Season 3, Episode 7 Oct 16, 2022

Hello, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 7 of the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this edition, we’ll hear about America’s westward expansion, Canada’s War Measures act, and the appropriation of Independence by a progressive organization. But first, ...(not the headlines)…

The American Department of Justice is once again being asked by organizations to investigate and silence people who disagree with them. Just like the teachers unions tried to get parents declared domestic terrorists, three organizations, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Children’s Hospital Association, have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate critics of so-called “gender affirming care” and incidents of violence against doctors and hospitals that provide it. While violence should be investigated and perpetrators prosecuted, the letter sent to AG Garland also asked that he compel technology companies to censor content on their platforms that is skeptical of sex-change surgeries for children. So because there are people who disagree with mutilating a child’s genitals and calling it gender-affirming surgery, medical organizations asked the federal government to deny them of their First Amendment rights. Well, as story in National Review says that thirteen state attorneys general have penned a letter to AG Garland recommending he not side with the medical organizations. “While the American medical organizations endorse a monolithic consensus they tout as impermeable to doubt, other countries have moved to restrict the medical treatment of gender dysphoria,” they tell the AG. “One might expect a bit more humility from U.S. medical organizations when they address the life-altering, irreversible procedures they are championing as the cure du jour for pediatric gender dysphoria.” it continued. The 13 maintain that a free and open dialogue is urgently necessary because research suggests there’s little evidence that gender-reconstructive surgery is an effective treatment for children. They ask Attorney General Garland to “stand down and allow the national conversation to continue.” 

Well, the state of California has found another way to tie the hands of criminal prosecutors. We already heard on this program about how DNA evidence can’t be used against anyone who had been a victim of a sexual assault. Now, rap lyrics can no longer be used as evidence of a crime. A Yahoo news report says free speech advocates argue that using rap lyrics as criminal evidence unfairly targets people of color. So the solution is to make criminal prosecution more equitable by eliminating another tool in the prosecutor’s toolbox. An ACLU attorney is quoted in the story as saying, “No other music genre, no other art genre gets thrown in people's faces like that, and can drag them into court or put them in jail.” Well, maybe it’s because other genre’s aren’t full of people bragging about crimes they’ve committed. But a California judge overturned a murder conviction of a rapper who’s lyrics were used in the trial. The judge ruled that the rap lyrics used in the trial likely caused racial bias. I would argue that if a judge thinks rap lyrics caused racial bias, he’s assuming the jury was full of racists. So, he basically let a convicted murder off the hook because of his own bias. Not all rap lyrics are off the table, though. If there is enough forensic evidence, rap lyrics can be added as evidence, but they can’t be used independently. Rappers feel they’re “art” is being unfairly targeted as compared to other forms of expression like motion pictures. So even though rap lyrics are more likely than other form of expression to include descriptions, or even confessions of actual criminality, California is removing that source of evidence because it’s considered racist. It’s racist because most rappers are black men. So if the law prohibiting rap lyrics from being used as evidence was created to protect black men who confess crimes in songs, then the law itself is based on racism. There is some dissent, although not in California. An Atlanta, Georgia District Attorney who’s used rap lyrics to help prosecute criminals has a different take on it. “I think if you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m going to use it,” she says. She adds some legal advice: “Don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used." In California, prosecutors who want to use rap lyrics have to prove the lyrics are relevant to the case in a separate hearing, away from the jury. Because, as you know, juries are racist, and can’t be trusted to consider evidence presented at trial without being biased by song lyrics. 

Let’s go back liner...

1774

First display of the word “Liberty” on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts in defiance of British rule in Colonial America. Today, you can get a flag made to say whatever you want, and you’re free to fly it anywhere the American flag flies. If you try to fly your own flag anywhere else, you’re on your own.

1775

African-American poet Phillis Wheatley is freed from slavery. Phillis, who was named by her Boston slave-owners after the ship on which she arrived in North America, was not an average person, by any measure. Sold into slavery by a local African chief at age 7 or 8, she was provided a top-notch education by the standards of the day. She showed an knack for language; not just English, but Latin and Greek. The people who enslaved her, recognizing her talent and the unlikely chance of her work being published in America, took her to London in search of a publisher. Upon the publication of her works, she was emancipated. It didn’t make her life any better, though. She married a grocer, and lived in squalid conditions until her death at age 31. One of her poems, "On being brought from Africa to America" goes as follows…

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understand

That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:

Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.

