Ken Soleyn and Tara Haarlander

[00:00] TARA HAARLANDER: Ken, you were born in St. Vincent, a small island in the Caribbean. Your mom belonged to a farming family and your dad was a carpenter. We immigrated to the USA when you were two years old. You went to school from K through 12 in Brooklyn, New York, lived in one of the poorest sections of Brooklyn, the so-called ghetto. I love educating and going to the library like many. I'm frustrated with the government. Figure why complain? Do something and you want to do nonviolent, peaceful Awesome. action.

[00:29] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, and I'll read yours. Your interests are crafting, do-it-yourself art, reading, writing, blogging, especially about science, fitness dance, which is yoga, Pilates, kickboxing, ballet, and hip hop. I'm a wife of an accountant and daughter of two aging parents. I'm a trained scientist. I've worked for big pharma for 25 years and currently work in scientific communications. As a woman who struggled with infertility for years and has deep respect for medicine and science, I am passionate about protecting reproductive health care for my daughter. and women everywhere. I'm also a fierce ally for many immigrant and LGBTQ friends. All right, so the question comes up, why did you want to do this interview?

[01:40] TARA HAARLANDER: So, I live in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and we are deeply purple. so there's a very strong split and divide between our Republican and Democratic voters. And one of the things I've been seeing, especially as I became more active on social media, was there was a lot of animosity being thrown around between people, and there was just not a lot of connection. People didn't know a lot about each other. They just made assumptions because of what they saw on social media. And I really felt like if we could just improve or increase our personal connections with each other, things could get a lot better. Whenever I spoke with people in person, things were very different. We actually found things in common. and I felt like when you are behind a screen, it's very easy to forget about those things.

[02:49] KEN SOLEYN: A little bit about my background. From my professional life, I worked for GE and I started as a sales manager for instrumentation and controls. and it afforded me to travel all across the United States. The only state I haven't been to is Hawaii. And I also got to go to Europe and Asia, you know. So I found that in negotiations and in working on a global scale, you know, communication and you know, face to face really goes a long way. So I'm currently retired and I.

[03:41] SPEAKER C: I.

[03:41] KEN SOLEYN: Like doing hiking and snowshoeing, like, you know, just taking day trips and I'm into music and things like that. So I mean, enjoying my retirement, but I also felt like with the situation is that I want to try to give something back. So I started just kind of seeking, you know, what can I do? Because like in the past, I've worked with kids in, you know, in middle school, the people of color, their kids were kind of lagging behind. So a bunch of parents, we formed a tutoring group. it was called Helping Hands. And we got the middle school to open up on a Saturday and, you know, bringing the kids for like tutoring. But obviously we try to make it a little fun, but it was the parents doing it because a lot of the parents had been to college and, you know, were professionals themselves. So, you know, we always felt like, you know, you want to help. at one point, you know, we used to go to church as a Methodist, and I was a Sunday school teacher. I enjoyed teaching, and I enjoyed working with kids. You know, one year, I had a, I was a summer camp counselor, and I was a city kid who grew up in the city. So, you know, there were times in a beach day, which somebody would open up a fire hydrant. That was a ghetto beach day. It sounds cliche, but.

[05:18] TARA HAARLANDER: You know, I was born in Brooklyn.

[05:21] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[05:21] KEN SOLEYN: Oh, there you go.

[05:22] TARA HAARLANDER: So my parents grew up in Brooklyn. What part? We left when I was six. Okay, so my mom grew up in Canarsie.

[05:29] KEN SOLEYN: Okay, I know the area very well.

[05:31] TARA HAARLANDER: And my dad grew up in Sheepshead Bay.

[05:34] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, we used to go to Sheepshead Bay to buy fish.

[05:38] SPEAKER C: Okay.

[05:38] KEN SOLEYN: The guys just bring it in. And I. I went to school up there. I went to Kingsborough, which is right in Sheepshead Bay. the community there. You know, there was a, there was a restaurant called Rondazzo's where we used to hang out and, you know, that, that was back into disco error. But, yeah, you know, so, you know, I guess what the world experiences, it also felt the same thing that.

[06:12] SPEAKER C: You.

