On this episode of The Maverick Observer podcast, we’re discussing two different topics that get us worked up for different reasons. We’re introducing our favorite sushi restaurants and discussing the difficult topic of abortion. Our host is Tim Hoiles from The Maverick Observer (blue) and Katie Spence from The Epoch Times (green).
Tim: Hello and welcome to The Maverick Observer podcast. I started a start-up news source and nonprofit in Colorado Springs in 2020. Created from deep roots and history in the media, I wanted to bring you news on politics and government shenanigans in the local area, but also a sprinkling of food, drinks, views, and books. I’m Tim Hoiles from The Maverick Observer and she’s Katie Spence from The Epoch Times. Today we are introducing you to sushi at two family-friendly restaurants in our local area, we will end today’s podcast, however, on a controversial issue, abortion and devaluing our kids.
Katie: We understand this is a complex issue gripping our Nation and not easy to discuss. We hope our conversation today will encourage future openness and discussions.
Tim: Today we are going to talk about sushi and I’m going to talk about Sushi Dozo on 8th Street. To a lot of people, “they go, oooh, raw fish”.
Katie: Well that’s cuz they’re crazy.
Tim: What’d you say? They’re crazy.
Katie: Yes, obviously. They’re crazy.
Tim: Did you grow up in Hawaii?
Katie: No, I am a Colorado native.
Tim: Oh, so am I, so there. Anyhow my wife and I go out and have sushi probably four or five times a year.
Katie: Oh, okay. That’s not enough.
Tim: Well, you know, she loves to cook and she’s a good cook. To the sushi restaurant. We drove all over the city for a while and then we had one open up down on 8th Street, which is about 10 minutes from where we live now. It being close can’t be the only qualifier for a sushi restaurant though. The quality of the sushi has to be good. The staff has to be good and they have to know what they’re talking about. Well, that fits this. We, in our travels, we, my wife and I have been to a lot of sushi places. That, you know, have big names and all that stuff in New York City and Los Angeles. And London, all those things and that are fun, but it’s expensive.
Katie: Yeah. Sushi’s not cheap.
Tim: But the nice thing is having something close. So it’s only 10 minutes from our home, but in addition, they have fresh and tasty fish, but they do decent tempura. I’m sure it’s fresh, frozen tempura, but it’s decent. I was shocked.
Katie: Fresh, frozen tempura. Okay.
Tim: Fresh, frozen.
Katie: I’m not sure that works.
Tim: I didn’t think it would either, but I usually get an order of the shrimp tempura and it’s very tasty. But sushi is a wonderful thing to learn how to enjoy. You go to certain restaurants and they give you the order of how you should order the different fish. That gets rather cumbersome. So we just order what we like.
Katie: As you should Why would you do anything differently?
Tim: Because it was fun to watch when we were first doing it. Well, I shouldn’t say when “we”, when I was first doing it, the restaurants out in California would say, you’re supposed to eat this fish after that fish.
Katie: Like wine?
Tim: Sort of, yeah. You know, they were, they were pairing the way you ate it because of the way it was made.
Katie: Like you have to go from white wine to red wine. There’s a white fish to a red fish. Is that how it works?
Tim: It wasn’t so much the white fish to a red fish, it was some of the raw fish that we ate a lot of, like the tuna, the Ahi, and the Hamachi to the eel that is sort of baked.
Katie: Yeah. I’m gonna pass on eel – gross.
Tim: It’s really good if you haven’t had it.
Katie: Snake of the sea and that is….
Tim: Have you tasted it?
Katie: No, because I have a phobia of snakes.
Tim: See I grew up – you have a phobia. I outweigh your phobia 10 times. I dislike snakes really bad.
Katie: I can’t even look at pictures.
Tim: But we gotta get back to the sushi. We got to get back to the sushi. I was raised in a household where we had to clean our plates, which I have a problem with. We discuss that all the time, but we had to take bites of new stuff. We didn’t have to like it, but we had to take one bite. If you have not tasted the eel with the nice sugary sauce, it’s really good. So, what’s your favorite?
