Best of the Program | Guest: Duncan Stroik | 12/13/24
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Congress should make sure medicine savings go directly to patients, not middlemen. Visit PHRMA.org slash middlemen to learn more. Paid for by Pharma. Hey, today's podcast is really great. We start with a historic moment in radio that kind of

helps us ask a few questions that maybe should be asked about the drones in New Jersey. Also, is the reason that Joe Biden pardoned all these Chinese spies to take away the heat from his family pardons? Or is there more to that?

And we talked to the architect of the University of Notre Dame about the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I had heard that a lot of it had been changed and they were trying to make it into a temple of reason. Is that true? What did they actually do to that classic temple? He is the professor of architecture in Notre Dame. He'll tell us all about it on today's podcast.

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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Okay, so this is... I want to talk to you a little bit about history, and there's a reason I'm going to take you through this, because I need you to understand, in many ways, we have been here before. And while what was...

Being said at the time wasn't true in some ways, in some ways, and I'll explain. It was. And why people went crazy. Ever since I've been hearing about these drones, and I know it's me because I'm just a weird radio freak, but I've been thinking of Trenton, New Jersey. Trenton, New Jersey. Every time I hear it, say, over New Jersey.

I think of a time before television where people sat in front of their radios and listen to music and news reports and plays and other programs for entertainment. In 1938, you were only about 10 years into almost everybody having a radio in their home. So you're about as far away from the beginning of radio en masse as

As we are now from everybody having a cell phone, you know, smartphone. Okay. And social media. So we see the effects and society completely changed.

And just like everybody does now, we're at the end, hopefully, the beginning of the end of everybody just trusting what's online. People have a hard time trusting anything. They trust what's in people's hands as they film something much more than they believe anything else, right? If I'm hearing it from a regular person, I trust it more.

Okay. Media has destroyed itself. Media hadn't destroyed itself in 1938. At the time, the chase and Sanborn hour was number one. This is how, this is how desperate people were for entertainment on Sunday nights at eight o'clock. Charlie McCarthy was the number one draw of radio. Charlie McCarthy was a ventriloquist doll, right?

Now, how hard is it to be a ventriloquist on radio? All right. That was the number one thing. And it was on, it was always in this chase and Sanborn hour, but they usually led with something kind of boring. And on this particular Sunday evening, the day before Halloween, uh,

A guy named Orson Welles, who was looking to make a name for himself for his radio program because he couldn't get past Charlie McCarthy, decided to do something that had never been done. He took an old novel set in England, H.G. Welles' War of the Worlds, and at 8 o'clock that night, he gives a quick little one-minute opening.

And you know it's a show. But remember, everyone at that time is tuned in to Chase and Sanborn to see who was on the show and when Charlie McCarthy was going to come on. So most of America missed this. The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The War of the Worlds

Clearly, a radio program. And then Orson Welles himself steps up to the mic to begin the narration. Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts, Orson Welles. We know now that in the early years of the 20th century, this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's. Stop. I want you to put yourself...

Not just what, and listen to what he's saying, but also listen to the words he's saying and apply them today. Now he's just narrating and he says, in the early 20th century, the world was worried that there were intelligences beyond our own, beyond our own capabilities that could harm us. Hmm. All right, next. And yet as mortal as his own.

We know now that as human beings visited themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Stop. Are we being scrutinized? Is everything we're doing being scrutinized, monitored, catalogued?

Is there an intelligence out there that knows us better than we know ourselves? With infinite complacence, people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small, spinning fragment of solar driftwood, which by chance or design, man has inherited out of the dark mystery of time and space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf,

The Great Disillusionment.

Business was better. Business was better. War scare was over. War scare was over. More men were back at work. Hmm. Sales were picking up. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30th, the Crosley service estimated that 32 million people were listening in on radios. All right, that's interesting. The war scare in 1938.

We thought Hitler was going to invade, but, you know, Neville Chamberlain is just about to meet or just did meet with Hitler. He's promising peace. He doesn't invade until 39. All right. So the war scare is over. Kind of like we all know Trump is coming into office and the war scare is over.

Does anybody else see any parallels to what's happening to us right now? So he stops being the narrator and then he just becomes a character because nobody heard that part. They were listening for Charlie McCarthy. And it was about this time that people started to dial surf. And this time they interrupt a program and say that there's been flashes off of Mars.

