In episode 69, Charles talks to Luther Ray Abel about their Most Excellent Whizzbang American Roller-Coaster Adventure, which took them from Virginia to California, via Hersheypark, Cedar Point, Great America, Magic Mountain, and Disneyland, in both a Ford Bronco Raptor and a Ford Mustang Dark Horse, while wearing Hawaiian shirts every moment of the day.

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Show Notes

The Piece

• Charlie and Luther's Most Excellent Whizzbang American Roller-Coaster Adventure, in National Review.

The Cars

• Ford Bronco Raptor
• Ford Mustang Dark Horse

The Parks

• Hersheypark
• Cedar Point
• Great America
• Magic Mountain
• Disneyland

The Roads

• The Pacific Coast Highway

The Coasters

• Candymonium POV
• Skyrush POV
• Great Beat POV
• Fahrenheit POV
• Storm Runner POV
• Wildcat's Revenge POV
• Millennium Force POV
• Steel Vengeance POV
• Maverick POV
• Raptor POV
• American Eagle POV
• Superman: Escape from Krypton POV
• Goliath POV
• Batman: The Ride POV
• Twisted Colossus POV
• Tatsu POV
• Woman Woman: Flight of Courage POV
• Ninja POV
• Scream POV
• X2 POV
• West Coast Racers POV
• Apocalypse POV
• Riddler's Revenge POV
• Full Throttle POV
• Revolution POV

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On episode 68, Charles talks to Keith Whittington, a professor at Yale Law School, about his new book, You Can't Teach That: The Battle over University Classrooms. Among the topics discussed are why universities are different than K-12 schools; why governments (and taxpayers) can't decide what is taught, given that they're paying the bill; how Civil Rights law intersects with academic free speech; and how to prevent universities from becoming ideological bubbles.

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On episode 59, Charles invites Michael Brendan Dougherty and Noah Rothman to continue the debate over Ukraine that they started on Tuesday's episode of The Editors.

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On episode 58—recorded from Lord Ravenscroft's desolate manor—Charles reviews objections to his approach to counting states, relates the most recent problems he's had with his golf cart, and talks to Tim Carney about his new book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be. Among the questions Charles and Tim discuss are why we should have "lower ambitions for our kids"; what modern parents are doing wrong—and why; what caused these mistakes; whether there is a political answer to them; why creative and independent play is so important; why parents think the world is more dangerous than it is; whether achieving the cultural changes that Tim proposes will be different given the obvious collective action problem; how cultural underconfidence factors in to the baby bust; and what Tim would do if he were a dictator.

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On episode 57, Charles announces a special jigsaw puzzle and relates which 44 states he's visited before talking to Robert Frommer about an extraordinary case of civil asset forfeiture. 

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On episode 56, Charles talks to Father Nathaniel Meyers, the Pastor of the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Buffalo, MN, about whether God exists, how we can know, and whether it ultimately matters.

Fr. Meyers's reading list:

• St. Augustine's City of God
• A Contemporary Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God
• Anything by Cardinal Ratzinger
• Letters of St. Paul

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Charles invites Gareth Russell to tell him all about his latest book, The Palace: From the Tudors to the Windsors, 500 Years of British History at Hampton Court. Among the topics they discuss are the wives of Henry VIII, the use of séances to get one's own way, the first performances of Macbeth and Hamlet, the writing of the King James Bible, snobbery within eighteenth century chocolate production, whether Mary I was as bad as her reputation suggests, and why George III moved the monarchy to Buckingham Palace.

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Charles introduces a new section on the show: Manatee Fact Hour. Then he invites that reprobate Kevin Williamson on for another throwback show. Presented by Prang and Company.

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def generate_podcast_intro(episode_number, host_name, guest_name, topic):

     intro = f"On episode {episode_number} of the {host_name} Podcast, budget cuts destroy the introduction and {informal_name} talks to {guest_name} about {topic}."

     return intro

episode_number = 53

host_name = "Charles C. W. Cooke"

informal_name = "Charles"

guest_name = "Timothy B. Lee"

topic = "artificial intelligence"

podcast_intro = generate_podcast_intro(episode_number, host_name, guest_name, topic)

print(podcast_intro)

# The dial-up tone in the introduction was recorded by lintphishx and is used under a CC 3.0 License.

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On episode 52, Charles talks to Peter Suderman about cocktails. Among the topics discussed are: What is a cocktail? When were they invented? How have they changed over time? What is the 'cocktail renaissance'? How have laws affected their production or development? And how did Peter get into this in the first place?

