Episode 10+3

Hello, and welcome to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. Program note: There won’t be a new Listening Tube episode next week, as I’ll be on vacation. On this episode, we’ll take a look at the new disinformation agency, the origin of the free-speech movement, and abortion. But first, (not the headlines, china edition)...

Sony Pictures has defied the Chinese Communist Party by rejecting a request to remove the Statue of Liberty from the movie “Spiderman: No way home.” As we’ve talked about on this program before, the Chinese Communist Party thinks they should have the final say on all cinematic releases because they have the largest audience. Many movie studios have capitulated to their demands to facilitate the release of their movies in the country. There are millions to be made there, as the NBA has learned, and some companies are willing to bow to the demands of the Chinese Communist Party. But not Sony. At least not in this example. Spoiler alert! Multiple sources, according to a story on NextShark, said the Chinese initially wanted the entire Statue of Liberty removed from the film, then amended the demand to certain shots that the Chinese Communist Party deemed “too Patriotic,” like the scene where Spiderman stands on the statue’s crown. They also suggested dimming the parts where the statue is shown to make it less noticeable. The Chinese Communist Party have a number of ways they’ve learned over the years to delete something they don’t like without actually removing it from the film. Sony said no. The Chinese authorities prevented the release of the film in the country. Sony may lose hundreds of millions of dollars by denying the changes and thus the opportunity for Chinese movie-goers to spend their money on seeing it. While some studios have changed or even created motion pictures to satisfy the Chinese censors, Sony drew the line. Iron Man 3 had an entire scene filmed to include a Chinese doctor and Mulan was made just to gain favor with the Communist Party, but was a dud at the box office, even in China. If you have a communist country telling movie producers in free countries how they have to make their films, it’s like somebody’s walking up on your stage and slapping you in the face while telling you which jokes you’re not allowed to use. China has a lot of economic clout. They’ve been building it for the last fifty years at a pace that’s unprecedented in world history. On purpose. Sadly, the United States was a willing partner in their rise to where they are by moving manufacturing to the place where the government could control the wages and had a billion people looking for something to do to support themselves. That economic clout is now being used as political clout as well on the world stage. China’s flexing its muscle. Can you blame them? The Chinese Communist Party simply did what smart people do: they worked with the tools they had. But they’re not causing trouble in an obvious way, like their new partner, Russia. I’m not sure the Chinese are thrilled about the relationship right now, considering. It’s like if your a guy, and you’re in a bar with your new girlfriend and she starts talking smack to some guy who doesn’t look all that threatening, but is actually professional boxer. Then, when she pisses him off, she expects you to handle it. She’ll be like, “Oh, yea? Well my boyfriend will kick your ass!” And now you’re in a position where you gotta back her up, but you really don’t want to. 