Katie: Okay. So I like a restaurant called Sushi Ato. It is right off Voyager from Compassion International right across. And it is similar to what you’re saying. It is close to our house, but the fish is so tasty. I feel like sometimes you go to a sushi restaurant and they either slide the fish too thin, or it’s kind of got like that weird, funky taste. You’re like, all right, this has been sitting out for too long, not okay. And to be fair, all fish that’s brought into Colorado has to be frozen before they can serve it. That’s a legal requirement in Colorado. But this fish tastes fresh and I really like it. And they have this roll called the Lion King roll and it is delicious. Yeah. It’s got like this sauce on it. And it’s, it’s huge. And if you try to put it all in your mouth at one time, you may choke, but I love it. And then they’ve got like the rainbow roll and all the other rolls there. We love them.
Tim: So which Lion King is it based on?
Katie: I don’t know, probably not the one from the…
Tim: (singing) “the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight”.
Katie: Hope not. I’m pretty sure it’s fish and not lion.
Tim: Okay, just wondering.
Katie: Yeah, but it’s good. And it is like, we go there probably at least once or twice a month.
Tim: Okay.
Katie: So, we have big sushi fans.
Tim: When you order how much do you order for yourself?
Katie: I usually get three different rolls and then my husband gets three different rolls and then my kids get like one to two and then they get the Yakatori.
Tim: You can tell you’re younger than I am. We used to do that. I now order two rolls, my wife orders, two rolls in some sashimi.
Katie: Okay. Yeah.
Tim: Well, that’s good. Um, the one quote that I did find on it that I really liked is.
“Dozo lands somewhere between a strip mall sushi and a high-end sushi bar as it was perfect.”
I’ve got the site on, but I don’t remember who was Yelp or Trip Advisor. Cause I read and read and read the reviews and that one hit me because it was perfect because you know, high-end sushi places. you know, there’s one in Denver. If you’ve not been up there.
Katie: I have Sushi Den, Izakaya.
Tim: No. The one on First Street by the mall, the shopping center in Cherry Creek. Well, it’s, it’s a down step from, what’s the guy that is all over the country that, oh, I whish my wife was here, cuz she knows the name.
Katie: Okay. Well I don’t know about the stripper game though. I, that doesn’t sound like…
Tim: Strip mall, strip mall.
Katie: Oh, strip mall, strip mall.
Tim: Strip mall. Trust me.
Katie: I was having very vivid pictures of fish on naked people. No.
Tim: I’m glad we clarified that because I’m going. I haven’t been to a strip mall in a long time. I’m old enough. I don’t do that anymore. Anyhow, but, so, okay. So you like that, um, what kind of sake do you order?
Katie: All right. So I really like this one sake and it’s a yuzu sake. It’s amazing. They don’t actually have it as Sushi Ato, which is so sad.
Tim: So is it cold or hot?
Katie: It is cold and it is, I feel like you’re ruining sake if you heat it up, I know this is a controversial topic, but I usually just get wine. I like a nice Riesling with my sushi. What about you?
Tim: Um, we have learned to like cold Japanese wince. Which, you know, when we first started going and when I started for, that’s what the, they served hot. And I just said, okay, I didn’t know there were all the various things of chilled wine and I’m going, you can spend a lot of money if you’re not careful just on rice wine.
Katie: I feel like sake has either a really good taste or a really terrible taste. And there’s not really like in the middle wine or sakes. There’s like the sake that I like, which is the Yuzu sake. And that’s probably one of three sakes that I actually will drink.
Tim: You are a foodie, aren’t you?
Katie: I am such a foodie. It’s not even funny. I’ve admitted this freely.
Tim: Well, that’s great. We’re gonna have a fun time. The next topic is our thoughts on abortion and devaluing our kids. We understand how complex and difficult this issue is for so many people. We hope our conversation elicits future, open and frank discussion.
Katie: All right. So it’s been in the news lately. SCOTUS is looking at overturning Roe v. Wade. What does that mean? SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States, just for those who are wondering what I’m talking about. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that and what that means. So Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for a long time now. And it has led to abortion on demand in some places, and it has made it so that you cannot make abortion illegal. What do you think?
Tim: But help me with that. Because I had to do some research and one of the things that I found in reading Roe v. Wade was that there really were three different, I’m gonna call them trimester situations in Roe v. Wade to begin with. The way I read a lot of stuff today that was forgotten about. You know that there’s a first trimester, second trimester, and third trimester. Roe v. Wade was initially more lenient in the first trimester.