[06:12] KEN SOLEYN: Know, my parents were very much like working class. They belonged to the unions. My dad was a carpenter. My mom was a nurse's aide. So she belonged to like the healthcare workers union. So from a working class person and from just a person who, you know, tries to stay a little bit up on current events, I started seeing where, you know, the current administration just seems.

[06:42] SPEAKER C: To.

[06:45] KEN SOLEYN: Well, make it really difficult for the working guy, you know?

[06:49] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[06:49] KEN SOLEYN: And what is the working guy wanting? One or woman wants, you know, they want nutritious food, they want a shelter or a home. You want to be able to Educate your kids and educate yourself, I think. And you want to be able to enjoy life, you know, pursue your hobbies or things that interest you. You want to be able to do that in peace. So I don't see why I don't see why we have to pay that burden. so that these sort of rich guys can just, you know, get away with basically murder, you know, or some or heinous crimes. So that's my soapbox and I don't like it. But yeah, so I started saying, well, let's be a little bit more active. And, you know, I joined up with the Sierra Club and we did a little bit of lobbying up at the state capital.

[07:54] TARA HAARLANDER: Cool. Very cool.

[07:59] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[07:59] TARA HAARLANDER: Should we go to the next question?

[08:01] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[08:04] KEN SOLEYN: I think we did that one.

[08:06] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[08:08] KEN SOLEYN: Your own personal political values. Could you describe in your own words your own personal political values?

[08:20] TARA HAARLANDER: Like my bio says, you know, I just, I want for everyone to be treated with the respect that they deserve. I've heard from some people that not everyone deserves my respect because they feel that respect, they use the term respect in the sense that it puts people, a person you respect, puts them on a pedestal. and I don't feel that that's the case. I feel that every human deserves their feelings and to be respected. Every human does. You know, whether you're, you're gay or brown or white or Christian or Jewish, everyone deserves some, some modicum of respect. And for, for certain people to be saying that's not the case, it makes Makes me really sad. And I see people in power now not respecting certain groups of people and it makes me so sad, especially as a woman. And, you know, I've had a STEM career where I've frequently been the only woman in the room and been a minority and I understand to a degree. obviously not completely, but do it to a degree, certain groups of people struggle in their own way and they do deserve some level of help, whether it be in the form of, you know, a little extra tutoring because their family can't help them out, or whether it's because, you know, they have a club to support our gay students, you know, that is super helpful to the kids struggling with their sexual or gender identity. And, you know, we have clubs at school and they're under fire right now. And it's it's so sickening because I'm like, why why are they denied just a space to to talk out their feelings and feel like they have a community? so I feel like those things should be commonplace and basic and it's not for everyone. So that's really, I think, the core of my political views. And then reproductive rights, obviously, like I said in my bio, that is, has been a thing for me since I was a teenager, and I'm not sure why that has always been in the front of my, my mind as a girl and a woman, you know, if perchance I do get pregnant, I should be able to control how I interact with my doctor and what we talk about and what, you know, what the outcome is without worrying about is this doctor going to get persecuted for how they treated me. And then as I grew up and went through my own journey as becoming a mother and then struggling with secondary infertility. It became even more solidified with me that these conversations and these treatments that I was so privileged to receive for them to be regulated by the government, which, let's be honest, they don't know a lot about these treatments. for them to be making passing laws and regulations on medical procedures that they don't understand. It's horrifying to me, especially, and now I have a daughter thanks to the wonders of medicine. And she's about to, she's nine years old and she's about to, you know, become a woman herself. And it just scares the living daylights out of me. to think of what she might have to go through if things get worse for us.

[12:24] KEN SOLEYN: Well, I personally live in New Hampshire and married and I have two grown sons. And here in New Hampshire, one of the issues that have just come about is with all of the cuts to medical care. We have particularly in some of the rural places in this state is what we now refer to as maternity deserts.

[12:55] TARA HAARLANDER: Oh, so sad.

[12:57] KEN SOLEYN: These are, you know, women who just live far away from any care. And, you know, and if you think about it, that's where medical care starts. It starts at the beginning of life, right?

[13:10] TARA HAARLANDER: Mm-.

