlord changed the locks using a chatbot with the emotional intelligence of a urinal cake. 3. What did it cost you? Censorship isn’t an abstract philosophical problem when you’re trying to pay the electric bill. Did losing these accounts affect reservations, tourism bookings, nightlife promotions, or customer communications? What happened to the visibility of Jet’s Private Boat Tours, Jet’s Naked Beach, and Club Jets? Can you quantify the financial damage? 4. What about public health? As a founder of the Vallarta Gay+ Community Center, you help support an organization providing health services and community assistance. Could these restrictions interfere with the center’s ability to reach people who depend on it? 5. Where does moderation become discrimination? Mark Zuckerberg (https://about.fb.com/news/) and Meta can argue that content moderation protects users, enforces community standards, and complies with the law. Fair enough. But how do we distinguish legitimate moderation from discriminatory enforcement? What standards should separate explicit sexual content from ordinary LGBTQ+ expression—or an actual policy violation from a photograph of a drag performer? And how do we know those standards are being applied consistently? 6. What happened when you appealed? Did Meta explain its decisions? Did a human being review your case? Or were you left arguing with an automated system that might as well have been a vending machine dispensing rejection slips? 7. What should other businesses do? If you were advising an LGBTQ+ entrepreneur in Puerto Vallarta—or a gay bar owner in Austin—what would you tell them to do tomorrow morning? How can they protect customer lists, preserve community relationships, and maintain communications if Facebook and Instagram disappear? Is there a realistic way to build an audience that doesn’t depend on the goodwill of a single technology company? Share (%%share_url%%) Who Owns the Digital Town Square? I want to leave you with one larger question, because it gets to the heart of this entire business. We’ve built a world in which a handful of technology companies can determine whether millions of people communicate, whether small businesses reach customers, and whether community organizations distribute information to those who need it. That’s an extraordinary concentration of power. Yet when the system fails, the people affected are often expected to accept a generic explanation, click an appeal button, and return to their lives as though nothing happened. Jet, is this simply a problem of bad algorithms and lousy customer service, or is it a fundamental problem with allowing private corporations to control so much of the infrastructure through which modern communities communicate? Because if the digital town square can shut its doors on an entire community without a clear explanation or meaningful recourse, we have a problem considerably larger than a missing Facebook page. We have a question about who gets to speak, who gets heard, and who gets to decide. And that’s a conversation worth having—even if the algorithm would prefer we didn’t. The Cary Harrison Files — KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles / Fridays 10am PST More at caryharrison.com, Instagram: RealCaryHarrison or youtube: @CaryHarrison · Text or message us any time: 310-737-TALK Text or leave a voice message: 310-737-TALK This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe (https://caryharrison.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

1,046,160

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 85 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

90

Social presence

94

YouTube

93

Engagement

60

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