Some view our sable race with scornful eye,

"Their colour is a diabolic dye."

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train. 

This week in 1803, The United States Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase. Perhaps the most significant expansion of the United States after the purchase of Alaska, the Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the country. It also gave the United States full control of shipping on the Mississippi River. All or parts of 15 of the present-day United States were included in the purchase, plus slivers of two Canadian provinces. Canada got their parts of it 15 years later in an agreement with England. Not everyone agreed with the purchase. Some even called it unconstitutional, citing President Thomas Jefferson’s loose interpretation of the document to justify the 15-million dollar expenditure. For 15-million dollars, the whole thing averages out to 18 dollars a square mile, according to wikipedia. So a little more than a quarter-century after its founding, the United States of America had established itself as stable and robust society, led by a capable government, of the people, by the people and for the people. The westward expansion would eventually lead to the Pacific Ocean. 

1814

London Beer Flood happened. If you like beer, a beer flood might sound like a good thing. Perhaps it’s Oktoberfest related. That wasn’t the case. A brewery owned by Meux and Company had a 22-foot tall vat of porter bust open, causing a chain reaction that released hundreds of thousands of gallons of beer on an unsuspecting slum, killing eight people, five of whom were ironically attending a funeral. The brewery nearly went bankrupt because of the incident, but they got a break on taxes because of the lost beer. The company lasted for more than 200 more years, dissolving in 1961. A theater now stands where the brewery was. 

Sixty-four years after the Louisiana Purchase, this week in 1867, the United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. Today, the occasion is celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day. My sister is there right now as a visiting nurse. She seems to like it. I get texts of pictures of places with no convenience stores, and what seem to be moose. But Alaska is much more than that. Now our largest State, it’s mostly pristine, unspoiled land, despite having an oil pipeline running through it for more than half a century. Perhaps our richest state in natural resources, Alaska was a bargain at 7 million dollars, considering we paid twice as much for the Louisiana territory. I’m sure Russia still regrets the sale, especially considering today’s geopolitical climate. Imagine if Russia still owned Alaska right now. Sarah Palin could only see Canada from her house! 

This certainly was a notable week in American expansion, as it was this week in 1898 that the United States takes possession of Puerto Rico. But unlike Alaska or Hawaii, Puerto Rico is never made a State. Personally, I think it’s because the flag doesn’t have any more room for stars. Either way, Puerto Rico is in line after Washington, D.C., which was established first as a part of the nation. Sorry, Guam, but we’ll need about four other territories to become States so that we can add another row of stars on the field of blue. Otherwise the American flag will look out of balance. I can’t help it. It’s just math. 

1947

The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years. A couple names you might recognize from the list are Charlie Chaplain and Orson Welles. Today, Hollywood is full of stars who would have been on the blacklist in 1947. Socialists, and even outright Communists, along with woke progressives who donated money to get rioters out of jail in the summer of 2020 use their influence to condemn the very system that made it possible for them to make millions of dollars. They say, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” but Hollywood celebrities often do, and most are never held accountable for it.

1954

Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio. This was at a time when most radios were floor models, about the size of a large suitcase. People would sit around them and stare at the speaker, in much the same way we currently sit and stare at a television screen. So when the transistor radio came out, it was like being unchained to a large machine. You could now take your radio with you where ever you went. It could fit in your shirt pocket. You could turn it on at any time, providing the batteries were good, and tune in a radio station for news, music, theater, comedy sports and companionship. You could always be connected with the rest of the world. Sound familiar? The transistor radio had much the same effect on society as the cell phone. The mobile device practically all of us carry with us every day. You might even be listening to this program, the Listening Tube, on a mobile device right now. You can also use that mobile device to listen to the radio. Radio is still free, and most radio stations have their own apps or streaming service. The desire to be untethered while we make our way through the world was the inspiration for the transistor radio, and the evolutionary results include the boom box, the Walkman, the portable DVD player and the multi-function device with a screen and a speaker we, for some reason, still call a phone. And through it all, radio is still America’s most popular media.

