Here is the introduction.

There are moments in history when the loudest sound is silence. When something real is happening, dangerous, destabilizing, and profoundly human, yet the headlines barely whisper. Iran may be in one of those moments right now.

Reports of widespread protests are filtering out, uneven, fragmented, hard to verify. Rumors are filling the gaps, some reckless, some hopeful, some deliberately false. And meanwhile, much of the Western media seems oddly restrained, as if this story does not quite fit the categories it knows how to tell.

Tonight, we are not here to sell certainty. We are here to ask why uncertainty is being handled so selectively. Why protests against a clerical regime struggle for oxygen. Why silence becomes policy when narratives collide with ideology.

History teaches us this much. Revolutions do not always announce themselves politely. Sometimes they arrive half seen, badly explained, and remembered later with embarrassment by those who looked away.

Here is the thing. When the noise goes quiet, that is often when you should lean in and listen hardest.

Welcome to What The Frock, where history, theology, politics, and common sense all sit at the same table and politely argue over the chips. This episode is titled “Only (Need 100) Fans,” which sounds like a joke until you realize it is also a completely accurate description of how modern speech works in the algorithmic age.

In this episode, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod ring in the new year by immediately proving that calendars cannot be trusted. From there, the conversation moves briskly into Venezuela, oil, China’s long game, and why people keep pretending any of this is new. We talk about slogans versus reality, power versus intention, and how history keeps tapping us on the shoulder while we scroll past it.

Then things get personal. California policy, public health, tortillas, and the strange urge to fix human beings by statute all make an appearance. Scripture follows close behind, including Solomon, Ahab, Elijah, and the uncomfortable truth that wisdom does not always travel with good judgment.

And finally, we confront the great modern gatekeeper. You may speak freely, but you may not broadcast without permission. All it takes is 100 followers. No loyalty oath required.

Thoughtful, skeptical, occasionally irreverent, and entirely human, this is What The Frock doing what it does best. Pull up a chair. Click follow. History is watching.

In this episode, we wander cheerfully from missed dates and misplaced years into Venezuela, oil, China’s long game, and why shouting slogans is not the same thing as understanding history. We detour through California’s latest attempt to fix humanity by statute, ask whether public health works better with consent than compulsion, and then take a sharp turn into scripture, wisdom, and why King Solomon might not have been the relationship role model people think.

And finally, we confront the modern truth. In the digital age, speech is free, but broadcasting requires permission. All we need is 100 followers. That is it. History has survived worse odds.

Good evening and welcome to the What The Frock New Year’s Eve special, an annual ritual in which we pause, take stock, raise a glass, and verify that the planet is still here. It is. We checked.

Tonight’s episode is titled AI Did NOT Destroy The World… This Year, Anyway…, which is both a statement of fact and a quiet expression of surprise. For twelve months we were promised doom by headline, apocalypse by algorithm, and replacement by software. Instead, what we got was confusion at scale, confidence without competence, and machines that talk very smoothly while being spectacularly wrong.

In this episode, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod do what they do best. They poke, prod, laugh, and occasionally squint at the future while standing firmly in the present. They talk about artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and the vast and fertile territory in between where most of the trouble still lives. There are stories, there is philosophy, there is champagne, and there is at least one reminder that tools have always been dangerous in the hands of people who stop thinking.

So pour yourself something celebratory, or medicinal, or both. The year is ending. The world remains stubbornly intact. And for one more night, we ask the question that matters most.

What the frock just happened?

Good evening and welcome to the What The Frock New Year’s Eve special, an annual ritual in which we pause, take stock, raise a glass, and verify that the planet is still here. It is. We checked.

Tonight’s episode is titled AI Did NOT Destroy The World… This Year, Anyway…, which is both a statement of fact and a quiet expression of surprise. For twelve months we were promised doom by headline, apocalypse by algorithm, and replacement by software. Instead, what we got was confusion at scale, confidence without competence, and machines that talk very smoothly while being spectacularly wrong.

In this episode, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod do what they do best. They poke, prod, laugh, and occasionally squint at the future while standing firmly in the present. They talk about artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and the vast and fertile territory in between where most of the trouble still lives. There are stories, there is philosophy, there is champagne, and there is at least one reminder that tools have always been dangerous in the hands of people who stop thinking.

So pour yourself something celebratory, or medicinal, or both. The year is ending. The world remains stubbornly intact. And for one more night, we ask the question that matters most.

What the frock just happened?

This episode of What the Frock? is not comfortable, and it is not meant to be. It is the kind of conversation that sits with you like cold air in a warm room and refuses to leave quietly. Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod turn their attention to a story that should have been impossible to ignore and yet somehow was. A story of missing money, empty buildings, unanswered questions, and a public asked to look away for its own good.

There are no villains twirling mustaches here, just systems that learned how to stop asking questions and people who learned that silence pays. Along the way, the conversation wanders as it always does, through memory, media failure, moral risk, and the dangerous habit of confusing discomfort with wrongdoing. This is not about outrage for its own sake. It is about accountability, about trust, and about what happens when truth becomes too inconvenient to report.

Pour a cup of coffee. Lean in. Some stories demand it.

Welcome to What the Frock, where the holiday cheer comes with footnotes and the goodwill is thoroughly cross examined. In this episode, Dave and Rod wander straight into Victorian England, a place absolutely convinced it had solved humanity, morality, and the correct volume at which joy should be expressed. Spoiler alert, it had not.

What starts as a simple question, why Americans say “Merry Christmas” while Brits insist on “Happy Christmas,” turns into a full scale rummage through moral panic, class anxiety, bad history, and the peculiar Victorian talent for turning joy into a character flaw. Along the way, Dickens gets his due, Malthus gets side eyed, and the idea that suffering builds character gets dragged into the light where it does not age well.

If you like your Christmas thoughtful, argumentative, slightly irreverent, and allergic to smug certainty, you are in the right place. Say it however you like. Just understand why some people were afraid of the word “merry.”

This week on What the Frock, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod wander cheerfully into dangerous territory, the kind where theology, technology, and human incompetence all trip over the same loose cable. It starts with a simple question that should probably never be asked out loud before coffee. What if the Messiah returned as artificial intelligence. From there, things proceed exactly as you would expect, with skepticism, laughter, and a strong resistance to worshiping anything that requires a software update.

Along the way, the conversation turns practical and uncomfortable. While people dream about perfect digital saviors and benevolent machine kings, real institutions struggle to follow their own rules. When governments cannot manage paperwork, and roads become more dangerous through bureaucratic indifference, the idea that code will save us starts to look like another golden calf with better lighting.

This episode is funny, pointed, and unapologetically human. It asks hard questions, mocks easy answers, and reminds us that wisdom does not come preinstalled.