[13:11] KEN SOLEYN: I mean, if you can, you get healthy, if you start out healthy, you have better chances. And, you know, it's just statistics. And this is through, like, research. Mm-. So it's, you know, someone like yourself who believes in science, that's the whole other thing. It's just, just seems like there's this turning away from scientific method and scientific, you know, like the way they refer to as the scientific people, oh, these eggheads or they don't know anything, you know, who are they putting in place? You know, like political hacks who donated money or owed a favor. All right, so, well, we'll give you a job in the cabinet here, you know? I mean, I hate to say it.

[14:07] SPEAKER C: But.

[14:09] KEN SOLEYN: Even, even I thought George Bush was a, you know, Junior was a bit dense, but at least he had an organization where we were, like, sort of like professional people in place to run, like, FEMA and.

[14:25] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[14:25] KEN SOLEYN: Different agencies, you know, the military and things like that, you know? So that's the other scary thing that. to me. Absolutely. I don't want to make light of it, but it just seems like it would be impossible if we said these things are going to be happening like 10 years ago, you would have thought, you're nuts, you know, you're crazy.

[14:51] TARA HAARLANDER: Right?

[14:53] KEN SOLEYN: So what can we do about it? You know, my political value is you have to kind of each person personally has to make their decision, and that's loading. But you have to weigh the, you know, the issues. And sometimes you got to think about how it affects Society as a whole.

[15:19] TARA HAARLANDER: Absolutely.

[15:21] KEN SOLEYN: You know, like, you help out the people that are struggling and, and poor. And if they can get profession or a job, they're going to be paying taxes. They're going to be spending money in the community. These ultra rich that are seem to be getting all of the benefits, you know, they just hoard the money away.

[15:44] SPEAKER C: And.

[15:46] KEN SOLEYN: I just get the feeling like they're going to end up in a bunker. like, you know, locked in the basement somewhere with, you know, you know, like Hitler did, you know, and how did he end up locked up in a bunker? Because just the incessant greed and and that, and that's, that's a lot of it, I guess it plays on human emotion. Fear and greed are really strong. Mm-. Because I guess there's this fear out there of like, you know, these people are taking away from you and it's anything but the truth, you know? The young girl that needs prenatal care and education on, you know, how to care for a baby because she's a single mom, you just want to abandon her.

[16:46] SPEAKER C: Right.

[16:47] KEN SOLEYN: So what's the next step when you would add her?

[16:51] SPEAKER C: Right? Yeah.

[16:53] KEN SOLEYN: So to me, it makes even like economic sense and it makes economic sense to invest in things like solar power and I come from industry, I come from engineering. I've been in nuclear power plants. and I've been in, you know, big industrial facilities and so forth. Now, my area was instrumentation making measurements and sensors or temperature, humidity and pressure. And it's, you know, it's a fairly, like, specific area, but this, this is what afforded me to go around and. meet a whole bunch of people and different cultures and, you know, learn how to kind of listen a little bit, but also chat it up in that culture as well.

[17:53] TARA HAARLANDER: Honey, Rachel, I made a call.

[17:57] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, so you can obviously tell I'm sort of a Democrat who is probably more on the liberal spectrum. I believe there should be health care for everyone.

[18:07] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[18:07] KEN SOLEYN: I think education for everyone is a great investment in the country because now you can move forward, you can solve problems, build bridges, whatever it takes, you know? And, and we're, we're, you know, so, you know, those are my areas as well. Health for everyone, education for everyone. And a working person should get a deep, should be able to make a decent living.

[18:33] TARA HAARLANDER: Absolutely, absolutely. I think that what is unique about that kind of point of view is that it's a very long-term way of thinking. And for certain people, they don't consider the long-term consequences of not thinking long-term. You know, they are thinking about their own child and the education of them. And so it was funny when my parents moved close by, they thought they were moving to our school district, but because of where they moved to, it was the next district over. And they're like, oh, we thought our tax dollars were gonna go to our own grandchildren. And now they're gonna go to someone else's grandchildren. And for a second, they were kind of annoyed, but then they realized, wait a second, it's public school. Public school is for everyone. and no matter who the tax dollars go to, like those kids are going to be our future doctors, our future leaders, our future teachers. And so, like, the public schools are not for each family. It's. It's for the community. It's for our society.