And they don't know what it is. And then there are things seen in the sky, lights seen in the sky over New York and New Jersey. And then something crashes in Grover's Mill. So they send a team from Trenton, New Jersey. They send the state police from Trenton, New Jersey to find out what it is.

In a few minutes, the Pentagon, not the Pentagon at the time, the War Department or the Defense Secretary, will step to the microphone first and say, we have no idea what this is. There's nothing to worry about. And then they start broadcasting this.

And listen to what happens. Now near her home comes a special bulletin from Trenton, New Jersey. It is reported that at 8.50 p.m. a huge flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grover's Mill, New Jersey, 22 miles from Trenton. The flash in the sky was visible within a radius of several hundred miles, and the noise of the impact was heard as far north as Elizabeth.

So you turn over from the other station and you just hear that news break and you're like, wow, that's weird. I wonder what that is.

And then they play this little bit of music. They break in back from Trenton. And he's there. That quick. Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, here I am, back of a stone wall that adjoins Mr. Wilmer's garden. From here, I get a sweep of the whole scene. I'll give you every detail as long as I can talk and as long as I can see.

More state police have arrived. They're drawing up a cordon in front of the pit. About 30 of them. No need to push the crowd back now. They're willing to keep their distance. The captain's conferring with someone. Can't quite see who. Ah, yes, I believe it's Professor Pearson. Yes, it is. Now they've parted and the professor moves around one side...

studying the object while a captain and two policemen advanced with something in their hands. I can see it now. It's a white hex tip tied to a pole. Because something had come out of this meteor. Wait a minute. Something's happening. A humped shape is rising out of the pit. I can make out a small beam of light against a mirror. There's a jet of flame springing from that mirror and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on.

And then the broadcast cuts out. And there's about 10 seconds of silence and everybody in America is like, oh my gosh, what just happened? What just happened? This might sound hokey to you now, just as a lot of the stuff we're looking at now is

10, 20, 70, 90 years from now, people will say, how the hell did they believe that? But this is the way radio actually sounded just the year before this broadcast. America heard this over and over and over again. It's starting to rain again. The rain had cracked up a little bit.

The back motors of the ship are just holding it just enough to keep it from... It bursts into flames. Get this car to you. Get this car to you. It's crashing. It's crashing terrible. Oh, my. Get out of the way, please. It's burning, bursting into flames, and it's falling on the mooring fast. And all the folks between us, this is terrible. This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. Oh, it's... It's crashing. Oh, 400 or 500 feet into the sky. It's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. It's broken. It's broken.

and the flames rising to the ground, not quite to the mooring mass, all the humanity and all the fans are just screaming around it. I don't do it. I can't even talk to people and friends around there. It's a, it's a, oh, I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honest, it's just laying there, masses smoking wreckage, and everybody can't hardly breathe and talk and screaming. Lady, I'm sorry.

Honestly, I can hardly breathe. I'm going to step inside while I cannot see it. Charlie, that's terrible. Listen, folks, I'm going to have to stop for a minute because I have lots of voices.

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Sound kind of like what they'd hear on the radio a year later? Almost exactly. So now why is this important today with what's happening over New Jersey in the skies? Stu, let me just ask you a series of questions here. What is that story that has been told?

shocking to you and I for the last five years and shocking because nobody's talking about it and it's pretty big and the government keeps furthering the storyline. You're talking about the weird things with UFOs over the past few years? Yeah, right. Okay. That there's these ships that are just appearing and we have no idea what they are. Could be ours, could be somebody else's.

We don't think they're ours, but when does the government tell you the truth on things like this? Okay. Then what was the next part in the story? First, we found out UFOs are real. Then what was the next part of the story? You remember? We have some. We have pieces of some, and we're trying to build them and retro design them

design from what we have and understand, design something using the technology that we found, right? Reverse engineering. Reverse engineering. Thank you. That was the next step. Then the latest step is we or someone else has them. We're worried that Russia has them. China has them. We don't know if we have any, okay? But whoever gets there,

controls the world because you can't track them. They're too fast. They avoid all radar. They avoid everything. You can't track. They can fly in the sky. They can stop. They can go underwater. You just can't track them. That was the latest in that five-year saga, if you were paying attention to it. Correct? Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I guess maybe I remember parts, bits and pieces of this, but it's weird. Like, and you made this point before, but you'd think every one of these developments would be the only thing we're talking about. Correct. But there's been so much other stuff that like, it's been lost in the noise a little for me. Correct. Lost in the noise. Now, let me ask you, which one is noise? Is the whole UFO thing noise? No.

