Splittin’ the Atom with Jen Brien — Commentary, June 18, 2026

by Jennifer Brien, contributing writer, commentary

A JERRY SPINGER EXISTENCE

Go ahead… ADMIT IT! How many of us tuned into that wretched show late at night or mid-day somewhere… only to be horrified by what we were watching and said to ourselves “this whole show is one big fake mess. IT CAN’T BE REAL!!!!”  Ya, me too… totally did this a number of times especially in my drinking days.

Some 20 years ago, I remember seeing an episode where a midget had a fantasy of being in a pool of gravy with a 600-pound woman, and she was licking the gravy off of him. Well, later in the episode, GUESS WHAT? The midget was in a small plastic pool filled with gravy and a 600-pound woman was licking it off of him. (this was at a time mind you, when no one was OFFENDED by the word MIDGET). The episode was called something like “MY WEIRD SEX FANTASY”. I’m going to google that episode actually… but the point is, it was a circus. AN absolute CIRCUS. You never ACTUALLY believed these crazy far out people existed… you just didn’t. It was all for ratings.

Fast forward 20 years later and life has literally become… a big fat JERRY SPRINGER episode. EVERYWHERE you look, nutty, psychotic people from all walks of life are doing outlandish things that back in the day, would get you tossed into a straitjacket, loaded into a padded ambulance and express mailed to SALEM STATE HOSPITAL to see the infamous nurse Ratched. It’s unbelievable out there, folks.

Not to mention, the internet is loaded with people recording themselves or others just begging to get arrested or hauled away daily. I’m going to be 58 in a few months, and I have to tell you, I have NEVER seen a time in society wrought with so much mental illness everywhere you go. In a world fueled by public meltdowns, CHAOS AND DRAMA, it’s impossible to deny how devolved we are.

Look around when you step outside your door… what do you SEE? I SEE TRASH TV. People who wear their pajamas and house slippers to Walmart. Idiots who are unwashed, reeking of weed and who can barely form a sentence trying to sell me cookies outside of a STOP N SHOP, and I see an overweight Karen who has bullied her way into a parking spot at KOHL’S who then gets out of her massive SUV looking for a fight. It’s hideous. This world is currently trash TV folks. Sorry. It is. If you aren’t living in your mama’s basement, you see it too. BTW – I finally figured out why Jerry Springer said this at the end of his show everyday…

“TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF…AND EACH OTHER”.

He knew what a $hi# show this world had become… way before the rest of us had the guts to admit it.

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CONSPIRACY THEORISTS ARENT ALWAYS WRONG

“In the 1950’s, the U.S ARMY sprayed ZINC cadmium sulfide over poor, mostly black neighborhoods in St. Louis. They told residents it was a “smoke screen” to protect them from Russian bombers.

IT WAS A LIE.

They were testing BIOLOGICAL WEAPON DISPERSION. They put sprayers on station wagons and rooftops. Cancer rates in those areas spiked for decades. The government treated its own citizens like LAB RATS. The experiments were conducted without the knowledge or consent of the residents.

THEY’RE still spraying us. LOOK UP.

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SAYINGS THAT ARE 100% TRUE

You are what you do. Not what you promise you’ll do.

No one will realize your value, until your absence is felt.

Don’t fight for someone to love you. Fight for someone who already does.

Never think that a person of PEACE isn’t skilled at WAR.

Just a minute of greed, lust or anger… can DESTROY a lifetime of hard work.

Ships that wait for the perfect wind… will never set sail.

Nothing is worse than avoiding your full potential.

The longer you stay on the wrong train, the more it expensive it becomes to return home.

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I ASKED GOD WHY HE LET ME SUFFER

“I asked GOD why he let me suffer. Why he let me walk through valleys I never would have chosen. Why he stayed silent when I begged for relief. Why he let my heart break in places that never fully healed. I looked up and began to weep… and then I heard him say…

“Because one day, I’ll send YOU back with a lantern. Not to RE-LIVE it. NOT to stay there… but, to find people still trapped in the dark. The ones convinced they won’t survive. The ones whose hope is hanging by a thread. The ones praying the same prayers YOU once prayed.

and when they ask if anyone has ever made it out… you’ll be able to answer…

“I DID.”

and then… you can say…

“Come with me”.

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Step out of the swarm folks……. because consensus is just comfortable cowardice.

Till next time!

Jen

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Jen Brien has over 20 years of radio broadcast experience having hosted shows on WPRO and WHJJ with Ron as well as her own shows on WRKO and WBZ in Boston, WXTK on Cape Cod and WHAM in Rochester, New York. Jen was born and raised in Woonsocket and served six years in the Army MP Canine  Unit.

To read more columns and commentary by Jen, Go HERE!