[19:43] KEN SOLEYN: They're gonna be paying taxes.

[19:46] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[19:46] TARA HAARLANDER: So, like. Like, someone said to be the customer of our public schools is not. the individual families, it's the community as a whole. And I think that's such a beautiful way of saying things because it's so true. And the government funds programs that are for our community. And this is what we pay taxes to support. And not everyone is so good at thinking of the big bigger picture and the longer term picture.

[20:20] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, like in my town, it's Republican. State as a whole kind of swings, I guess what it used to be a very Republican, but it's also because it's the first state in the primary.

[20:38] TARA HAARLANDER: Oh, yeah.

[20:40] KEN SOLEYN: It sort of becomes like a pilot plan or a testing ground. for a lot of political, like right now, there's this free stater movement, and these, these are like these ultra, you know, white, right Wingers who want to, you know, they want to arm themselves. And, and if you cross their property line, they feel they have the right to shoot you on site. They have signs all up, you know, no trespassing, and and all of this stuff. And it's like, hey, you know, I'm hiking, but in public lands. And I've always felt pretty safe out there. You know, I meet other hikers that pass them on the way. We smile, we say hello. You know, if we saw someone in distress, we all carry a little first. I mean, mine is not any big one because I don't, I don't want to do in the big. hikes anymore, but, you know, we help each other out. You know, it's the code.

[21:42] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[21:42] KEN SOLEYN: It's the code of hiking, you know? And it just scares me that the, that this, this is, this is, it just sees the parallels to, I hate to say it, but it's like Nazi Germany. But on the other hand, I think you kind of kind of take the boiling point down a little.

[22:02] SPEAKER C: A lot of it. And.

[22:05] KEN SOLEYN: A lot of these people in the town I live in, well, they're really my friends and neighbors. I mean, you know, I don't mind having coffee with a Republican or, you know, I'm not going to call them names. They have a different political opinion than I do. They have a different, you know, thought process. Sometimes I just let them talk, you know, I just say like, well, what has Trump, you know, done for you.

[22:34] SPEAKER C: Or, or.

[22:36] KEN SOLEYN: What, what do you, what do you think is the ultimate goal here? Because it seems like they're private, they're looking to privatize a lot of things. So let them, let them talk. And sometimes when they talk, they kind of bring out the best case for me. And I learned that from negotiating in business as well, like Japanese people who very strict protocol of the way they conduct business. You know, everyone talks and they're very measured.

[23:07] SPEAKER C: And.

[23:09] KEN SOLEYN: If you, you want to follow that protocol, at first you think nothing's going to happen because they're going through all these niceties of, you know, complimenting each other. And you're ever going to get down to business here, you know, and then Interesting. But by the end of the scheduled meeting, you realize you've accomplished something here. You found some negotiation point. Very interesting. You know, different cultures are different. You know, I've been to Germany where they're precisely on time.

[23:46] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[23:47] KEN SOLEYN: In Spain, you know, Italy, you can be a little bit late, nobody really. That's okay. Let's have a coffee, you know?

[23:55] TARA HAARLANDER: Yeah.

[23:56] KEN SOLEYN: We start talking, you know? So I don't know. I I think, I think this is what's missing is, is this idea would intrigue me about this one small step. It's just the ability to have conversations. Yeah, I don't know if COVID kind of hurt that ability or is it a technology that kind of isolates people?

[24:28] TARA HAARLANDER: Oh, both. Oh, absolutely both, for sure. And like you, I have a global job as well. I work for a large pharmaceutical global pharmaceutical company and I have conversations with people different from me. every day. I have a large team in India that, you know, we, I, one of them said to me one day, like, oh, can we shift this meeting by, by an hour? Because it's Ramadan and I have to break my fast at this time.

[24:59] KEN SOLEYN: Of course.

[24:59] TARA HAARLANDER: Absolutely. Like, and this is something that I never would have thought of before because I don't work with a lot of Muslim people.

[25:08] SPEAKER C: And.