Katie: Yeah. At the same time that Roe v. Wade was decided they had another court case that was decided that same day. And that is what made abortion available to birth on demand for whatever reason, with almost no restrictions and that didn’t stop until Casey.
Tim: So the two got blended together?
Katie: They didn’t get blended together, they just made different laws.
Tim: They got blended together by certain media. Let me rephrase it that way.
Katie: Yeah. So they’ve gotten blended together, but there’s two different court cases on the same day that made it so abortion is now considered a constitutional right.
Tim: Is it in the Constitution?
Katie: Well, that’s the question because they’re saying it is a constitutional right, based don’t the right to privacy. That is a debate that is still to be settled. I mean, that’s what they’re looking at right now with Dobbs. Is there actually a constitutional right to an abortion?
Tim: Because I’ve been fortunate enough to have a couple of associates that are attorneys and pretty constitutional in their leanings and they would tell you it’s not in the constitution.
Katie: I think most lawyers who are honest would say that it’s not in the constitution and Roe v. Wade was not a good law.
Tim: See, I grew up not thinking that much about it because I was the guy. I mean, I thought about it in this sense. You know if I ever made somebody pregnant, I’d have some responsibility. Thank God that didn’t happen to me, but conversely, until our Governor Polis signed his new law into effect, um, I hadn’t done a lot of research.
Katie: Okay. Are you talking about the new radical abortion bill? Okay.
Tim: And that one, I find extremely hard to stomach, but let’s go back to Roe v. Wade. And what abortion is and what abortion isn’t.
Katie: Yeah. So because abortion is considered a constitutional right in the United States, there are states that have put into place laws that they specifically hoped to make it to the Supreme Court. And those laws challenge Roe v. Wade and they are based on fetal viability. So when Roe v. Wade was decided they didn’t have the same scientific tools that we have today. Like they didn’t have the ultrasounds, they didn’t have the ability to keep a baby alive. If that baby was born at 21 weeks, 22 weeks, et cetera. So they based the abortion argument on if a woman is pregnant and she wants to have an abortion, her right to privacy triumphs uh, any other state’s rights to protect the life of a baby. But then when you get into the second and third trimesters, those rights start to change a little bit. And they say a state may have a competing interest in the child and protecting and preserving that life. So you can put in restrictions and this really came out with Casey. And so not abortion has become really something that each state gets to decide, but they cannot put restrictions up before fetal viability.
Tim: See, my, my challenge with the whole abortion issue is I’m very simple at times. Do you know? We have birth control, use it. You know, we use it just use birth control before you do whatever you wanna do.
Katie: Well, birth control is kind of a controversial topic because what kind of birth control are you talking about? You’re talking about condoms? You’re talking about birth control? All of it wasn’t always effective. Some women can’t take birth control because it causes blood clots. I am one of those women.
Tim: My wife’s mother was given Diethylstilbestrol.
Katie: Okay
Tim: So, she couldn’t use the pill either.
Katie: Yeah. And condoms are not effective. I have a seven-year-old who is the result of condoms.
Tim: In my case, condoms were effective. So, you know, my wife is gonna kill me, but my ex, but yeah so be it, but no, you do what you have to do, but I mean, my problem is part of the abortion issue, uh, other issues in society, which will talk standards at some point in time have to be used. And so there is a responsibility between two consenting adults.
Katie: There absolutely…there, there’s. Yeah. You’re talking about a woman, who made a choice, a man who made a choice and that’s an argument to be made there. There’s other arguments to be made. Well, what if a woman is raped? What happens? I feel like these are all philosophical arguments that talk about abortion. Instead of looking at the scientific aspect of what is happening. Like when is a child a child, when does that person in a womb gain personhood? Right now in society, we’ve left it up to each individual person to ascribe personhood, which I think is a little bit questionable.
Tim: So, so you’re saying that we have newer science that can tell to a more accurate picture of when the fetus becomes a person?
Katie: I’m saying a lot of the arguments that we have about abortion right now are based on philosophical ideas. They’re not based on science, because if you’re looking at, when does a person become a person? Well, that’s conception. You have unique DNA at conception. That’s just the way it is. It is a unique human individual who will grow up to be a baby, an adult, if not aborted. So I’m saying right now, the questions are only looking at individuals’ perceptions of when a baby is a baby, or if that fetus is not a human.