Or is the whole what's going on in Washington noise unrelated to UFOs? Which is which? And why can't we figure it out? What would we have said 25 years ago? 25 years ago this was happening, we would have said, that's the United States government doing something, right? That's what I said to you yesterday. But then some other things happened last night, and I thought,

How could I have gotten on yesterday and said with such surety, this is nothing. This is us. Because this isn't Orson Welles. Or is it Orson Welles but not being paid by the media?

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Before we get back into the drone story, I want to just give you some disturbing things that are happening. President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of 1,500 Americans who were released from prison, placed on house arrest during the pandemic, will be pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes. Okay, that's the largest single-day clemency in modern history. Okay, all right.

But he's also now pardoning people who are murderers on death row and setting them free. Now, that is disturbing until you read this. President Joe Biden announced on Thursday granting 39 pardons, 1,499 commutations in his administration, blah, blah, blah. However, as you're looking through this,

Joe Biden just pardoned multiple Chinese spies, also an individual that was convicted of possessing child pornography. Why child pornography? I don't know. Maybe that was his son. I didn't see any on his laptop, but would anybody be surprised?

And we know that the Hollywood group and everybody else, even the teachers union, just doesn't seem to have a problem with any of that. But the Chinese spies, now that seems a little odd, doesn't it? Why would you pardon? You exchange spies. You don't pardon spies, you know, unless you've been taking money from. Oh, but that's right.

His son, who was the one that was actually taking money from the communist government, has been pardoned for everything that he did or may have done beginning in 2014 up to today. Okay. Sorry, two weeks ago. Gee, what? 2014? Why was that? Oh, that's right, because that's when Ukraine started. What was happening in Ukraine?

Well, as we showed you when we did our investigation on that perfect phone call in a four-hour

episode series on what really happened in Ukraine. When we did this, I don't know, 2018, we were shocked at what we found. What we found was the United States was sending money to NGOs. It was all dirty money. They were all over doing all kinds of things and trying to overthrow the government and did of Ukraine.

And who was one of them besides the Bidens? Hillary Clinton. Now, isn't it strange that for the first time, Bill Clinton comes out and says, hey, I'm not, I'm not, I don't want my wife to be pardoned. She didn't do anything. Except yesterday, he's saying to the Bidens, hey, can you, maybe you should add my wife to a pardon. Why?

Because he's not Donald Trump already proved he wasn't going to go after her. Why? She's not a political enemy at this point, but she's deeply involved in Ukraine. Oh, by the way, did I mention earlier this week, President Biden gave another six hundred million dollars to Ukraine. And yesterday, another aid package to Ukraine worth five hundred million was granted. Huh? Now.

As I said last hour, we have all relaxed a little bit on war because Donald Trump is coming in. But we see what our government and Joe Biden's administration is doing just to keep poking and poking and poking and trying to get people to respond. Democrats now have called on Biden to tie Trump's hands over the U.S. nuclear strike capabilities.

That is the job of the president of the United States. They want him to now tie the hands on our strength. Donald Trump is the clearest president on nuclear weapons since Ronald Reagan. They cannot be used. If you do anything with nuclear weapons, we blow up the entire world. We kill everybody.

You cannot. He's been warning and warning and warning. And the threat is what matters. But why do the Democrats want to take that threat off? Oh, by the way, also the DOJ, the investigating general, that office came out and said, by the way, yeah, we found out 26 FBI informants were there on January 6th. What? What?

A shock. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, there was a story going around yesterday. He never even he wasn't even he didn't even apply to go to West Point. He certainly wasn't accepted. And we've talked to the government officials at West Point and they agree. Nope, not true. How did that end? He happened to keep their letter accepting him into West Point. Okay.

So I just want you to think about everything that is going on as we go back to the drone story. I want you to remember the record of our military right now under this president. I want you to keep remembering that guy is barely in control of his bladder, let alone the United States of America.

He's just pardoned Chinese spies who are known for their drones. China just gave a bunch of drones to Iran, which he has also funded. Now, I told you last hour, the most boring explanation of this is these drones that are over New Jersey and everywhere else are

that they can't seem to lock in. They can't detect them on radar. Wow, that seems like a problem. These drones, the most boring explanation is some of them aren't drones. They're just people are seeing things that aren't there or they're seeing planes that they think are drones. But some of them are drones. Again, this is the best explanation I can come up with. And like I said yesterday,

And the rest of them are ours. And we're showing that the government has some new technology that nobody else has that even can get past our defenses. Okay. All right. Maybe. Maybe. But it's from this government, this administration that has projected weakness forever. My mind changed yesterday when I read about the spies being... And I thought, you know what? That is...