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In episode 51, Charles confesses that he is genuinely morose about the end of the Jaguars season, and then talks to his colleagues about their own sporting highs and lows. For just $5/month, you can help a sad male fan.

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On episode 50, Charles is rudely prevented from staging his radio play by the Ghost of Luther Abel. After that, he talks to Rafael A. Mangual about crime. (Here's his book.) Among the questions they discuss are why Rafael believes that the U.S. has a "decarceration problem"; whether too many Americans are in jail; whether the justice system is "racialized"; what we should do about police brutality; whether voters will punish politicians who make them less safe; and what law-and-order policymakers got wrong in the 1990s.

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On episode 67, Charles talks to David French about David's column in the New York Times, 'To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris.' Among the questions Charles asks are why David has changed his view of Harris since 2019, why she hasn't reached the disqualification threshold, whether her support for abortion is a problem for him, and whether he thinks that she will win.

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On episode 49—so called because there have been 48 others—Charles talks to Russ Roberts, the host of the EconTalk podcast and the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Among the topics they discuss are: What life has been like in Jerusalem since October 7; why Russ started a podcast so early; why he's less interested in economics than he used to be; how strongly he holds his views; whether individuals who do well in the free market 'deserve' it; which economic concepts are hardest to convey; why he doesn't call himself a 'libertarian'; why it's important to live 'like an artist'; and whether the West is going to make it in the long run.

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On episode 48, Charles celebrates the Jacksonville Jaguars' 34-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans, and then talks to Steve Simpson about the core of America's system of government: the separation of powers. Among the questions discussed are: What is separation of powers? Why does it matter? Does America still have it? Can it co-exist with the modern world? Can there be such a thing as an "independent executive agency"? What is the "unitary executive doctrine"? Are we going in the right direction—or backsliding back to monarchy?

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On episode 47, Charles tries to work out why some of the anti-Israel protests have bothered him so much, and then talks to Ruy Texeira about the current state of the Democratic Party. Among the questions asked are: Why is Texeira's new book called 'Where Have All the Democrats Gone?' when the Democrats seem to be doing fine? Why is the "shadow Democratic Party" so  strong? What is the "soul" of the Democratic Party? What did Bill Clinton get right in the 1990s?  How correct was the thesis of 'The Emerging Democratic Majority?' Is abortion hurting the Republicans? What should we draw from this year's Virginia elections? And is demography destiny after all?

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On episode 46, Charles talks to Dan Senor about the horrors of October 7. Among the topics discussed are: What happened? Why did it happen? Why would Hamas's apologists say it happened? Was Dan surprised that it happened? Does he worry about another Holocaust? Has he been shocked by the reaction in the United States? What will happen next? Why does Dan describe Israel's system as "genius" in his new book?

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On episode 45, Charles admits that he missed the podcast's anniversary. Then he talks to Yascha Mounk about his new book, The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. Among the topics discussed are where identity politics comes from, how it spread so fast over the last ten years, why it's a problem, whether opposition to it should be moral or practical or both, and what will happen if it's not checked.

Charles's piece about going to an NFL game in London can be found here.

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On episode 44, Charles talks to NPR's Steve Inskeep about his excellent new book on Abraham Lincoln, Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America. Among the topics discussed are whether the book is a call for engagement in the modern era, whether practical politics gets a bad rap, what Lincoln really thought about African-Americans, whether Lincoln intuited that he was going die in office, what challenges are presented by the fact that Lincoln was murdered when he was, whether Lincoln's occasional dishonesty was justified, and what class-based "equality" meant in his era.

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On episode 43, Charles answers a question about atheism and individual rights: "How can your belief in unalienable rights be squared with your professed atheism?" Then he talks to Heather Mac Donald about her book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives.

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On episode 42, Charles answers a question about the game of Rugby, and then talks to Douglas Brunt about his fascinating new book about Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine and, at one point, one of the most famous and interesting people in the world. Among the questions asked are: Why have we not heard more about Diesel? What sort of world was he inventing in? Why were the world's militaries so interested in his work? What did he believe in? What did he think of America? Did he get on with Thomas Edison? How did he come up with the idea for his engine? How did he disappear—and what are the main theories as to how it happened?