[25:09] TARA HAARLANDER: I've also noticed when we go back to New York, you know, my family, we, we love New York City because we're, we're from there. So whenever we go back there, there's so many different people. There's such diversity, and it's so beautiful. Everyone is so, you know, people give New Yorkers a bad rap, a bad rap. But I've never had an experience where everyone was mean. Like, most of the time, most people are just so friendly, and we're all, you know, we're in Central Park and talking with people that don't speak great English, and it's great. And I feel like because we've had the experience of a lot of different people in our lives, we're much more open to those different kinds of viewpoints and, and, and hearing them and respecting them.

[25:58] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, I I, if you're from Brooklyn, you probably know what an egg cream is, right?

[26:04] TARA HAARLANDER: Love it. Yes.

[26:08] KEN SOLEYN: And I always tell people it neither has eggs or cream, but it, you know, I remember those soda fountains when I was a kid in Brooklyn. We used to call it a candy store and the kids in the neighborhood, you know, we were like 10, 12 years old. We, you know, we take out nickels and dimes and go get a soda or a lime Ricky and they had a big jukebox in there. so I can't remember. I think it was a nickel for the Jukebox or 10 cent, whatever it was, you know, and good humor. Van would come around and.

[26:45] TARA HAARLANDER: Yeah, yeah, it was.

[26:46] KEN SOLEYN: It was like a neighborhood we. We lived in. I lived in East New York, Brownsville, in 1968. we had, we, we had a tenement and there were fires and everything. So my dad said, you know, we got to get out of here. So we moved, we moved to East Flatbush, and it was right near Downstate Medical Center. And so I think when we moved in, there were maybe, like, three people of color in the neighborhood. So, you know, it took some adjusting. And one thing I noticed is that the, the school systems, because My grade school and my middle school were probably like 95% black. And we weren't getting the kind of funding, you know, as the white neighborhoods. And I moved to a white neighborhood now. You know, my parents really, they did stress education. I was like the type of kid who went to the library a lot. I did a lot of reading, but I, you know, even back then, I could see that I, I had some catching up to do. And, you know, as time went on to then, there's also a social part of it, you know, growing up, growing up in, in Brooklyn especially, like I said, I think in my, when I was about 18, that's, that's when the rock and roll disco error came in and we had a lot of fun with that, you know, going around to the various, like, discos and stuff like that, you know, the nightlife and the whole, the whole atmosphere was just like being in a movie. But at the same time, you know, you gotta, you gotta put some effort into the books, but you want to party, you wanna, like, I, I used to go see, like, you know, some of the rock and roll bands and stuff like that, like the Grateful Dead. And I'm still a big fan of the Grateful Dead. And I saw a lot of groups. So that there's that side of America as well that I want to, the arts and everything. I want to see that preserved.

[29:05] SPEAKER C: I love.

[29:07] KEN SOLEYN: I love, like, seeing a play. It doesn't have to be done by you know, the top Broadway people, you know, like, I'm happy with just to go, like, to a dinner theater kind of play. Like, we saw one time we saw West side Story in a dinner theater, and it was done by, like, the waiters, you know, waitresses.

[29:27] SPEAKER C: Right.

[29:27] KEN SOLEYN: But they rehearsed it. They did a really good job. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it, you know, had dinner at the same time, you know, so there's that side of America that we all grew up in and. we had these ideals, you know, kind of like a child of the 60s and 70s. And we really believed in the American way, you know, I became a citizen. I wasn't born here, but I came to this country when I was two years old. And I can remember going and becoming a naturalized citizen and signing the papers. And I was like seven, seven years old at the time.

[30:05] SPEAKER C: Wow.

[30:06] KEN SOLEYN: They asked you a few questions, like, you know, the freedom of speech was one of them. And who was the current president? And, you know, a couple other questions. So I I really, I really see things today. getting away from that. And it. I don't know what the root cause is, you know, but I don't know. What do you think? What do you think is the root cause of all of this?

