Let's Go Back Through the Listening Tube October 1-5

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Let's go back through the listening tube for this week in history.

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I'm Bob Woodley from the Listening Tube. This week in 1712, the Duke of Montrose issues a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy McGregor. I'm not real familiar with this Rob Roy McGregor fellow, but apparently there have been three movies about him: an audiobook to accompany a novel, and an operetta. It seems Rob didn't pay what he owed to the Duke, or what today we would call taxes, so the Duke called for his arrest. Rob Roy was forced to surrender, but not until ten years later, in 1722. He would be pardoned five years after that. There's a lot more to this story, but it only caught my eye because of a drink I had to learn how to make when I was a bartender at an upscale Italian restaurant. The Rob Roy. The drink was imagined by a bartender at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City all the way back in 1894 to mark the premiere of the aforementioned operetta. The drink is made with Scotch whiskey and vermouth. I didn't have to make very many of them. Sixty thousand people would die. Climate change, said no one. This week in 1903, the Boston Americans play the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the Modern World Series. We're talking baseball. The Americans won the series that year. I don't talk a lot about sports on the listening tube, but even a casual sports fan will notice that the Boston baseball team is no longer called the Americans. They changed their name to the Red Sox in 1908 for branding and marketing purposes. The only reason I bring this up is because the nickname Americans is available, and I would like to make a suggestion. The Washington Redskins of the National Football League was more or less pressured to change their name by everybody but most Native Americans. The Age of Political Correctness took away the identity of the storied franchise, and the team from Washington, now called the Commanders, has lacked an identity ever since they dropped the Redskins name and logo back in 2020, after using it for 87 years. They not only dropped the name, but also the logo of the dark-haired and dark-skinned man with two feathers protruding from his hair. It was the name, not necessarily the logo, that offended people. So here's what I propose. Bring back the glory of the Washington team by reclaiming the logo and using the nickname Americans. The Washington Americans with the logo of the Native American put back on the sides of the helmets and put back on the 50-yard line of the home field. That way we can honor the Native Americans like it was meant to in the first place, and generations of Redskins fans can rejoin the fold and support the team they came to know and love before political correctness and outside pressure force them to go without a name for a season before settling on the Commander's moniker. Bring back the original logo and call the team the Washington Americans.

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Send email to thelistening tube at Outlook.com.

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This week in 1937, Dominican Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo orders the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands. Approximately 20,000 people are killed over the next five days. The Dominican Republic and Haiti are on either side of the same island. Yet, for some reason, the Dominican Republic seems to have figured out how to work well, while Haiti has not. It's a strange dynamic and a dichotomy on the little Caribbean island.

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Similar, but different.

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This week in 1940, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, often considered the first super highway in the United States, opens to traffic. I was just on it last week, and let me tell you, there's nothing super about it. It's comparable to most other highways and interstates, but the PA Turnpike has tolls. I think we spent close to $70 using the Turnpike while on vacation, which is a lot more than it used to be. I couldn't help but wonder why, if the tolls keep going up, the road quality isn't keeping pace. I'm going to look that up.

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He's gonna look it up. He's really gonna do it. I want the truth! You can't handle the truth.

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As it turns out, the Pennsylvania Turnpike gets no money from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to maintain it. Only the tolls are used to maintain and improve the turnpike system. It's estimated that those tolls will raise two billion thirty six million dollars in 2027. That's a lot of tolls. You'd think that two billion dollars a year would be enough to keep the highway paved with gold. But back in 2007, Act 44 required the PA Turnpike to give the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation $450 million a year to help maintain non-turnpike roads, highways, and bridges around Pennsylvania. Back then, that was over half of the toll revenue. But the $450 million demand continued until 2013, when it was decided that the $450 million would no longer go to help maintain roads and bridges, but be solely dedicated to public transportation. The Turnpike needed to raise tolls just to keep up with the demands the state required for people who weren't even using the roads unless they were in a bus. Then in 2022, the $450 million was dropped to $50 million a year, which lifted a huge burden from the Turnpike, but just to raise the money they need to catch up for all the money they were required to give the state for all those years, the Turnpike Commission estimates they'll have to keep raising the tolls until 2056. This week in 1942, the Space Age officially begins with the first successful launch of a V-2A4 rocket from Test Stand 7 in Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space. Then the Soviet Union put a satellite into space, Sputnik, in 1957, and then about a month later, Leica the Dog was a passenger on Sputnik 2, becoming the first living being aboard a spacecraft. It was in 1961 when a human first made the trip. This week in 1949, the People's Republic of China is established and declared by Mao Zedong, the chairman. Chairman Mao! Boomers will remember when the John Lennon penned Beatles song Revolution proclaimed that if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow. Boomers, as well as many people from younger generations, will remember John Lennon supporting the ideals of Chairman Mao in the song Imagine. While the song Imagine leads one to long for a world where everyone gets along and we all live in peace and harmony, the actual lyrics promote socialism and communism of the type Chairman Mao started in China. This week in nineteen sixty three, Hurricane Flora kills six thousand people in Cuba and Haiti. Climate change, said no one. This week in nineteen seventy nine, the United States returned sovereignty of the Panama Canal to Panama. President Carter decided to give the Panama Canal back to Panama. If you're wondering why Panama didn't already have sovereignty of the canal, it's because the United States built it. A French team had tried and failed prior to the U.S. stepping in. The U.S. paid forty million dollars for what was left of the French project in 1902. Construction lasted from 1904 to 1914. 56,000 men would do the work to create the canal. At least 6,000 died during construction. Many from disease like malaria, many from landslides and still more from dynamite explosions. Panama would take over control of the canal in 1999. Since then, China had become intimately involved with operations at either end of the canal. But earlier this year, Panama canceled contracts with a Hong Kong firm that was operating there for 20 years. China was not happy about it, and even threatened Panama with political and economic trouble for pushing them out. China knows how important the Panama Canal is, and that's why they tried their best to assert control over it. Too bad Jimmy Carter didn't understand how important the Panama Canal was before he gave it back to Panama. Follow the listening tube at thelisteningtube.com, where you'll also find not the headlines and interviews with interesting people. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou at Infinitum.