The book is The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I.

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On episode 41, Charles talks to the historian Niall Ferguson about Cold War II (not Cold War 2.0). Among the questions asked are: What is a Cold War and why are we in one? Is China now more ideological than it was twenty years ago? Should America be taking more drastic action at home and abroad? What sort of tools should the United States be creating? Is Ukraine a distraction from the real threat? Will the Chinese turn on their government? Who will win the battle this time around?

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On episode 40, Charles talks to Winkfield Twyman Jr. and Jennifer Richmond about their book, Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America. Among the issues discussed: Have our conversations about race got worse despite conditions for African-Americans having improved? Is racial solidarity necessary in a country that once had slavery? Can a focus on 'Old Americans' help everyone move on? Were Wink and Jennifer nervous about having an "authentic conversation" about race? Should others be?

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On episode 66, Charles talks to Charles Fain Lehman about drugs and crime. Charles asks Charles to tell him why he's wrong about the drug war, why marijuana is different from alcohol, whether we should ban substances to protect people from themselves, what the problem is with "harm reduction," how bad the drug crisis is, whether we talk about it seriously, and why drugs are more potent now than they used to be. Afterwards, they talk about whether crime is going up or down, or whether the whole debate is partisan nonsense.

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On episode 39 of the Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles talks to Rob Long, a writer and the founder of Ricochet.com, about the ongoing "Hollywood Strike," which is now on its 114th day. What's it about? Is it justified? How—and when—will it end? Why do entertainment figures have unions? Is streaming ruining everything? Will this strike make it worse? How a big a threat to actors and writers is Artificial Intelligence? And how did Rob get into Hollywood, anyway?

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On episode 38, Charles begins by rebuffing a takeover attempt from a ghostly Luther Ray Abel. Afterwards, he talks to the novelist Lionel Shriver about immortality, the topic of her recent cover story at National Review. What are the personal and societal implications of immortality? What drives her to write about that topic? Does Lionel want to live forever herself? What would be her biggest fear if she could attain eternal life? Is she more bored than she was 15 years ago? What does she feel when she thinks about the size of the universe? Is Charles wrong to find it sad that, at some point soon, all his memories will be completely and permanently obliterated? Is there any point in living for a long time if you spend all your time extending your life and not much time living it?

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On episode 37, Charles talks to historian, Andrew Roberts, about Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, King George III, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and others. Among the topics discussed: Where did Churchill get his literary ability? What would have happened if Britain had made peace with the Nazis in 1940? Was Napoleon a 'tyrant'? Is the U.S. uninvadeable? Was George III a good king? Is the Declaration of Independence accurate? Were the Allies lucky that Hitler made the strategic decisions? And does Andrew miss his subjects when he's finished writing about them?

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On episode 36, Charles begins by highlighting his favorite parts of Becky Pringle's astonishing speech to the 2023 NEA Conference, and then chats with "school-choice evangelist" Corey DeAngelis about the dramatic increase in interest in his prescriptions since COVID-19 changed the world. Among the questions Corey answers are: "What is school choice?" "What is a charter school?" "What is a voucher?" "Which state has the best system?" "Do school-choice advocates oppose public schools?" "Should there be an income cut-off for school-choice programs?" And: "Does American democracy require an education monopoly?"

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On episode 35 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles begins by answering a question about what he prefers about England and what he prefers about America, and then talks to Eli Lake about whether the Espionage Act of 1917 ought to exist, and whether Donald Trump ought to have been charged under it.

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Episode 22: The Streets Are Made of Cheese

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On episode 34, Charles talks to Tim Carney about his book, Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse. Among the topics they discuss are what constitutes "the American Dream," whether that American Dream is "dead" (as Donald Trump charged in 2016), and, if so, when that decline started and what caused it. After that, Charles asks if those who are suffering are right to be angry with the government, if the malaise can be fixed, and to what extent Tim thinks that the answer lies in a resurgence of religious belief and community.

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On this pop-up episode, Charles talks to the Pacific Legal Foundation's Ethan Blevins about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down affirmative action, and then answers a question about his time at King's College Choir School in Cambridge.