This would be too strong for this Pentagon and this group of girls in the White House to project strength to the rest of the world. I don't believe it. It probably is true. I no longer believe what I told you yesterday. The problem with the most boring explanation that it's really just hobbyists

is that shows that our government is so inept that we can't catch hobbyists. That's a problem. That does not project strength to the rest of the world. Jason Buttrell is joining me now, chief researcher. He's also former military intelligence expert.

Okay. Where do you stand on this? Because yesterday we were kind of in line, but I just have a hard time with this. Just on the drones? Or what about the pardons? I wanted to interject a couple of different times there. So, yeah. Okay. So...

Let's start with the pardons and then we'll get back into the drones. Go ahead. Your TV show on Wednesday almost kind of goes right in line with my thinking on these pardons. Everything is a psyop. Everything is a deep state psyop. I don't buy for a second that right after he pardons Hunter Biden and we're expecting other pardons like...

maybe James, maybe his wife, who knows how many others. He makes a record setting commutation, you know, pardon list that dominates the headlines. And suddenly we're not talking about why did he pardon Hunter going from 2014 to 2024 for crimes that he may have committed or did? Why is he pardoning James? Like,

Who else is involved? What are the connections that we can draw? Like, oh, no, no, no. Now it's just this record-setting commutator. No, I don't buy for a second that, you know, and we know that these pardons, especially presidential pardons, they're not because the president's like, you know what? I've been following these, you know, these cases personally. They're being brought to him. Yes, they are. And the same way that the military industrial complex is handling, in my opinion, this drone situation, they're the ones directing that. It's

It's not the president of the United States. Definitely not the, you know, the, the, the guy with the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, the, the pudding eater in chief right now, he doesn't have any freaking core of what's going on right now. President Barack Obama or the, or exactly right on his third term.

Yeah, but I think everything is a psyop. And I think that I think these pardons are going to get more and more interesting. We need to stay on top of them because they're going to try and misdirect our attention on some of these other things. But what you really need to be looking at, I love the way that you're looking at the China situation, these Chinese pardons, because who are they? Do they have any connections that go back to CEFC? I don't know. I haven't looked at them. But that's the type of questions we need to be asking. CEFC is the company that the Bidens were doing business with.

Do they have connections with drone technology? I don't know. But how do you go out? For instance, they're also selling the border fence now. We have all this stuff that's ready to go, sitting there at the border, been sitting there for five years. And we tried to sell it once. Nobody wanted it. And so now we're selling it at pennies on the dollar, and it's all being hauled away. Yeah.

Now, why would you do that? I mean, I am approaching the place, and Stu, you know this, I do not use the word treason because it is in the Constitution and it means death if you're convicted of treason. It's very hard to convict somebody of treason, etc., etc. But I'm having a hard time with all of these dots that are out there that are just...

weakening us, trying to preserve that weakness, trying to subvert the will of the next president of the United States on not just some things, everything, everything. I'm having a hard time in the last few weeks of this guy. You?

Just meaning whether you're going to, because the treason part kind of complicates, I think, your question. No, I know. I'm not saying that. But I am, for the first time, getting to an area where I'm like, you know, if you can prove all this stuff, this was a traitor in chief. Mm-hmm.

Jeez, yeah. I mean, it's hard to even understand if he's president. I don't even know. You point out, does he know what's going on? I don't even know how that would work, honestly, in this case, because he doesn't seem to be even aware of what's occurring. So if he's not president, then who is the traitor? And because it is treasonous to take the powers of the president and just be a shadow president. Yeah.

Whether you're vice president or not, that also is against the Constitution. And it would be nice, too. They put on the nice face for the transition. They invite Trump to lunch, right? Like, there's all these nice things that they seem like they're doing. We're going to give a—they make the speeches about the peaceful transition. But, I mean, their actions don't line up with that at all. You know, and I—

everybody, we should get back to that. It would be a good idea to get back to that and respect what the people actually say when they vote. It's interesting, these proponents of big government, like the people that are in power now,

I think that they're the ones that don't, they don't agree with a strong executive and a strong executive used to, used to be like a bad word or a dirty word. Even the founders agreed with a strong executive. Go back to any of the federal, federalist papers when they talk about it. They wanted a strong executive. They wanted a strong legislative and judicial branch. They wanted them strong. Why? Because they can, they have the power to push back on each other.

