Derrick Collins stops by The Kennel to talk about his experiences with psychedelics. We mainly focus on his most recent experience at an ayahuasca ceremony.

We recorded this on November 24, 2023, but I took awhile to upload this, so here it is now!

Thanks for watching, and thanks to Derek for stopping by!

Summer may be over, but Middle Tennessee State University still swelters in that HOT LABOR SUMMER HEAT!

MTSU workers currently receive paychecks at an abnormally slow and uneven pace, sometimes having to wait as long as 45 days for compensation. The United Campus Workers at MTSU (Communications Workers of America Local 3865) are tired of this practice, so they’re collecting petition signatures, requesting that the university pays its workers bi-weekly—a standard practice of most employers today.

Ashton Beatty, Secretary of the Middle TN United Campus Workers, stops by The Kennel to explain the issue with the frequency of worker’s compensation at MTSU, and what the university’s chapter of the UCW is doing to solve this problem.

If you want to support MTSU’s workers in their fight for a fairer payment schedule, I urge you to sign this petition.

Anyone can sign this petition—you don’t have to be an MTSU student or faculty member! So once you’ve signed it, share it with everyone!

Thanks for listening, and thanks to Ashton for stopping by!

Got an awesome interview to share with you today!

Aftyn Behn runs for the Tennessee State House in District 51 as a Democratic candidate. Aftyn rejects corporate PAC donations, ensuring that her actions in office would represent the will of her constituency — not wealthy corporate interests.

If you want to learn more about Aftyn’s political views after checking out her campaign page and watching/listening to this interview, you can find a detailed list of her stances in this questionnaire that she filled out before her Q&A with the Middle Tennessee DSA.

David Hooven opposes her in the election as the Republican candidate.

If you live in District 51, get out to the polls!

Early voting has already started, and ends on Saturday, September 9th! You can find a list of early voting locations here, and verify your house district and voter registration status here.

If you can’t make it out to the polls before the 9th, you can also cast your vote on election day: Thursday, September 14th. You can find your polling place here.

Thanks to Aftyn for stopping by The Kennel, and thanks to you for watching or listening!

In this episode, after explaining where I’ve been for the past two months, I share all of my thoughts on the 2024 presidential primaries.

Here’s the gist:

* Per usual, all of the Republican candidates suck, but I’ve been enjoying watching the RNC candidates tear each other to shreds.

* Marianne Williamson is by far the best offering from the Democratic Party, but she still has quite the uphill battle to wage.

* While Dr. Cornel West has a great platform of policies, this candidate faces an even steeper uphill battle, as his run for President with the Green Party means he’ll only have ballot access in 17 states.

Thanks for listening!

Sources:

The Guardian - “Ron DeSantis in Guantánamo: how questions about his past haunt the Florida governor”

Morning Consult poll via @Politics_Polls on Twitter - “2024 National Republican Primary

Donald Trump’s AI-Generated Parody of Ron DeSantis’ Campaign Launch

Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Campaign Policies

MTSU College Democrats’ Petition to Allow for Boro Pride on Middle Tennessee State University’s Campus

Politico - “Marianne Williamson’s ‘abusive’ treatment of 2020 campaign staff, revealed”

Brennan Center for Justice - “The Complex History of the Controversial 1994 Crime Bill”

Reuters - “Biden signs bill to block U.S. railroad strike”

Forbes - “Most Democrats Don’t Want Biden To Run Again, Poll Finds—But They’ll Probably Vote For Him Anyway”

Rolling Stone - “Democrats Are Letting the Promise of a $15 Minimum Wage Slip Away”

Joe Biden’s Campaign Page

Rasmussen Reports poll via @Politics_Polls on Twitter - “2024 National General Election”

Big Village poll via @Politics_Polls on Twitter - “2024 National Democratic Primary”

Jacobin - “Populist? RFK Jr Doesn’t Even Support Medicare for All.”

Fox News poll via @CaseStudyQB on Twitter - “Dem Voters Would Like to See Biden Debate”

Green Party - “Ballot Access”

She stopped by The Kennel via a Zoom call to discuss her work on the Emmy-nominated Tennessee Faces of Opioids campaign and share her thoughts on my health campaign proposal intended to address the ongoing opioid epidemic, which continues to plague the state of Tennessee and the United States at large. This campaign was designed for my Health Communications class at Middle Tennessee State University.