In a landmark decision for women’s rights, the island of Nantucket has decided to allow anyone to go topless on any public or private beache regardless of gender. Now, it still has to be approved by the Massachusetts State Attorney General’s office, but at a town meeting, the Gender Equality on Beaches bylaw amendment passed by of vote of 327 to 242. The story I read about it didn’t say what was being amended, but obviously it had something to do with either beaches or breasts. But with a name like Gender Equality on Beaches, how can it be a bad thing? Sometimes laws are given great sounding names, but have ill intent. Not this one, though! The island of Nantucket had to do something to up the ante for their rival Martha’s Vineyard. They got 569 of their twelve-thousand or so residents to vote on it and the eyes have it. Pun intended. Even if the law does get the green light, don’t be in a big hurry to pack your binoculars. Just because women can go topless, doesn’t mean they will. But it’s nice that women can do so without the threat of a fine of up to three-hundred dollars and up to three years in prison for taking off your top at the beach. This isn’t a new battle in the United States. According to aForbes Magazine article, the Nantucket woman who started the movement toward beach equality was inspired by a cartoon, and realized that some of the men on the beach had larger boobs than she did. But it’s already legal for women to go topless in New York. The whole state. Do they? No, they don’t. California also lets women decide for themselves whether or not to wear a top, but municipalities, including Los Angeles, have their own ordinances prohibiting women going topless, as do many other states. A woman bearing her breasts in public is prohibited by law in only three states: Utah, Indiana and Tennessee. Fourteen states don’t have any laws about it at all! The Forbes Magazine article also mentioned something that caught me by surprise. It wasn’t until 1937 that men were allowed to go topless. Atlantic City New Jersey changed their law after 42 men were arrested and fined for going topless on the beach in their own protest. Laws about levels of public nudity are really just about perception. The law for men changed in the 1930’s and the laws for women changed in the 1990’s. So clearly it’s the lawmakers who are lagging behind. While nude beaches aren’t necessarily a new concept, the thought of women walking around topless is a foreign concept in America. When we talk about freedom, we never consider the laws that make us cover our bodies. We seem okay with the laws as they are. The truth is, very few of us want to walk around topless. Some of us want to protect our skin from the sun. We dress to stay warm. We dress to express wealth and taste, or to promote a brand. We like to cover ourselves if for no other reason, many of us just don’t look that great topless. We’re not all body-builders and supermodels. I’m aware there was a recent surge in popularity of something called a dad-bod. I don’t hear about it anymore. As has been noted, 14 states don’t even have laws about it. But nudity is viewed differently in the United States than in many other western-style nations. Back in the 1980’s, one of the Berlin daily papers published a photo of a woman, topless, with a caption about her on at least a weekly basis. I enjoyed reading about her. ‘Cause, you know, I looked at it for the words. In hindsight, we can now see how sexist it was because they didn’t publish a picture of a topless man with a caption about him. There were also parks within the city where clothing was optional, and it was common to see both men and women completely naked, playing frisbee or just soaking up the sun. As it turns out, men and women have different views about breasts. Women don’t see men’s breasts in the same way men see women’s breasts. Men consider a women’s breasts to be cause for sexual arousal, while a man’s breasts aren’t seen the same way by women. I’m sure there are some that women find more attractive than others, but men definitely see women’s breasts as something more than just a way to feed a baby. Because women’s breasts have some sort of magical effect on heterosexual men equal to a mind-encompassing, mesmerizing, noise-canceling unexplained phenomenon. Men’s breasts don’t seem to have any purpose at all, save for a sensitive target to twist in an effort to cause pain accompanied by the element of surprise. So, the argument that women are making is that the problem is the way men view women’s breasts. The problem is our perception of breasts and the way we associate breasts with sex. It’s not the woman’s fault that her breasts make men feel the way they do. So laws like the new Gender Equality on Beaches amendment in Nantucket make sense. It’s not the woman’s responsibility to control the reaction of a man to anything she does, including going topless. It’s the man’s responsibility to control himself. Unless he’s somehow triggered by female breasts and considers it a violation of his phobia, of course. Now, I’m one of those heterosexual men who are attracted to a woman’s breast for reasons I can’t explain. But when I look at this from an impartial and macro-viewpoint, what surprises me the most is that men hadn’t though of this decades ago. If just one guy, back in the 1930’s, one of the guys in Atlantic City who got arrested, leading to the change in the law that allowed men to go topless, suggested then that women should also have the right to go topless, we might be living in a different world. Even since then, you’d think one guy would’ve figured out that he could get women to walk around topless if he just made it a women’s rights issue. Frankly, I’m surprised that more men aren’t on the women’s rights bandwagon thanks to this issue. I myself have had very little experience with women’s exposed breasts in a public place. I went to a concert in Camden, New Jersey once where some women only had their ariola painted while wearing no top, which is, I guess, within the rules. But the first time was on a beach in San Rafael, France. On the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the French Riviera. Next to it was Frejus, with its topless beach. As a young man in my 20’s, I was interested in the view, but you had to be cool about it. You can’t just walk around admiring breasts all day. You just had to put your towel on the sand and mostly mind your own business. It was the beach, after all, not a museum. I would prefer a woman who was interested in looking at me anyway,as much as me looking at her. So one day, I see a woman stake her claim to a spot on the beach just to my left, and a bit closer to the water. She was pretty. I was a smoker back then, and smoking cigarettes was very popular among European women at that time. This was 1985. You could even smoke on the beach, which many people did. At one point, I noticed the pretty girl to my left had not only taken off her top, but also had a cigarette in her hand, unlit, and obviously looking for her lighter. After searching for a bit, she seemed to give up. I got up, walked over to her, ready to flic my bic. And I did. She hesitated for a moment, then accepted the light, and offered a “merci.” I made eye contact and nodded, since I didn’t speak French, and casually walked back to my towel and sat down. Up to that point, that was the coolest thing that ever happened to me.

