Arlo's Podcast, Life So Far
Mark of the Beast coming soon. Who will take it and who will not. Biggest eternal decision one can make in this world.
Arlo's Podcast, Life So Far
Navigating Transformative Landscapes: Climate, Politics, and Spirituality in the Heart of New York City
Imagine navigating a metropolis amid political upheaval and climate shifts—an experience I won't soon forget from my trip to New York during the 2016 election. This episode brings you into the eye of transformative changes affecting both weather and politics. From a historic winter storm gripping the central and eastern United States to the surprising warmth of a Canadian winter, these climate anomalies are reshaping agricultural landscapes, particularly in Canada's Okanagan region. We examine how these environmental changes intertwine with evolving political landscapes, focusing on the lasting influence of former President Donald Trump on American sentiment and media narratives over the decades.
Buckle up for a whirlwind tour through New York City's iconic landmarks, starting with an unforgettable ride up the Empire State Building. Experience the city's vibrant diversity as we glide through bustling subways and explore neighborhoods anchored in rich history. With anecdotes from my stay in the Bronx and adventures along Fifth Avenue, the scale and dynamism of New York come alive. Wrapping up the episode, we ponder the profound impact of spirituality in shaping our lives, emphasizing the transformative role of faith in understanding our place within the universe's grand design. Join us in reflecting on how these threads—climate, politics, spirituality—are woven into the tapestry of our shared human experience.
Good afternoon. This is Arlo Johnson in Vernon, bc, on January 5th 2025. Ah, my voice is just about leaving me the uh. I noticed today the weather in the United States has taken a turn for the real worse for winter. They've said that there is approximately 75 million people affected by the storm, people affected by the storm that is going through the central United States and heading for the East Coast and then South and it's all ice, snow blizzards and I suppose not to power out a lot of ice problems, but that's a big swath of over 70 million people. That's bigger than the size of France or England.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, the weather can be really, really rough. I notice that we continually to have just a warm winter, no winter at all, really. It's, like you know, cool fall. It's about 40 degrees Fahrenheit approximately, the air-boats a little under and over, and that's been going on now for a month or so. And when I look at the forecast, it's that way as far as the forecast stretches, which is like 8 to 10 days, but I mean, last year we got two days of winter, really minus 20 and 25 for two days, and that was it. It's ruined all the soft fruit crops in the Okanagan, which is a pretty big fruit growing area, and it looks like it's going to happen again this year All soft fruits will be gone. I don't know how many years they can hold off. Well, anyway it's.
Speaker 1:You know, the weather's changing, and in some places it's worse, in some places it's warmer. We're actually, you know, our winter's half over, or more, now already, and so we're the beneficiary of it so far. But it's not all good news. The thing is, the weather has a lot to do with things you know has to have a big bearing on agriculture, which means food production, which means cost of living, whatever. We're living in a different type of world. When I say different, what I mean is different.
Speaker 1:In my time slot 1934 to 2025, 90, 90, 91 years the weather has changed, the climate is changing, the politics of the world and governments are changing, lifestyles are changing, morals are changing, or lack of morals, and basically, what's changing the most is that people have no fear of God. In a nutshell, that's what it is. There used to be a fear of God in people, a reverence, not much anymore, and that's going to carry on until it breaks the back of civilization. You know, there's a new government, a new president going into the states in about you know two weeks or so, and that may change things a bit. But the things that have been taking hold in the states things they call it woke and it's all the LBGT, pqp, whatever stuff being pushed in the military, and everything. And men can be women and women can be men you know all real BS, false things, basically lies, and we're living in a lying world.
Speaker 1:The thing is, people especially, you know, politicians especially have no compunction at all not to lie. It's become. They're actually their mode of operation is to lie. They're asked about anything, they'll just plain lie about it. And people have become so susceptible to lies that they just don't care anymore and they have to believe what they're told. So they believe that there's no resistance against the false lying.