[30:44] TARA HAARLANDER: So I. I think social media has been really bad for us. I don't know how much you're on social media, but. I saw a study where a large percentage of people who voted for Donald Trump and support the administration do not get their news from traditional news sources. They don't watch ABC, NBC, read newspapers, those kind of things. And my brother-in-law is in that group, and he deeply mistrusts a lot of those news sources. However, he is on the internet all the time and he believes a lot of the stuff that he's reading, which is completely unverified. So I'm not sure why he thinks that that is a more trustworthy place to get his information than the news because I've watched the Newsroom and Aaron Sorkin show, and I learned about double verification and journalistic integrity. And yes, there are absolutely some journalists who go off rogue and share lies, but by and large, when you watch the news, you can trust that there are guardrails in place to share mostly truth. Whereas when you're reading a blog, you have no idea if that person is just writing their own conspiracy theories. And for some reason now people are starting to believe that stuff and believe what they see on social media as, oh my gosh, that must have happened. where, you know, people are eating cats and dogs. Like, it's, it makes no sense to us, but I feel like that, that is where social media has done us a huge disservice. And then there's this algorithm that keeps feeding more and more to people, and we're getting addicted to our phones, and we just keep scrolling and scrolling and seeing the same thing. and they put us in our echo chambers. And you see comments from people saying that that's true and agreeing with you. And you want to be confirmed. You want to be validated in what you already want to believe. And so you're saying, aha, I knew it. And now these three people agree with me, so it must be true.

[33:32] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah, you have the answer and you're seeking the question for it.

[33:41] TARA HAARLANDER: And my sister, who's progressive like myself, and I don't know how she lives with her husband, said they went on a cruise, a 10-day cruise to Iceland, and they were offline and his personality started to change back. to what it was before. And that to me was like confirmation.

[34:04] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[34:07] KEN SOLEYN: I kind of post on so, you know, mainly like Facebook and it used to be more so nature photography. So I take my camera along when I go like snowshoeing and stuff like that. And there are a couple of photography and nature enthusiasts groups. And, you know, we kind of share pictures and, you know, I guess it's better than hunting with a gun. I just use a camera. And, you know, but even with that, some of it now what we're seeing is AI renditions, like, there was a meteor shower and they're showing all these meteors all lined up and streaking across the sky, like in front of the pyramids in the in front of like Stonehenge. And people are pointing this off as like, this is an actual photograph or this actually happened. So with these renditions now, it's kind of like, Yeah, in the movies when you have special effects you can, you know, you can create all of the Spider-Man stuff and special effects and make it look really believable, you know, really, at least you're in it for the moment. So, you know, where do we, I would think, yeah, where do we separate like that? Like, I told someone the other day, like the outdoors to me is reality.

[35:45] TARA HAARLANDER: Yes.

[35:46] KEN SOLEYN: The stuff on social media and all of that on the internet, that's the fantasy. But there is a, I think there's an escape, you know, I mean, I like to sit down and watch a movie, you know, especially maybe when it tells kind of a story or a narrative.

[36:07] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[36:08] KEN SOLEYN: Something like that.

[36:10] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[36:13] TARA HAARLANDER: And so I also have a, a BRCA mutation. So that gives me my, my family a very high chance of hereditary cancer. And so I was very involved as a scientist and a woman educating other people and other families who had the same similar condition as I did. And before COVID I was very much I was very positively positively received. Everyone was so appreciative of thank you so much for sharing this science and, you know, helping me understand it. And I respect your expertise and I understand that's your training. But then during then COVID hit and I would be on, you know, the same platform, Facebook, and people would be asking questions like, why should I worry about this virus? why should I not send my kid to school? They look totally healthy. And I'd be answering like, well, that's how a virus works. You know, there's an incubation period. You can seem totally healthy, but be contagious. They're like, you,'re so stupid.

[37:16] KEN SOLEYN: What?

[37:17] TARA HAARLANDER: You know, you're.

[37:18] SPEAKER C: And.

[37:18] TARA HAARLANDER: And the. The shift in how it was received was so dramatic. And I was like, why? I'm just sharing what I know about viruses. My degree is literally in microbiology. Like, and all of a sudden I saw what the environmentalists have been struggling with already, and that's no one wants to believe climate change and any science that supports an inconvenient truth, which I never really understood what that phrase meant, inconvenient truth, any science that supports that, they're like, oh, that must be fake. Oh, that must be made up. It's all a conspiracy.

[37:59] KEN SOLEYN: I'm the guy that used to sell instruments for measuring the weather, you know, like temperature, humidity.