The current brand of progressivism does not want a strong executive. They want a committee that's in charge of the executive. Because it's 100 years into this, and they have eviscerated, and Congress and the Senate have given their powers to the executive branch. And the executive branch had to be strong to protect all of those things. But now the executive branch is so strong...

The only thing holding it back is the Supreme Court. And so now you want all of the people just to run what the plan has been. You don't need the president anymore. Well, yeah, the president is not the executive in this case. I mean, he's part of it, but you're mostly looking at his appointed people that are carrying everything out, the bureaucracy. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. So, last weekend, everybody was in, well, everybody who was anybody, of course, I wasn't there, you weren't there, nobody I know was there, but all of the leaders of the world were in France for the reopening of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. And it's supposed to be marvelous, wonderful, and, you know, way ahead of schedule, etc.,

But I heard at the beginning that they were going to make this kind of into a temple of reason again and kind of finish what the French Revolution started. And they didn't.

They restored part of it, but there was a big argument of, do we go modern or do we put the Gothic back in? And I hate this. I absolutely, I have no problem against, I have no problem with modern architecture. But there is, you know, Jefferson said that,

If you want your civilization to survive even beyond you, you must embed your principles in your architecture. Greece, we get it because of their architecture, a lot of it. The medieval times, we get it because of the architecture.

And maybe it's time for all of us to go modern because so much of it makes no sense that you're like, yep, well, that's a sign of our times. Duncan Stroik, he is an architect, and I wanted him on to talk about what did they do to Notre Dame in the end. Duncan, welcome to the program.

It's great to be here, Glenn. I've really enjoyed your recent programs, especially with this great time of emphasis on the nativity. Well, thank you very much. So Notre Dame, the last time that I know of that it was really desecrated and almost destroyed was during the French Revolution, and they wanted to make it a temple of reason.

And then I heard they were going to do this again, and it was going to be to, you know, the earth and all of this crap. Did any of that happen? And what changes did they make to the cathedral? That's a great point. I agree with you that our great cathedrals, especially in the Gothic period, have had three enemies.

Fire, vandals, and iconoclasts. And poor Notre Dame has had all of those. And the fire was devastating. But what makes it even more painful is that after the fire did its work, that the iconoclasts came in and wanted to vandalize.

And was it, I mean, because I know there was this big panel put together and everything else. Was there anybody that was really, that actually in France believed in God that was on the architectural board? I think there is, but they're not supposed to admit to it. There's a wonderful interview with Philippe Villeneuve, who was the head architect and who really fought

to restore it the way it was, especially the spire, the 19th century spire. And he gets, I give him the major credit for the restoration and preventing the vandals and the iconoclasts from doing their work. But Philippe never said anything. And I talked to him in person a couple of times.

He never said anything about God or about faith, but there's a recent interview with him, and he admits that he has faith, that it's that was kept him going during these last six years, and also that the mother of God helped him immensely in rebuilding this little church. I can't imagine what it was like being a God person.

rebuilding the most famous cathedral in the world and not be able to say, hey, you know, there's some God stuff here in this Gothic architecture we may not want to lose. Exactly. And it's so amazing because Macron, the president, he, you know, originally he wanted to have a competition to redo the outside of it and do something 21st century, something of our time.

And the elites and the architects were excited, greedy little animals wanting to eat up this beautiful building. And fortunately, the people of France fought that. But he did not give up. Every step of the way, he says, well, could we have a competition to redo the stained glass? Could we have a competition?

to redo the side chapels? Could we, you know, everything, anything he could do to get the contemporary in there? And unfortunately for him, not for me, but for him, the contemporary means the secular. So what did, what is massively different when you go there now? I think Philip Villeneuve got 98% of it. I mean, he really succeeded. They

They rebuilt the roof exactly the way it was, including with medieval axes. They rebuilt the spire the way it was in 1860 with handmade joinery, wood joinery. They redid the lead roof.

which is very handmade, very phenomenal. They redid all the stonework, the five huge openings in the ceiling that had been destroyed. They restored and cleaned some of the side chapels and the paintings, which just are, you know, were kind of dark before. Now they're beautiful. So he got 98% of it. Macron got very little. The elite art world that doesn't

go to church, doesn't believe in church, but are very influential. They got very little. But unfortunately, the Archbishop of was philosophically, or at least aesthetically, in league with Macross. So some of the things that he spent money on are of a contemporary age. And

Most people won't even give them a second thought because they are so out of touch with the rest of the building. That's actually good news because I thought a lot more had been done that was bad. So that's really good to hear. It is a great story. It really is. I'm very thrilled. In place of these little minor interior decorating things that look like they're ephemeral and you can get rid of them next year, it really is a triumph.