Let’s go back liner

This week in 1610 Henry IV of France is assassinated bringing Louis XIII to the throne.

Yea, so. Why you telling us this, Bob? Well, because 33 years later in 1643, when King Louis XIII dies, his four-year-old son Louis XIV becomes King of France. That’s the problem with Monarchies. If they don’t procreate quickly enough, you get a toddler running the empire. And if that toddler doesn’t have good advisers, you end up with a military that can’t draw a dinosaur. 

This week in 1775, during the American Revolutionary War, a small Colonial militia led by Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold captures Fort Ticonderoga. Today, Benedict Arnold is remembered as a traitor, while Ethan Allen is a brand-name for furniture.

1792

Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River. The Columbia River is in what is now British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Part of it actually flows north, which isn’t common in north America. But Captain Gray did more than that. He was the first American to circumnavigate the globe. The fact that he is the first documented white person to sail into the Colombia River shows that whomever was keeping track was a racist.

1869

The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah with the golden spike. This was a cause for much fanfare. An there wasn’t just one golden spike, there were two, plus a silver spike all used for the ceremonial connection between the the coasts. According to the wikipedia page, there was also a ceremonial tie made from polished California Laurel. None of it stayed there after the ceremony. You can’t leave gold spikes unattended, so they all ended up in museums, including the ceremonial last tie. 

1924

J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the Director of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remains so until his death in 1972. That’s about 48 years as the head of the FBI. Just imagine what that guy knew. He may have taken more secrets to his grave than anyone in American history.

1927

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded.

1939

Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five. She was actually 5 years, 7 months and 21 days old when she gave birth to a healthy son. From a village in Peru, Lina never told anyone who the father was, if she even knew. How can a 5-year-old get pregnant, you ask? 

Look that up liner

According to an article in All That’s Interesting, it’s believed the girl had a rare genetic condition called precocious puberty. Precocious puberty causes the body to go through puberty too soon. It happens to boys, too, but it happens to ten times as many girls as boys. Some studies lead us to believe that precocious puberty can be accelerated by sexual contact at an early age, and can result in developed breasts, wider than normal hips and post-pubescent bone growth. Lina Medina never gave an interview to any news agency or reporter, despite being offered a lot of money to do so. She preferred to live in relative obscurity in her home village. If she’s still alive today, she’d be almost 90.

1941

Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin, Germany. He began building it in 1935 and introduced it to the world in 1941. According to wikipedia, it had 2,600 relays and the program code was stored on punched film. The Z3 was destroyed in bombing raids by the Americans on Berlin, April 6th, 1945.

1948

Israel is declared to be an independent state and a provisional government is established. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

1949

Rainier III of Monaco becomes Prince of Monaco. Prince Rainier is best known for who he married, American actress Grace Kelly.

1950

Robert Schuman presents his proposal on the creation of an organized Europe, which according to him was indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the “Schuman declaration”, is considered by some people to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.

1960

The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle’s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive pill.

1960

Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born. Today, free speech doesn’t exist at Berkeley. Sure, the administration there supports the First Amendment and the right to free speech, but the students often stage protests against speakers with whom they don’t agree. The goal of the students is to protest enough that the speaker doesn’t feel safe, which justifies the canceling of the speech. 

1961

Jim Gentile of the Baltimore Orioles becomes the first player in baseball history to hit grand slams in consecutive innings.

1961

During the American civil rights movement: The Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama, and the civil rights protesters are beaten by an angry mob.

1962

Douglas MacArthur delivers his Duty, Honor, Country valedictory speech at the United States Military Academy.

1963

The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland is decided. This is a very important decision, as it requires the prosecution to turn over any evidence it has that may exonerate or help a defendant receive less punishment for an accused crime. I believe today it’s called the discovery phase, where the lawyers both for and against a defendant trade any and all information they have about the case. While you can’t prove a negative, there are still accusations of law enforcement and prosecutors hiding evidence that would help the defendant.