[38:06] SPEAKER C: Right?

[38:09] KEN SOLEYN: You know, these instruments sensors, they collect data and.

[38:15] TARA HAARLANDER: You know, and they're so carefully validating.

[38:18] KEN SOLEYN: You gotta understand a process, you better measure it somehow.

[38:21] TARA HAARLANDER: Yes, yes.

[38:24] KEN SOLEYN: So that's, you know, yeah, there's a scientific principle and it's like you're suspending reality, but you know what, I'm trying to understand the causality of that. Is it, is it, is it, what's driving you? Is it that you feel resources are limited, so I have to hoard as much or, or what's, what's this thinking? Because it, it, I think it's, like I said, I grew up in this country, lived all my life here, and I think I understand the culture and traveled around. And it wasn't. It wasn't like this, you know? Well, I guess maybe it starts from the leadership. And when it shows, if you put too much power in one person.

[39:16] SPEAKER C: You.

[39:17] KEN SOLEYN: When the courts are going to give you immunity and you have the Congress in your majority and there's pressure on these guys to go your way to go to their leaders. But I think the biggest thing is all of the dark money from doing a little bit of lobbying myself. you can, you can see that there's a lot of influence from these big money lobbyists. Now, some of it, you know, some, some Industries do it and it sustained that industry. Like maybe coming out of the pharmaceutical, you know, you, you would understand that because pharmaceutical industry, they, you want to really attract some of the brightest and best people, right? How do you get these bright people who did well in school and are well studied, did the actual research and really had the discipline to work out these things? How do you get them to work for us? You know, so, you know, there has to be some structure and there has to be some amount of you know, capital invested in corporations to keep up.

[40:41] SPEAKER C: And.

[40:42] KEN SOLEYN: To make the products we need available. I go to the drugstore, you know, there are the things that we need, the pharmaceuticals that we need. So there is a structure to that system, but there also has to be regulation and protection built in. And that's what government does really well.

[41:07] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[41:08] KEN SOLEYN: They're independent. They're not paid.

[41:11] SPEAKER C: Right.

[41:12] KEN SOLEYN: They're really, what they really should be doing is, you should say if they work for us, they're paid to sustain and protect the people because we're the ones that keep them employed or keep them.

[41:25] SPEAKER C: Right.

[41:25] KEN SOLEYN: That's the way it is.

[41:26] SPEAKER C: And.

[41:27] KEN SOLEYN: That's what I always, you know, kind of based my thought on. So this one really has me boondoggled, I would say.

[41:39] TARA HAARLANDER: Did you watch the movie Don't Look Up?

[41:44] KEN SOLEYN: No, no.

[41:45] TARA HAARLANDER: You have to watch it. Don't Look Up, it stars a lot of really, like, big stars. Leonardo DiCaprio was a big one. and it's all about people, like, there's a meteor coming towards the Earth, and people don't want to acknowledge that it's about to happen. Things are bad, and so they're just telling people not to look up. And it's. It's such a satire and. And parody of our times. I believe it was first. produced to set to parody environmental and climate change and people not wanting to admit that that's happening. But it was released during COVID So for me, doing the good fight during COVID I saw it as a parody of people not wanting to acknowledge that, you know, COVID could be a really bad thing. And you being from New York probably heard all the horror stories and the morgue trucks and I'm like, how can you not acknowledge that this is something we need to address and we need to contain for the safety of not just everyone, but particularly our most vulnerable populations? And I think the people who were privileged enough to not have any loved ones in those groups, you know, immunocompromised, elderly, And they didn't just want to realize how much their actions impacted everyone because they didn't see it firsthand.

[43:29] KEN SOLEYN: Well, I almost think it's to the point where if you keep the masses sort of dumbed down. then you can get away with quite a bit. In other words, they're coming after Trump.

[43:50] SPEAKER C: On.

[43:53] KEN SOLEYN: Potential charges that he's affiliated with Epstein and all the goings on there. I don't even want to get into it. So what does he do? Well, Obama was accused of a crime. So it's just total deflection. And I just can't believe that people believe that or is it just the outcome that they want? We want, do the majority of us want a society where just the rich and powerful can get away with what they want and the rest of us are just here to suffer the consequences. Well, you know, you could do better. Just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Yeah, but the problem is I don't have any boots, you know?