Speaker 1:Now you take that a step farther. Why is that? Why has that happened? Well, like one thing I said is there is no fear of God anymore, not really. There may be a few people that still think about it, but they think about it and put it over to the side just out of the road, never mind, and deal with it. Maybe deal with it later, if at all. And the laws God's laws are basically people put their nose up against it and just say forget it. You know, home after household and everything else, everywhere you go, is secular. There's no more big families you know together, very few. There are some that are not white race families. You know. They are quite large families, some of them Muslim families are larger, I believe. And the business of reckoning it's going to come. There's no question about it. Nobody's really running for the doors yet, but the they're going to be here and the thing is it's going to happen. You know, like they say, things are happening fairly slowly and you don't notice it, but then, pretty soon, it starts to happen a little bit more and a little more often, and a little more often and all of a sudden, bang, it hits. In other words, it started out slow and then it got fast. That's how it works and this will be the same way.
Speaker 1:The one thing I've been chided about a lot is that I pay attention to Donald Trump. In fact, when he first got elected in 2016, I watched every rally on YouTube, every rally he had, and I was mesmerized by those rallies. I mean 30, 40, 50,000. No guitar, no, nothing, just him. And he was drawing these big crowds. I happened to run across a cheap flight to New York on October, the 20th or 21st or something, so I flew there on October 26th. The election is November 4th or something. I was there for three, four days and I looked around, I looked at his Trump Towers and went in there, went in where he came down these escalators and I looked at that and I just wanted to know the mood in New York. And it was not favorable to him, not really, but he was in the news all the time.
Speaker 1:For instance, I, when I was in New York, I just ate at McDonald's in Times Square. Thought I'm only here for a couple of days, I don't need anything fancy, that's for sure. I want a hamburger and coffee and blah, blah, blah. I went in there and I was in McDonald's one day and basically McDonald's was down at the bottom and then the second floor was seating. So I got the coffee and the hot dog or the hamburger and went up on the second floor and sat down and a guy about 45 or so came in carrying a tray and a coffee and whatever, and there were lots of open places. But he asked me. He said do you mind if I sit down with you? And I said no, by all means. So we got talking lots of open places. But he asked me said you mind if I sit down with you? And I said no, by all means.
Speaker 1:So we got talking and I said where are you from? Are you visiting him? Yes, he said I'm here on a conference at the United Nations right now. He said I'm from, I'm from Istanbul in Turkey. And I looked at him and I said is that right? Well, I said isn't that something? I said I'd like to ask you something.
Speaker 1:The election is coming up here in a couple of days and that's everything that's on the news. It's all about that, donald Trump. And it's on the news. It's all about that, donald Trump. And and what the heck is that? Oh, that saved the name anyway. It's all about that all the time, hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1:And I said to him in Istanbul is that on your news at all? He looked at me and said that's all we get. It's on all the time. And I said to him isn't that something? I said this election in the United States has become something that is now worldwide and the whole world pays attention to who gets elected President of the United States. Yeah, he said that's for sure. And I said, well, isn't that something? And we're living through this and we're experiencing it? Yeah, he said that's true. And so I just, you know, I thought now isn't that? You know, that was an eye-opener to me, that, you know, I knew that it's in Europe and whatever. I didn't know it was all around.
Speaker 1:So this was a lot of October 26, 27th that was. It wasn't really like cold, but it was pretty cool. When I went walking down the street it was, you know, pretty chilly. Anyway, I got over to the Empire State Building, I don't know, about 11 o'clock in the morning or something like that, and got in the door that came in the main door and it's just sort of a hallway there, and you go up to this big desk and you line up and all of a sudden I'm in a lineup. You know I'm in a bloody lineup at 10, 11 o'clock in the morning and there was, you know, japanese and I could hear a bunch of Englishmen. And this is October the 26th, 27th, it's not holiday season, and yet they were lined up to go up to the top of the Empire State Building and that was, you know, quite a thing, because I had to stand in that line. It was a pretty good line. I'll bet you 48, 50, 60 people in that line. Anyway, that line went through pretty fast. Actually, it would go a big chunk at a time.
Speaker 1:And when we got into this elevator it was a big elevator, like I mean a big room, not just a big elevator, like I mean a big room, not just a little elevator and I bet you there was like 40 people in there anyway, and Campire State Building is 113 stories high, I think it goes up to about the hundred and Ninth or something. Anyway, it started out, you know, just like a hum and I could feel the thing going up and all of a sudden it just started speeding up, faster and faster and faster. I mean, we were just flying. It felt like, and in about a matter of so many I don't know, I don't know if it was even a minute we were up to the top and slowed right down and stopped, the doors opened up. I thought, wow, what a ride that is Takes 40 people up there in just a whisk and got out there, and in front of me going out out into the top floor, I was in another lineup and same thing and I didn't see any Americans, but I saw Japanese, africans, whatever, and it was bunches of them Chinese, japanese, englishmen. And you get in and it's a big open floor with these windows all around and you go up there and you take a look out that window and you're looking down. You're looking down on skyscrapers and there's skyscrapers in a lot higher than the Empire State Building, but not very many. Yeah, that was an eye-opener.