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On episode 32—released on the 32nd of the month—Charles talks to Gareth Russell, who wrote a book about the Titanic (Ship of Dreams: The Sinking of the Titanic and the End of the Edwardian Era) and who, a couple of years ago, was invited to take a trip on the Titan submersible that sank this week. Among the topics Charles and Gareth discuss are why the Titanic continues to command such interest, whose fault its sinking was, when the conspiracy theories started, and if its ethical to go down to what is, in effect, a mass grave.

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On episode 31 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast—this one with 100% less Luther Abel—Charles chats with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya about his reflections on the pandemic. What did he get right? What did he get wrong? Has the public health establishment learned its lesson? Does it deserve to be trusted? If so, how would we get back to that? Does Dr. Bhattacharya share Charles's enthusiasm for the vaccine? What, if anything, did Anthony Fauci get right? Answers abound.

Charles is now back from Italy, and in possession of quite a lot of wine.

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On episode 30 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, Charles welcomes back his old Mad Dogs and Englishmen co-host, Kevin Williamson, to talk about cities, crime, whether libertarians were wrong about marijuana legalization, going to Italy, shooting snakes with revolvers, and who is going to be the Republican nominee in 2024. No PPE money was destroyed during the making of this podcast.

N.B. Charles is now on vacation. The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast will return in two weeks.

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On episode 65, Charles talks to Randy Barnett about his memoir, A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist. Among the topics they discuss are: How did Randy get interested in the law? How did he become a law professor? What is an originalist? Why is he one? What sort of originalist is he? What was it like arguing before the Supreme Court? Why does he still defend the Lochner decision? Is he hopeful about the future of the Constitution?

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In this special "pop-up" episode, Charles talks to Andy McCarthy about why, since Episode 5, Andy has changed his view on whether or not the FBI is irredeemable and should be abolished.

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On this week's episode of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast—the first since Charles got a haircut—Charles talks to Elbridge Colby about Taiwan. Among the topics discussed are why Taiwan matters more to the United States and the West more generally than, say, the Falkland Islands; whether Americans are prepared for an invasion; if China is our biggest geopolitical threat; and, if it is, what this tells us about our ideal Ukraine policy.

Charles also answers a question: "Why do most state legislatures have a Senate?"

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Is free speech more at risk in the U.K. or the U.S.? Should Britain adopt a First Amendment? How can it possibly be legal for the police to place "non-crimes" on Brits' criminal records? Why is Scotland so censorious? And is it getting better? On Episode 27, Charles talks to Toby Young about these questions and more.

He also discusses the delicious political candidacy of Calvin Ball (yes, really!), and answers a question about martial arts.

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Episode 26 begins with a Q&A. The first question has to do with infringements on constitutional rights. “Why is it okay to infringe on a right when it comes to requiring voters to register, but it isn't okay to infringe on a right when it comes to requiring gun owners to register?” The second returns to a familiar frame: “As a well known rollercoaster aficionado, what four ‘coasters would be on your Mount Rushmore?” 

Then it’s on to a chat with Sonny Bunch, of the Bulwark, about the state of modern cinema. As a self-professed “movie idiot,” Charles asks how Sonny became a critic, how one can tell what’s a Good Film, why the Oscars seem so far removed from films people actually want to watch, and why Hollywood is hooked on remakes, reboots, sequels, and spinoffs?

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This week's episode features another whole-show conversation, this time with Daniel Hannan, the writer, blogger and Conservative member of the British House of Lords. Charles and Daniel chat about William Shakespeare, the subject of Daniel's fantastic piece in the most recent issue of National Review. 

On the table are whether Shakespeare invented the modern human, how Shakespeare wrote his plays, why the Japanese think Shakespeare is Japanese and the Germans think Shakespeare is German; and whether some of Shakespeare's work is too unbearable to watch.

Additional note: The man that hath no music in himself / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds / Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils / The motions of his spirit are dull as night / And his affections dark as Erebus / Let no such man be trusted

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On episode 24, Charles starts off by answering two questions. (1) "Were he alive today, would Ben Franklin be repairing old cars or modifying golf carts?" (2) "What do you think the practical end goal of judicial Originalism is supposed to be?"

Then it's time for a conversation with pollster and strategist, Giancarlo Sopo, who answers questions about the GOP's challenges going into 2024. Is abortion going to drag Republicans down in swing states? How much will January 6 continue to matter? Does DeSantis have a better chance than Trump? And what are the Democrats' liabilities?