This week in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis begins. United States President John F. Kennedy, after internal counsel from Dwight D. Eisenhower, announces that American reconnaissance planes have discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, and that he has ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island. Kennedy sent warships to surround Cuba, refusing any ship passage that might be carrying offensive weapons or the materials to support them. Practically all of Kennedy’s advisors lobbied for a full-fledged invasion of Cuba, but Kennedy didn’t want war. He just wanted Soviet nuclear warheads out of the western hemisphere. He got his wish, as the quarantine, as well as diplomatic negotiations, ended the crisis peacefully. The whole ordeal lasted about a month, and it was the closest we came to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Now, Russia is threatening again to use nuclear weapons. This time in Ukraine, as the tyrant Putin has found himself and his army with their backs against the wall due to the willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight, and the wealth of weapons supplied to them by western nations.

1964

Jean-Paul Sartre is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, but turns down the honor. Well, they gave it to him anyway. He said he always refused official recognition because he believed a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. He was an existentialist philosopher, after all. In a way, it’s the same type of approach that discourages a reporter from becoming part of the story.

1968

Apollo program: Apollo 7 safely splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times. Now, I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t there, but I’m going to guess that after 150 times, the astronauts were probably like, “O.K. We’re ready to come down now. There’s the Great Wall of China again. Right where it was last time we saw it, and the time before that.” Then Houston comes back with, “We’ll need another 13 orbits to get you onto the right trajectory for re-entry. Over.”

“Roger, mission control. Uhhhhggg.”

1970

In response to the October Crisis, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada invokes the War Measures Act. The October Crisis began when a group the government considered a terrorist group kidnapped a British diplomat and a provincial cabinet minister from Quebec. The group’s aim was to use violence to establish Quebec as a sovereign communist state. The diplomat was released through negotiation, while the minister was murdered. By invoking the War Measures Act, the military could assist police in apprehending the perpetrators. The military filled the streets of Montreal this week in 1970. They would not stand down until January. Four of the rebel group are arrested, while five are flown to Cuba in exchange for the British diplomat. In all, 465 people were arrested, never charged, and eventually released. Because of the War Measures Act, there was no requirement that someone’s detention be justified. That was the first peacetime enactment of the War Measures Act in Canada. There was one other peacetime use of the measure. But by now it had been renamed the Emergencies Act. It was just last year, during the Convoy Protest by truckers and others about Covid-19 mandates. The Prime Minister who employed the act, Justin Trudeau, is the son of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The current Trudeau used the act to freeze the bank accounts of the protesters.

1973

OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria. And those who forget history are destined to repeat it. Back in 1973, OPEC, or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, was the top oil producer in the world. And oil was cheap. Less than 2 dollars a barrel. Gas was less than 30 cents a gallon. But then the United States began to import more oil than we produced, due to demand. There were quotas on imports, but President Nixon lifted them in 1973. By then, more than 80 percent of oil imports came from OPEC. They had us over a barrel, so to speak. Then when OPEC stopped shipping to countries that helped Israel, America had no plan, and limited domestic supply (that we know of). The price of gas didn’t just increase. Gas got hard to find at all. There was gas rationing. It was truly an energy crisis. Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation. American oil production has peaked, albeit for different reasons than in 1973, and OPEC just decided to cut oil production. This time could be different, though. America’s oil production has peaked only because of federal roadblocks imposed by the Biden Administration. Now, America has oil reserves still in the ground. The Republicans say drill, baby drill, while the Democrats say fossil fuels are no longer welcome. I think it’s funny that some on the right are claiming the Biden administration will now have to go beg Venezuela for oil now that OPEC is cutting production by 2 million barrels a day. Well, guess what? Venezuela is a part of OPEC. Not only that, but a founding member of OPEC. So here we are, facing another energy crisis, but this time, we have the ability to dilute its effect through domestic production. The problem is, the progressive left in control of the federal government would rather us suffer than prosper in the false hope that our example will inspire the rest of the world to abandon fossil fuels. 

1973

Fred Dryer of the then Los Angeles Rams becomes the first player in NFL history to score two safeties in the same game. You might remember him as the star of the 1980’s television crime drama called Hunter. He was in some movies, too. But this piece of history is remarkable in that he is still the only person ever to score two safeties in the same NFL game. For those of you who don’t know what a safety is, it’s when you tackle an opposing player who has the ball while he’s in his own end zone. It’s worth 2 points, and then the other team also has to kick the ball to you so your team has an opportunity on offense.