Tim: See, because I grew up saying, you know, that’s the woman’s decision to make.
Katie: Right. But that’s a philosophical concept.
Tim: I know, I understand, but that’s the way I was raised is, you know, it’s your body. You have the decision to make.
Katie: But is it your body? At some point you have to say, the baby is a separate body within a body.
Tim: I understand that now. But I didn’t for a long time.
Katie: So that’s what’s happening with SCOTUS. They’re looking at overturning Roe v. Wade. And it that happens, it will not make abortion illegal in all the states. That’s not what happens. It returns the abortion debate to the states. So states can then make laws that outlaw abortion or like in Colorado, abortion is legal up until birth for any reason. There are no restrictions on abortion law.
Tim: That’s, that’s where I had a problem in reading Governor Polis’ law. I mean, you can literally have the baby on the table and make a decision.
Katie: Right. And if you look at the new law, that’s, there is some argument to be made that it could actually legalize an infanticide, which is allowing the baby to die after the baby was born.
Tim: See, I know I personally have a lot more research to do because that particular type of abortion bothers me.
Katie: I feel like it should bother you. And I mean, if you look at the research, that’s been done at Pew Research, the Gutshein Institute, however, you pronounce that, they say like 67% of people want there to be restrictions on abortion. They want abortion to be legal up until 12 to 13 weeks, but they want to have, rightly, restrictions. And if we did that as a society, we would be in line with Europe and the rest of the modern world. There are a few countries that all have abortions up until the point of birth, the United States, Canada, and North Korea. So that’s great. I don’t know if we wanna be in that camp. Then China is the other one.
Tim: But I think the bottom line to all this is there is better science now.
Katie: There’s better science.
Tim: And there are a lot more decisions that we need to make, but using abortion as a method of birth control shouldn’t be in that mix in my opinion.
Katie: Right. That’s a question that’s up for debate and I don’t think we’re gonna get it fully fleshed out or answered on this podcast, cuz it’s been debated since the seventies.
Tim: So, lots of discussion needs to take place on this subject.
Katie: Right. So, and I mean, the other things is we’re looking at, what does abortion say about children in general? LIke if we are not valuing life, because it’s either something that we want or we’re saying something that’s disposable, what does that say about kids? Really? Because this either is a person at some point or there, there’s really gray area there that I don’t feel like we can get around. What makes a person a person? Why do we give value to that person?
Tim: And once you have kids, it’s a blessing and a curse. But conversely, the world would be a better place with more kids.
Katie: Yeah. I would agree with that. If you listen to Elon Musk, he’s talking a lot about how the population is declining, and we need to fix that. So have more kids.
Tim: Our call to action this week is for you to do your own research into Roe versus Wade and abortion in this country. The numbers will shock and dismay you possibly.
Katie: By doing your own research, we are hoping you reconsider what our own state is doing and how you can educate yourself on this important topic.
Tim: Thank you for listening to The Maverick Observer podcast. If you’re interested in more great local articles, please visit our website or social media. You can find all the links below. If you like what you are hearing, please remember to hit the subscribe button so you never miss a conversation. Until the next time, remember OPEN, ACCOUNTABLE, and RESPONSIBLE – it is what our government and businesses should be.
Sources for Podcast Episode #2 – Difficult Discussion on Abortion:
- https://www.dozosushico.com/about
- https://restaurantguru.com/Dozo-Sushi-and-Bar-Colorado-Springs
- https://sushiato-cs.com
- https://www.foxnews.com/media/priest-calls-out-npr-abortion-coverage
- https://www.justfacts.com/abortion
- “I think the reason that all those men are carrying signs is that abortion absolves them from having to help support their irresponsible behavior. After 50 years of birth control that can be bought over the counter, there shouldn’t be 90,000 abortions a year. It all comes down to responsibility, but hey we have to remember, this is the crowd that is taught men can get pregnant too. Talk about dumbing down America and who is falling for it.” nooneabovethelaw319 5/15/2022
- https://themaverickobserver.com/when-does-life-begin-according-to-science/
- “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” – Dr. Seuss