Speaker 1:You know, new York is a pretty old city. It's a big city Like, for instance, it's big and clunky, like when you're downtown and right beside McDonald's, just at the door next to McDonald's. You walk in this door and you go into the subway, you walk in and you start going down Down these big metal steps and stairs you know thick metal stairs, everything real heavy-duty steel and it goes down and down and down and down and finally you get down to the subway and it's got to be, it's got to be like 50, 80 feet deep down there and you stand there and it's got a sign about. You know, this goes that way, that goes that way. This subway comes in, you can hear it coming and you're standing on the platforms. There's no railings, no, no, nothing. You just stand there and there's big, these big cars come in and they're at least a hundred feet long each one and it comes in and it's roaring in and it stops right in front of you and the doors all fly open on one side and the people just pour out and then the people on the deck, they pour in, but the people have to come out first or the others to go in, and you just go boom in like that and, and, for instance, I got on the Chevrolet and this one guy got up and gave me a seat.
Speaker 1:He said no, sit here, I was older. I said thank you very much. I said thank you very much and I sat down and in that car it was only me and about two other guys that were white guys. Everyone else was black, old women, mostly old women, women and older women on there and some black guys. And as they got on on, they just sat down and they all pulled up their cell phone that's not just one, everyone and they started going on. This old black women sitting there and put earbuds in. Nobody looked at anybody, everybody looked just up their phone and it was the whole car and I thought there's a big change. You know they, they were in their own world, totally not interacting with anybody, nobody, and it was the whole car, everyone. I said there's a big change.
Speaker 1:When I booked that room, I did it on Airbnb and it was in the Bronx, I guess it's in. I never saw anything like that. Well, that was an absolutely black neighborhood, just black, and I didn't know that and I didn't mind that. No, I got along just fine. This woman had, I think it was, two or three rooms. Yeah, okay, and you know I made out okay, and that was my visit to New York.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I said noticed, I'm kind of interested in buildings and whatever. When I walk down the street, a lot of places, I always count how many floors these buildings are. I count them right away. And anyway, I'm looking like here's Fifth Avenue was the main downtown. Sixth, seventh, eighth, whatever. I could go over like 5th Avenue, 6th Avenue, still big buildings, and you know what would you call it? Not small, business or anything, huge buildings, business buildings. And then go another street. Well then, it's got to be two different stuff. And about the third street over, it got to be apartment buildings. One block, nothing but apartments. One building, nothing but apartments going up.
Speaker 1:I measured the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue because there's a whole plentiful amount of people walking towards you when you're walking on that avenue on the sidewalk. That sidewalk was 20 feet wide on each side and there was four lanes of traffic on the street and taxi cabs just yellow everywhere. I went over two or three streets. The sidewalks were still 20 feet wide. I don't know how far that went or streets that went like that, but I thought to myself who had the foresight? This city is like hundreds of years old now and who could have had the foresight to have wide sidewalks like that, wide streets, when they were in the horse and buggy days? You know when did that happen? How did that happen? Who was the planner on that?
Speaker 1:It was interesting, the things that I saw in New York. Basically and I was just looking around a little bit I went to the museum, one big museum, you know, just off Main Fifth Avenue. It was a big one and I forget what it was called. It was right on the Centennial Park, 1,000 acres, right along the edge of it, all these big buildings. I went down to the river and I got on a ferry, some kind of a ferry boat or whatever that just went up and down, paid so much to get on it. It went up the river and then come back and two or three boats and I watched all the different people getting on there. There was Jews, like I don't know what they call them. They had long ringlet hair down and funny hats and stuff, and there were several of those and a couple of them must have been, you know, pretty high up or something, because they'd be kind of one would come in and there'd be other two fussing around and getting stuff for them and doing this and that. So when you look at that and go up the river Statue of Liberty, just look up, there it is, and you look along the river and you look down the river and it's nothing but big bridges, one after another in the distance, big bridges. This is, you know, not a normal town, that's for sure. It's not a normal city. This is a huge city, a world-class city.