[44:48] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[44:50] KEN SOLEYN: You know, so I think, you know, probably as a Democrat, then my strategy is you can commiserate about the system and so on, but your focus really has to be on the upcoming midterm elections. If the Democrats can win back.

[45:15] SPEAKER C: Enough.

[45:16] KEN SOLEYN: Seats to get a majority, then at least we can keep Trump in check until 2028. That's about that's about it. And you have to kind of keep the opposition going, you know, it's going to be the burden of states now to fund, like, medical programs and schools. Schools. And so that that burden becomes just the working class people again. Yes.

[45:52] SPEAKER C: Yeah. A.

[45:56] KEN SOLEYN: Lot of people are gonna really suffer and that's what concerns me.

[46:01] TARA HAARLANDER: Yeah, yeah. I feel lucky to be in the position that I am. My husband and I both have jobs, not good. My parents saved smartly for their retirement. But, you know, with that privilege, I feel a certain burden and, you know, to be involved and campaign and, you know, knock doors and make sure everyone gets out to vote, especially here in Chester County, where we've had races decided by two votes.

[46:33] KEN SOLEYN: Is Chester Downingtown?

[46:36] TARA HAARLANDER: I live in Downingtown.

[46:38] SPEAKER C: Okay.

[46:41] TARA HAARLANDER: That's crazy that, you know, Downingtown.

[46:45] KEN SOLEYN: I had a representative process heat and controls at an office in Downingtown.

[46:51] TARA HAARLANDER: So that's crazy.

[46:54] KEN SOLEYN: I know the area a little bit.

[46:56] TARA HAARLANDER: Yeah, we had a school board race decided by two votes. And we are, we're halfway between Lancaster, super red, Philadelphia, super blue. So we are super purple. And we like to say all roads to the White House lead through Chester County because we won for Biden. in 2020 and Pennsylvania went for Biden in 2020. And as you know, things did not go so well in 2024. So we like politics here is vicious and it's sad, but I feel we feel a lot of burden on us.

[47:33] KEN SOLEYN: I live in town Londonderry, New Hampshire now. I went to a town council meeting. I wanted to give some testimony on solar power because, okay, is considering putting in a solar farm. And so that actually went well, but it was like, it was the, this, the town has so much infighting. There's a lot of personalities. And, you know, it was, I thought it was a more painful experience in some of these, like, board meetings I had a GE, you know, they're driving you to turnover, you know, money, yeah, sales, you know, they're driving, you know, everyone's, you know, is bonused out on sale, on what you sell. And, you know, these companies are so metrically driven, it's so numbers driven. And that's another thing I can't understand. if you're so metrically driven, you, you would think that investment in getting the population healthy, trained in, in, in, you know, basic education and even more like it. To me, it's like I've seen it. I, I, it's a proven fact that kids that study music do better in math. I don't know. I don't know what the connection is, but maybe it's just the order or the practice of them working the instrument or singing or whatever. Whatever their. Their talent is. And they. They do better in school, you know, when they're. When they're involved in things like that. So that I. I love it.

[49:24] TARA HAARLANDER: It's hard to make a data driven argument. to people who don't believe your data is correct.

[49:35] KEN SOLEYN: In GE, we used to use the example of an airplane flying at altitude. You could always trade airspeed for altitude. So if you want to increase your airspeed because you need a certain airspeed to stay up in the air, you can tip the nose of the plane and dive and you'll gain airspeed.

[49:54] SPEAKER C: And.

[49:55] KEN SOLEYN: But you.

[49:56] SPEAKER C: But.

[49:57] KEN SOLEYN: Yeah. When you're out of gas, you can't do that anymore. When you're. When you're not that far off the ground.

[50:05] SPEAKER C: Yeah.

[50:05] KEN SOLEYN: I think our time is. Is up. I I think for my past ones, when you stop it, you can still continue the conversation if you choose.

[50:14] TARA HAARLANDER: Okay, cool.

[50:15] KEN SOLEYN: So I'll stop.

[50:20] TARA HAARLANDER: Well, yeah.