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On this 23rd—but not 22nd or 24th—episode, Charles starts by taking on the preposterous idea that if one thinks that Donald Trump ought to have been impeached for what he did in 2021, the unrelated criminal case against him in New York must therefore be correct.

Afterwards, Charles talks to Stanford's Lanhee Chen about whether California is salvageable, and then, on the Color Supplement, discusses the joy of half-dead cars with Luther Abel, who confirms that, in the Midwest, the quadratic spacing solution needs to be more viscous so that the cold weather doesn’t contract the tetrafarseling or shimmy the wanglepins.

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Overwhelmed by the number of questions he's received about his decision to emigrate, about the USA vs. the UK, and about whether he'd ever consider moving back to England, Charles asks Sam Negus, a fellow British Americaphile (and, now, a fellow American citizen), to chat with him about what it's like to move from the Old Country to the New World. 

Among the topics covered by Charles and Sam are whether they feel more American or British, why they call themselves "immigrants" instead of "expatriates," if it's possible for an Englishman to become Spanish, how long it took them to get into American sports, why the British are so flummoxed by the First Amendment, and why a song from An American Tail neatly sums up the American Dream.

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In the wake of the second largest bank failure in American history, Charles eschews his monologue in order to chat to someone who knows what he's talking about: the economist, John H. Cochrane, who is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a co-host of the show Goodfellows, and the author of the Grumpy Economist blog, and, most recently, of the book, The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level.

After that, Charles talks to Henry Oliver, of The Common Reader, about whether literature students at Harvard are capable of reading, whether it's a problem that people want to shave the edges off Shakespeare, and how long copyright terms should be for authors.

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Well, he waited for nineteen episodes, but eventually he let it all out. Charles explains why he is so worried about the constitutional crisis that President Biden has created with his illegal order "forgiving"—read: transferring—student loan debt. If it's not fixed, he argues, there is trouble ahead.

After that, he asks Noah Rothman some tough questions about foreign policy and America's ideal role in the world.

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On episode 64, Charles writes an opera for his most persistent critic, 'Boiling Rug,' and then talks to Clark Neily about the problem of coercive plea bargaining.

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The soufflé must be ordered with 24 hours' notice, but, as good luck would have it, this episode must not. This one shakes it up a bit and begins with a Q&A. "If you were to create a British Mount Rushmore, what four faces would it display?" Charles was asked by some rotter who then excluded "John, Paul, George, and Ringo" from eligibility. Charles tries to get through it nevertheless.

Then it's time for a conversation with Kat Rosenfield, culture writer and author, most recently, of the novel You Must Remember This. Among the topics that were discussed were whether it matters that Roald Dahl's publisher has started rewriting his books to address so-called modern sensibilities, to what extent one should separate art from the artist who produced it, and which sorts of censorship are the most alarming.

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It's the day after the Super Bowl, and that means it's time for episode 18 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, which, this week, features a monologue about last week's remarkably embarrassing State of the Union address (which shouldn't exist), and an interview with Marian Tupy, co-author of Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet. 

Are we richer than medieval peasants? Is it easier to buy a vacuum cleaner now than it used to be? Why is a bigger population not only not bad, but good? Do statist conservatives have a point when they complain about free markets? Is environmentalism a religion? Why does cancel culture threaten the economy? Charles asks all these questions—and more. Listen, or don't. It's up to you.

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How many people can say they knew someone who assassinated a president? Charles's guest today is Paul Gregory, whose fascinating book, The Oswalds, relates his relationship with Lee and Marina. Paul tells Charles how he met the Oswalds, what he thought of them, why he still feels some "shame," why he thinks all the conspiracy theories are bunk, and why it took him six decades to put his story to paper

Charles's monologue is on Florida's proposed "constitutional carry" bill, which, despite all the hysterics, actually represents a rather modest reform to the status quo.

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It's Friday, and it's 5 o'clock somewhere. That means it's time for episode 16 of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast, in which Charles addresses everyone's favorite topic—how we can address our deficits and national debt, and why, despite their protestations, the Republicans aren't serious about doing so—and then chats with Vic Matus about his book on the history of Vodka in the United States, and, in particular, how a grain alcohol “without distinctive character, aroma, taste, or color” became the most popular hard liquor in America.

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