Speaker 1:When I finally left, I went to the airport, just got on a bus and went to JFK and that's a big airport. Anyway, you know, I went in there and it seemed like they had it rigged up where you just walked along this way and into this and into that, went up to this booth there's all these booths went up to one. Took a ticket. Do this, into that, went up to this booth, it's all these booths. Went up to one ticket do this, do that. From there, go again. And I found it easier, like to go through that JFK than I did practically in Cologne, better than Vancouver, I'll tell you that. Anyway, we went to this one end and there's a waiting room there and that's where we're going to get our. No, not air WestJet, we were on a WestJet plane and we were flying on was a 737. I mean, that's all they fly here in BC.
Speaker 1:And I'm standing in the window there and I'm looking at the big planes down below, all parked, all this and that, and I'm looking at like I think it was the air air well, I don't know which ones it was again, oh, virgin Airlines, yeah, virgin, huge plane, two levels of windows in it, it would be like a 380 something or the other ones would be in a 747. And Air Korea, yeah, air Korea. And Korean Air, korean Air right, that was a huge one that just parked very close with two levels windows going all the way top, all the way bottom and most likely a carrier of about 350, 400 people, and they're big. I was waiting and all of a sudden in the, in sort of in the distance, I could see out out in the airfield this one plane coming down. It was just, you know, taxiing along. It was small little plane, you know. I thought I wonder what that is and I watched it come along and turn and come towards the airport like this. I kept pulling in and just parked like that and here was our plane, our WestJet 737. Well, here was the big ones like this and here was ours like this Little little. It just looked, it looked pathetic. I just looked at it and thought, oh man, will that thing get us back to Kelowna? It just got flew right up, right, I think it flew directly to Calgary and then Calgary to Cologne. Yeah, it's quite a thing.
Speaker 1:The thing is that's the part of the world you know that I haven't seen in 90 years and I was kind of glad I did. I've never really been enamored with the world. Really. I've been amazed by it, and I think I mean totally amazed, because when you see nature things, you know and I'm no big environmentalist or anything but when you, when you find out about nature, I mean it boggles you because you can't. It's beyond our imagination even how these things are created and how they work and live for so long and produce and go this way, that way, all over the place. This bunch eats that bunch, that bunch eats that bunch. Yeah, and it's an amazing thing. It's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:So right now, I think I'm going to close this off, because that's about what I want to talk about tonight. I don't want to linger on too much on anything else, on too much on anything else. If you're still here, I'm glad that you are, and I'm going to leave a little note to not forget why Jesus Christ came to this earth. Don't forget that of anything, anything you do in this world. If you want to get religious or something, I guess you can get religious about that, but you know, what God promises is not necessarily anything religious or anything like that. It's just a real down-to-earth biggest promise that the earth has ever had, and that his son came to this planet.
Speaker 1:He was born as a child, so he was born as a sperm of God. That's how it had to be. He was not born in a human body, but his spirit was different. His spirit came into that body. That body was basically no different than any other human body. What the spirit in it is, where the power was. We have a human spirit. He had a God spirit and we should never forget that.
Speaker 1:The reason he did it he absolutely came into this world for you and I and everyone else, to keep us from being destroyed, because we couldn't keep God's law and God knew it. And God wants sons, he wants a big family, a big family of sons, and he's gonna get it. Yeah, he's just about run up pretty close, I think pretty close to a hundred billion people through this earthly ringer and ringer, and I think he's going to. He tells us that this world is temporary. It's going to be destroyed by fire, purged and destroyed by fire, and he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth that will accommodate his great city.
Speaker 1:So, if anything you do in your life, ever in your whole life, remember that and when you think of like who, I mean there's nobody more important than God is. He's the Creator, he is the basic force behind everything and who Jesus Christ is, he is, he is the one who does all the physical things, creates things, steps up and agrees with the Father that he will die in place of you and I to save us from being destroyed. That you should repeat to yourself over and over and realize that that is the most important thing you can do in this existence. That's why you were barred, no other reason you can flub it all around your life. Every single person on the planet was born for that reason, and God had to create a universe to have it. Well, I've coughed enough. I can't do this anymore. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a good day, good night, good week, and God bless you.