So you're a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. And I want to ask you, so much...

of our architecture is just meaningless. And I'm not, I'm not against modern architecture. Um, you know, some of it is interesting, um, uh, only because of what we can now do. Um, but it's, it, it doesn't really even speak to anything, you know, a century for even a century from now, I don't think, but I was, I was reading that there is this new, um,

AI driven machinery that,

that can now re-carve from solid marble in a fraction of a time and not even close to the cost, you know, you could rebuild all of the great statues and go back to even a Gothic kind of architecture at a fraction of the cost and the time. But, you know, I kind of think when you see David...

I have to tell you, I went to Florence and my wife and I stood in the square. I didn't know that the one in the square was a fake. And we were standing in the square and I went, huh, well, I've seen that before in all different sizes. And it wasn't that impressive. And then I went into the museum where the original is. And I cannot tell you what the difference is. But that one is alive. The other one is not alive.

Yes. What what is the difference? And and will you know, by by getting rid of handmade things, don't you think that just changes absolutely everything?

Totally, totally. And especially when it comes to art with sculpture, with decoration, with figures, with floral things, the hand is where it's at. And I do. We use modern technology to cut our marble and our limestone.

But the thing that gets me so excited is to see that guy with his hands actually cutting into the stone and making a necantus leaf. No question with sculpture. I believe totally with sculpture that it's the key. And so, yes, the David is a great example because there's a couple of great, great copies in Florence. And the one that we're all moved by is the one by that Michelangelo guy. And they look identical. Yeah.

Yes, yes, totally. And they were great. They were very good sculptors who did it, and they were copying it as closely as they could. And so there's something beautiful about the hand. I'm with you. And they did that as much as they could at Notre Dame in this new restoration. And young people were involved in it. That's what's also exciting, is that young people today want to do things well.

With their hands, some people do. Other people want to do video games. But, you know, I think there's a good future for a lot of this. Yeah, I think the more we get into AI, there's going to be a real problem of dislocation of people and artists and everything else that we're going to have to figure out soon. But once we get past that, it's kind of like...

It's kind of like when clothing went to machine-made. At first, everybody wanted it made by machine.

Now, if it's handmade, holy cow, is it different? You know, even from I was just talking to somebody about, you know, everybody buys ripped jeans now. We were embarrassed when I was a kid because our moms would patch them. Now you'll pay one hundred and fifty dollars extra if they're patched by a machine. But we're trying to buy that authenticity that, yeah, I wore these out, even though we didn't. You know what I mean?

Yes. Yes. And one of the things that really amazed me was at the roof of Notre Dame, which took about fifteen hundred trees, some 80 feet tall that they had to to use from the old state forests for the for the great buildings to make this roof. One thousand five hundred trees. And most of them were cut by hand using axes.

1,500 trees. They had 60 men working for three or four years cutting these trees and then forming them into square timbers and then joining them with dovetails and mortise and tenons. And it was all handmade. How did they get this done? I mean, the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. took forever. How did they do this so fast?

Well, I think it was national pride, and it shows you that the French still have it in them to restore, but I also believe build things of that quality of the Middle Ages. They still have it. They have the people that love it, and even though the elites and the leadership, the political leadership don't think it's valid.

But the regular people and the craftsmen, they know this was a high point. This is a golden age and that we could do it again today. So I'm very excited about the French. I want to export the French, these master craftsmen to other countries, especially the U.S., where we can afford it and get them to train us.

and lead us to do this in America on a smaller scale or whatever. But I think we want to do that. Duncan, thank you. If you're ever in Dallas, please let me know. I'd love to have lunch with you sometime. You're fascinating. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do, Ben. Thank you for speaking up. You got it. Duncan Stroik, he is an architect and the professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Na, na, na, na.