You can find a copy of the campaign proposal here, which also features an extensive literature review explaining why I chose this approach. You might notice that I propose a “4-5 minute” runtime for these podcasts, but I found that this time limit was nearly impossible to achieve with this interview. Upon further consideration, I would expect this limit to be very difficult to achieve with future interviews, especially if future ones were to include interviews with former addicts, whose real-life stories would probably include a lot of necessary nuances.

When editing an unscripted podcast, I think it’s essential to preserve a discussion that unfolds naturally. The improvised nature of this medium is what makes it engaging to its consumers, and it would have been impossible to do that after our 20-minute discussion concluded. Additionally, Elizabeth simply had a lot of vital ideas to share throughout, so the final product ended up being 16 minutes.

Thanks to Elizabeth for stopping by! I hope you find the discussion engaging and informative.

Today, April 5th, MTSU philosophy professor Michael Principe gave a lecture and Q&A on socialism, hosted by the university’s Young Democratic Socialists of America.

Overall, I’d consider the event an absolute success. We ended up running out of seats in the Student Union 221 classroom, and all the attendees posed some insightful questions.

For information on future MTSU YDSA events, check out the announcements at the end of the recording.

Thanks to Professor Principe for stopping by and sharing some insights with us!

Got some late-night thoughts to share on yesterday’s mass shooting in Nashville, TN at The Covenant elementary school.

Here’s a petition you can sign.

Here are some sources cited:

Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly (Commonwealth Fund Study)

Article from The New York Post

Open Secrets - NRA Contributions to Political Parties

The Commonwealth Fund’s Summary of Norway’s Healthcare System

Here are the sources that guide this upload to The Kennel:

Fed Insisted SVB Posed No Serious Risk to Financial System

A Black family fights to get their kids back from Tennessee Department of Children’s Services

About These PS5 Pro rumors…

EXCLUSIVE – PS5 PRO IN DEVELOPMENT, COULD RELEASE LATE 2024

Hope you enjoy this more low-key episode!

You can learn more about the AYCA at their Twitter page.

3 months later, and your Ramblin’ Reddy-Raider, Big Dog Ethan is back with another substantial and fun interview.

Christian Gay will run for Chair of The Rutherford County Democratic Party on March 18th.

A recent graduate of Middle Tennessee State University’s Political Science program, Gay aims to be the chair of The Rutherford County Democratic Party, and—based on what he says in this interview—he holds this aim quite steady, with a strong intent to encourage grassroots organizing and reach out to the massive student population here in Murfreesboro, TN for their support. Check the interview to hear our thoughts on his bid for the spot, as well as Christian’s experience at a recent counterprotest against a Proud Boys gathering in the city.

Novice Double Octofinalist of Univ. of Arkansas’s 2023 Southern Forensics Championship

MTSU’s Debate Team ventured to the University of Arkansas, whose team hosted the 2023 Southern Forensics Championship Tournament—consisting of TIPDA, IPDA, and Individual Event competitions that drew in 29 colleges from around the region.

The Blue Raiders returned overall victorious, with Communications Coordinator Elliot Certain emerging from the Junior Varsity IPDA bracket as its champion, and Team Captain Joey Mego holding only one loss throughout the IPDA competition as Varsity bracket’s Runner-Up.

Your very own Big Dog Ethan scored a personal record of 4 wins and 2 losses in the Novice IPDA bracket of 78 competitors, making it to the first round of finals before losing right then and there. This earned me a Novice Double Octofinalist award, but as always, the greatest gift I’ve received from the tournament is all the new friends I got to meet.

I also competed in the Persuasive Speaking category for Individual Events with a 10-minute speech crammed full of reflections on the current state of mainstream and independent news media. Unfortunately, some more changes need to be made to the presentation, and more time needs to be dedicated to memorizing the speech, as I performed quite poorly in both rounds. Once I get that ready, I’ll be sure to share a recording of that on here. (I won’t normally do this in the future, but this speech deals with many of the topics I talk about on here.)