1983

The metre is defined at the seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures. Whereas the English system is based on a yard, which is 3 feet, which is 12 inches, which was the length of the king’s nose or something, the metric system is a bit more concise. A meter isn’t based on the length of any physical thing, but on the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. It wasn’t always that way. We already had a definition of a meter, but when we more accurately defined the amount of time we call a second, the length of the meter became based on the length of a second. I guess we could define the yard in the same way, but nobody wants to.

1989

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly). If you’re a baseball fan, you remember this one because it happened just as the San Francisco Giants were getting ready to play the Oakland Athletics. Both Bay Area teams, it’ wouldn’t have mattered which team was at home when the earthquake struck. It was game three of what would become a four-game sweep of the Giants, giving the A’s the championship. Of course, the games would be delayed for about 10 days as a result of the natural disaster. 

Phone and email liner

I’m a registered Independent. So, when a publication came to my house in the mail called The Pennsylvania Independent, I thought, “Nice. This just might be a common sense publication; the articles in here might be just what I was looking for when I started this podcast. A publication not beholden to the right or the left. So much of our media is either conservative or liberal, while very little of it is neutral, as respectable news sources used to be. So when a tabloid publication called the Independent arrived in my mailbox, I was optimistic. I was interested in who published it, who edited it, and who the writers were. As I paged through, I couldn’t find anything about the publisher or the editor. The stories themselves had by lines, but there was nobody else taking credit for this publication. Well, it was mailed to the Woodley household by the American Independent of Washington, D.C. I did an internet search and found the company, if it is a company at all. The search results revealed that American Independent used to be called Blue Nation Review and Shareblue Media. Wikipedia calls it an American liberal news webiste. So I went to the website. The first thing you notice about the homepage is that it asks you to support progressive journalism. Not honest journalism, not independent journalism, but progressive journalism. First of all, journalism should be journalism. There should be no progressive journalism, or any kind of agenda-driven journalism. But change your name to the Independent because Blue Nation Review was failing as a title is misleading. The same people who shame people for cultural appropriation have commandeered the title of Independent, when they’re not independent at all. Here’s a sample of headlines from the most recent issue. On the front page: GOP election deniers take center stage. See page 2. You have to see page two because the front is a picture of the Republican candidate for Governor. When you turn to page two, there’s another headline. I always thought one headline was enough, but apparently the Pennsylvania Independent thought this story was worthy of two different headlines. The second headline says, “Support of false election claims runs deep in 2022 GOP field.” If you read the story, you’ll discover that, even though it’s the top story in the Pennsylvania Independent, there’s only one paragraph about Pennsylvania in a story that begins on page two and continues on page 3. Even then, it only mentions that the Republican candidate for Governor arranged for a bus trip to Washington for President Trump’s speech on the infamous January 6th. They claim it was for people who wanted to stop Congress from certifying the election. I’m sure the people on the bus that day didn’t have any intention of stopping an election certification. Still, that was the only mention of Pennsylvania. Page 4 has a list of the places to get the cheapest gas in metropolitan areas of eastern Pennsylvania. There’s a paragraph included that reminds us that we should be glad we don’t live in Hawaii, as the gas prices there are much higher. Page 5 is another fine example of the publications Independent viewpoint with the headline, “Senate Republicans propose national abortion ban.” From the headline, one might assume that the Republicans want all abortions banned, without exception. But if you read the story, it states that the proposal would allow abortions up to week 15 of the pregnancy, which is almost four months into a nine-month pregnancy. I would figure that if a woman who’s pregnant wants an abortion, she’ll know it long before halftime. But by calling it an abortion ban, rather than a time limit, the publication seeks to use partial truths to sway your thinking. The next page has a headline about the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Dr. Oz. It says, “Oz promises to oppose any gun safety measures.” The story describes how the candidate would support the Constitution, including the amendments. The article suggests that Dr. Oz has changed his stance on some gun-control issues, and I’m sure he has. I think you see where I’m going with this, so I won’t share any more analysis, but the rest of the headlines in the publication which purports to be independent include, “As costs rise for families, Republicans in PA legislature pass a budget that benefits big businesses,” and “Prominent