1973

Skylab, the United States’ first space station, is launched. Today, we have the International Space Station. The Mir Space Station came in between, and the United States and Russia have been partners in both of them. Recently, Russia has said it would end its cooperation on the International Space Station, citing western sanctions on Russia for their invasion of Ukraine. They are required to give years’ notice, but according to Live Science, Russia has never agreed to extend its involvement beyond 2024.

1979

Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran, prompting the mass exodus of the once 100,000 member strong Jewish community of Iran.

1985

Police storm MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents. If you’re not familiar with this event, it started when nearby residents started complaining that the group was letting garbage pile up on the property, were having confrontations with neighbors, and using a bullhorn to make obscene tirades and political messages at all hours of the day and night. The members of the group all took the surname, “Africa.” When police tried to serve a warrant on the building, a shootout commenced. A wikipedia article says police used more than 10,000 rounds of ammo before the commissioner ordered the building be bombed. Two pound of tovex bombs were dropped on the building from a helicopter. In November of 2020, the city of Philadelphia formally apologized for the bombing.

1994

Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president.

1995

In New York City more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.

1995

A 33 years old British mother Alison Hargreaves, became the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas. Boy, she must’ve really wanted to get out of the house!

1997

Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

Phone liner.

So somebody leaked a Supreme Court document that indicated a majority of the court is willing to overturn the 1973 Roe vs. Wade ruling that made abortion legal in the United States. The Chief Justice has ordered an investigation into the leak, the first of kind in the history of the court. There are a couple different dynamics here. The leak itself is one, and the contents of the document is the other. As for the leak, there’s a lot of speculation as to if it was somebody on the right, in an attempt to lock in the votes of the Justices as they are in the draft, thus overturning Roe v Wade, or if it was somebody on the left, using the issue to draw attention away from the extent the Democrats are failing to get the support of a majority of Americans. It’s certainly a wedge issue, and the left has pounced on the leaked to justify demonstrations, some illegal, to petition the court to keep the status quo. The right sees abortion as an abomination, and has been working to get the Supreme Court to overturn the ‘73 decision. The left sees it as a personal freedom issue. The right is looking out for the fetus, while the left is looking out for the person carrying it. So, who’s right? Sure, we all have our own beliefs about the subject, but who’s right in the eyes of the law? More than 20 years ago, I asked a man running for Judge in Nevada whether or not a fetus has Constitutional rights. He refused to answer the question. The Constitution does say that to become a citizen of the US, you must be born here, or if not here, naturalized as a citizen. So a fetus is technically not a citizen. But just because you aren’t a citizen doesn’t mean you don’t have rights. For me, the question the Supreme Court needs to answer is “does a fetus have rights.” If so, do they supersede the rights of the woman carrying it. The woman who has been born, and if born in the US, has all the rights of a citizen, unlike the fetus. But that doesn’t mean the fetus shouldn’t have advocates.