As always, thanks to my teammates at MTSU for being the awesome folks that they are, thanks to the University of Arkansas’s Debate Team for hosting…

…and no thanks to the Henderson State University administrators (like this guy or these guys) who helped ensure that their students can’t participate in such a fun academic event any longer.

I guess this is the part where I should note the obvious: The views stated on The Kennel are not necessarily that of MTSU or its debate team, as this is just a thing I do in my free time.

Speaking of which, if you’re feeling generous and like what you see…

You can financially support the work I do by picking up an optional monthly subscription. I intend to drop extra/bonus content for those who do subscribe, but I need to keep these few and far between, as I think one of the best things this podcast has going for it is the fact that all content uploaded from this point doesn’t stay behind a paywall.

That said, I don’t want to only stick to the world of politics, so I will be uploading commentary on less substantial topics focused on entertainment news, especially that of the video games, movie, music, and tech industries. As long as the topics chosen don’t contain some quality that makes it of general public interest, this kind of content will go behind the paywall.

The hits keep coming as we near the final election day for this midterm voting season!

This next interview holds a lens to current MO State Senator Trish Gunby of District 99, who’s running in my home U.S. congressional district of MO-02 on a grassroots Democratic platform that rejects ALL corporate PAC money.

Thanks to Trish for stopping by to share a platform that aims to represent her constituents, and thanks to you for listening! Feel free to leave a like or a comment, and be sure to share this with any of your friends in District 2 of MO! They’ve got a candidate they can count on here.

Apologies for the audio issues here. Many lessons were learned in recording a video podcast outdoors at a public park.

That said, I hope you walk away from this interview with a few key takeaways:

* Vote for Odessa Kelly.

* If you’re not in Nash [like me], inform any friends and relatives of yours in District 7 to vote for Odessa Kelly.

* Vote for Odessa Kelly.

* You can do this right now! Early voting is open, so no need to wait in a long line on the day of the election.

* Vote for Odessa Kelly.

She rejects any corporate PAC donations while campaigning on a platform that prioritizes the economic needs of working class citizens like herself. According to Bernie Sanders, as well as More Perfect Union, this is the message that will land with voters in the next couple weeks.

If you are in Nash, get to the polls!!

Correction: I state at the end that U.S. Congressional Representative Cori Bush (MO-02) was going to be showing up for a canvassing event for Odessa and a rally for reproductive rights in Nashville.

Due to the horrific shooting at the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis, Cori needs to be with her community in this traumatic moment. Thanks to Cori for prioritizing the needs of her constituents.

Thank you so much to Bill for running on a platform that actually represents his constituents, and for stopping by to chat! And as always, thanks to you for tuning in! Go give Bill a follow on his campaign’s Facebook page, and give him your vote this November if you can! He’s earned it.

Attention MTSU Students:

I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight an interesting fact that I hadn’t learned until after the interview: Bill’s opponent in this race is Charlie Baum, another MTSU professor who is the Republican incumbent that’s swimming in filthy corporate PAC money. I imagine with two MTSU faculty members running in this race, both candidates may be wanting to maintain the peace on campus and not risk getting in any trouble with administration.

This approach deprives the MTSU student body of education on an important issue.

Bill’s campaign is a wonderful opportunity to get the student body informed and activated on the issue of legalized corruption, which has become a rampant problem in the U.S. ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling on Citizen’s United v. The Federal Election Commission. This ruling granted corporations the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaign, essentially declaring that money is free speech. With these restrictions gone for over a decade, corporations have had the ability to buy out our public officials when they campaign. These wealthy interests donate massive amounts of money to different candidates in the hopes that they’ll pay back the favor legislatively if they make it to office.

This is legalized corruption, and Charlie Baum holds a career in partaking in this morally disgraceful practice. Nothing would make me happier than to not only see this shill lose in a landslide, but to also see my new friends at MTSU help make that a reality. If able, vote for Bill Levine next month, not the corrupt corporate ghoul that he’s running against.

I’d like to take this opportunity to also remind any visitors to this page that The Kennel operates independently of Middle Tennessee State University.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Beasts & Dragons: Discussing Politics When The Beast and Dragon Are Adored!

Dan Whitman comes on the show via Twitter Spaces to talk about his platform for Arkansas’ 2022 U.S. Senate election.

His website can be found here. You can also find him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @DanWhitCongress.