Republicans endorse Democrats over GOP candidates, citing extremism.” One of the reasons I started this program was to bring attention to the ways so-called news organizations try to deceive us. The American Independent and its subsidiaries like the Pennsylvania Independent are perfect examples of the shenanigans political organizations will use to influence our thoughts. It’s bad enough that they use a variety of dishonest tactics to influence our votes, but when they disguise themselves as media publications and pay to have the mailman bring it right to your door, you should read it with a lot of cynicism. The headlines are catchy, even eye-opening. But when you read the story, the truth is revealed. The people who write the stories aren’t lying, but the way in which the information is presented can be twisted. It’s a way of pleasing the editor while still covering your butt from libel. I’m not saying legitimate news organizations are innocent of manipulation. Far from it. But part of the reason American’s trust in the media has eroded over the last decade or so is because we often don’t know if what we think is the real news is or isn’t the real news. If it lands on your doorstep or is put in your mailbox, and it’s printed on paper and it looks like a newspaper, it must be a newspaper. It’s got a big masthead and a date on it. It has pictures with captions and headlines and stories with by-lines. But there are a few things missing from the Pennsylvania Independent. One is an editor. No where does it say who’s responsible for the content of the publication. Other than the place listed on the return address, nobody is taking responsibility for publishing this so-called newspaper. There’s no editorial page, nor letters to the editor. But perhaps the most glaring omission from the Pennsylvania Independent is a source of revenue. There are no advertisements. There are no classified ads. There are no glossy coupon pages inserted. You see, real newspapers rely on advertisements to exist. It’s a business model that has existed for centuries. Newspapers, radio stations, television channels, and even internet web services like social media sites rely on advertising to keep creating their products. Sure, there are services that are subscriber-supported, but in that case, you’re asking to receive it. I didn’t ask to get the Pennsylvania Independent mailed to my house. So who paid for the postage? Who paid for the paper on which it’s printed? Who paid the people who run the printing press? Normally, these expenditures would be offset by the income from advertising, but with no advertising, and no subscription fee, a lot of money is being spent to produce and distribute the publication. It turns out the money comes from a company called True Blue Media. True Blue Media is a for-profit company that relies on ad revenue on it’s website. The website Influencewatch describes the company as “an investment firm founded in 2015 and owned by Clinton family-aligned political operative David Brock. The firm acts as a holding company for the Brock-aligned Shareblue Media, and owns an 80 percent stake in it. Shareblue Media produces left-wing viral media content. It goes on to say that the American Independent is funded by American Bridge 21st Century, a political action committee created by Brock to attack Republican politicians. Two years ago, the left-leaning Cengter for Responsive Politics criticized the American Independent because of its dark-money donors and political bias. It called the publication a pseudo-news outlet that publishes political propaganda masquerading as news. There are a lot of pseudo-news outlets out there right now. You not only have to be jaded about what the news is telling you, you have to be skeptical of the source of what you consider news to begin with. Take note of who wrote a story, and who is the editor of the publication. Any reputable publication will have that information within it. Look for advertisements. If there are none, that means someone or some organization is bankrolling the publication to promote a specific agenda. If you’re following new on-line, follow the link back to its origin. Agenda-driven stories can easily be made to look like it comes from a familiar news organization. There are a lot of people out there who are trying to fool us. With a little extra effort, you can eliminate the propaganda from your information stream and get information that is substantiated and verified. Even then, be critical of what it is you’re reading or hearing. Just because a story is full of facts, it doesn’t mean it has all of the facts. One of the easiest ways to influence a news consumer is to omit the parts of the story that don’t conform to the agenda of the writer. But you’ll never know if the story was written in such a way if you don’t read it in the first place. Don’t stop at the headline, as quite often the writer of the story says something quite different from from the headline it’s given by an editor. The era during which we could trust our news sources is long behind us. There are still trustworthy sources out there, but there’s so much noise between us and the truth that sometimes the truth has a hard time getting through. With a little extra care, we can be responsible news consumers, and have confidence in the opinions we form based on the information we have. It’s much better to have your own opinion than to copy and paste somebody else’s opinion. In that way, you, too, can become a trusted source of information.

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