I wish there was no such thing as abortion. I wish we lived in a world where every child was born. Not just born, but born into a loving family. Born into a family that cherished it, and loved it, and gave it the tools it will need to succeed in society. I wish every child was born into a family that could afford to raise it properly, where it could flourish and contribute, a family that cared for it and nurtured it and taught it about respect and responsibility and love. And if that child couldn’t be born into a family like that, there’d be another family waiting to accept it as their own. In a perfect world, there’s be no need for abortion. But a perfect world is not the one in which we live. We live in a world where children are not a welcome addition to the family. We live in a world where a teenage girl might not be ready to take on the responsibilities of raising a child. We live in a world where a child could be born to suffer, at the hands of its keepers, through poverty, abuse, and misery. We live in a world with incestuous fathers and rapists. Should a woman be forced to give birth and raise a child created by despicable actions, a daily reminder for the rest of her life that she was raped, or molested by someone who she thought cared for her? The pro-life people seem to lose interest in the child once it’s born. The pro-life people don’t seem to take into consideration what happens to an unwanted child the day after its birthday. The pro-life people justify their position by saying it’s wrong to “kill a baby” and that’s the only justification they need. The pro-choice people say it should be up to the person carrying the fetus on the basis of personal freedom. But there’s one group of people that seems to be missing: Pro-abortion people. You never hear about pro-abortion people. I think I know why. Hardly anyone, if anyone, is pro abortion. You don’t hear anybody cheering for abortions. Nobody is saying we need more abortions, there aren’t enough abortions. Nobody’s pro-abortion! The problem is the right and the left are making very different arguments about the same thing. The left sees it as an issue of choice, and the right sees it as an issue of murder, insisting you shouldn’t be able to choose to kill a fetus. Look, there’s been no official ruling yet, and even if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, it will simply become a States issue. Each individual state will be able to write their own laws about abortion. Will abortion go away? Not everywhere. Colorado is already a destination for people who live in other states where abortion laws are tough to maneuver. All of the upheaval over Roe vs. Wade is really just an argument over who’s going to be making the rules. Will it be the States or the Feds? It’s kind of like student loan forgiveness. The loans still have to be paid, they’re just shifting the responsibility of who has to pay them back. There will still be abortions, but instead of being performed in clean places with medical professionals, they’ll be shifted to dirty places with rudimentary tools.

I promised last episode that we’d talk about the new division of the Homeland Security Department called the Disinformation Governance Board. Well, there’s already been plenty of talk about it. There are a lot of questions concerning its mission and scope. It’s being labeled as Orwellian Thought Police and criticized for the person chosen to lead the new group. From what I’ve seen of this Mary Poppins wannabe, she’s got no right to claim to be unbiased. I can understand the reluctance of both Republicans and Democrats to endorse this group or its leader. The Department of Homeland Security says the new board is intended to standardize the department’s efforts to respond to disinformation that could be connected with violent threats to the US. Well, that is one convoluted yet vague mission statement. Is it the violent threats you’re worried about, or is it the disinformation itself? And how exactly is disinformation connected to violent threats? Seems to me that a violent threat that is determined to be disinformation isn’t a threat at all. Now, if somebody was spreading disinformation in a way that it caused a lot of people to gather together in one place, then the place was somehow attacked, I guess that would be one example. So is it the new department’s job to figure out how to counter that? I would hope they already know how to counter that. I guess what scares people, especially those on the right, is who will be deciding what’s true and what isn’t. We already know the government and media colluded to hide the Hunter Biden laptop story, and prop up the Steele dossier, two events on which the leader of the new group agreed with the media, and both proven false. Yet she claims to be an expert on disinformation. If that’s the case, was she fooled by disinformation, or did she become an expert by being a part of the disinformation campaigns? In my opinion, she’s not suited for the job. She does speak Russian, so she’s got that going for her. I’m actually surprised she got the job considering she’s a white heterosexual person. But she’s clearly got an agenda. She makes this new Disinformation Governance Board a propaganda machine, with the power to decide what the truth is, and peddle her own version of it. The Secretary of Homeland Security insists the board won’t be policing people’s opinions, but at the same time, can’t define the board’s mission or boundaries. They say it’s to respond to misinformation that could, key word, could be connected with violent threats to the US. I think they threw in that “connected to violent threats to the US” in there just to try to make is sound legitimate. Violence and misinformation are usually two different animals. Disinformation is designed to work almost in a subliminal way, slowly making you believe something that isn’t true, or influencing you in other psychological ways. Violence is a much different tool. It invokes instant results, without caring what the prevailing thoughts are. Entities that use violence may also use disinformation in the form of propaganda, such as Russia is doing to their own people right now. It’s obvious to the rest of the world. Disinformation is much more subtle than propaganda. It takes a keen eye to spot it, and having been either fooled twice, or was part of the disinformation of which she claims to be an expert, Mary Poppins is the last person who should be leading this board. The bigger question is if we need such a board to begin with. Meanwhile, two states have filed a lawsuit against President Biden, Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and other top Biden administration officials for colluding with social and other media to censor speech about Hunter Biden, the origins of Covid-19, mask mandates, and election integrity. The new disinformation board is also a part of the lawsuit. We’ll follow that as it moves along. 

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Thank you for being a part of the Listening Tube. Copyright 2022. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.