Season 4, Episode 10 March 5, 2023

Hello! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about a mutiny that led to freed slaves, the first phone call, killing civilians, and the Barbie Doll! But first (not the headlines)…

If you’re a regular listener to the Listening Tube, that’s great. I don’t care if you’re irregular in any other way. You may have heard me talk about student loan forgiveness, and how I think it’s a bad idea, and so do enough other people that the issue is currently being tossed around by the U.S. Supreme Court. We’ll find out around June what they think about it. In the meantime, another angle has been employed, and it’s one I’ve endorsed, if not thought of all by myself, and that’s making the colleges pay back the money they took from students for useless degrees. The U.S. Department of Education announced plans to hold owners of private colleges personally responsible for student debts that are owed to the federal government. That’s the key to the whole problem. Private colleges charge outrageous prices for useless degrees, and then the student is responsible for the cost, while the federal government backed the loan, and we now have a President who wants to buy votes by canceling student debt. But the money has already been paid to the college, and they don’t care if the degree you earned will be at all useful in earning a living after you graduate. And since the government is on the hook for the useless degree, the college feels free to raise the tuition faster than the rate of inflation because they can. So they do. And then the graduate can’t make enough money to live and pay off the price of the degree, so the progressive wing of the Democrats want the government to suck it up without acknowledging who’s really responsible for the problem. The colleges who charge exorbitant prices for classes like gender studies and the career of Madonna. Student loan forgiveness is just making everybody else pay for your college degree. Unless, of course, you’ve already paid off your student loan, then you also get to pay off somebody elses student loan, too! So all that scrimping and saving you did to put your kid through college really paid off, because now you already know how to put somebody elses kid through college. But if the Department of Education has its way, you won’t have to pay for a private college education of a kid you never even met, because the private college will now be responsible for the unpaid loans that were used to get a degree in philosophy with a minor in Marxism. Now, not all private colleges will have to pay all of the tuition that was wasted on the curriculum there. The Department of Education will decide that on a case by case basis, but only when a participation renewal is due or the college changes ownership. Unfortunately, none of this is written in stone just yet. If fact, some of the legal authority the Department of Education is using is from the same statutes that President Biden thinks gives him the authority to forgive billions of dollars in debt by transferring the debt to the rest of us. 

In other news that qualifies for (not the headlines), you may have heard about the CNN morning show that is co-anchored by Don Lemon. He used to have is own prime-time show, but low ratings warranted a change, and he was moved to mornings. Since then, he’s been accused of verbal abuse of a co-host, and more widely known is his revelation that women over 30 are past their prime. But this story isn’t about Don Lemon. It’s about where people get their news. They don’t get it from Don Lemon, and they don’t get it from anywhere else on CNN. The fact is, more than half of Americans who watch television news watch the Fox News Chanel. I have heard a number of people accuse viewers of the Fox News Chanel as racist, right wing, MAGA republicans who love guns and Jesus. But more than 56 percent of cable new viewers in prime time, and 55 percent of total day viewers watch the Fox News Chanel. That’s according to Nielesen MRI-Simmons Fusion. What that means is that not only Republicans are watching FNC, but so are Democrats and Independents. Democrats and Independents watch the Fox News Chanel more than they watch CNN or MSNBC. So what does that say about America’s news outlets? Certainly, the Fox News Chanel is a right-leaning organization, while CNN and MSNBC are left-leaning. Now, the new boss at CNN has stated that he wants CNN to be more neutral, and maybe it is, but it’s still not gathering as many viewers as Fox. So what drives Democrats and Independents to Fox? I don’t know, but if a majority of Americans are getting their information from the Fox New Chanel, what does that say about the rest of the news sources on cable and network channels? By the way, for those of you who keep track of race and ethnicities, Asian and Hispanic viewers also preferred the Fox News Chanel in both total day and prime time. I’m not endorsing any news source, as I think it’s important to expose yourself to different points of view, but when one news source is so dominant as to attract more than half of Americans who are interested in news, you might want to consider why.

Lets go back liner

1277

Stephen Tempier, bishop of Paris, condemns 219 philosophical and theological theses. Here’s a guy who took it upon himself to decide what could and could not be talked about or taught. But he wasn’t the first guy to make such a list, and probably won’t be the last. Out American government tried to create a department for such a task, but it was quickly abandoned when criticism came fast and hard from every direction. Our federal government, like Bishop Tempier, just wanted people to have confidence in what they heard or read. And there should be a way for people to be able to believe what they hear and read. But the church isn’t in a position to determine what truth is when much of what religion preaches is based not on truth but on faith. A government isn’t in a position to determine what the truth is because political parties have agendi, or a agenda’s...whatever the plural of agenda is, so which ever party is in power can control what the truth is. So who should be in charge of making sure what we read and what we hear is the truth? Well, in America, it’s supposed to be the media. The media is supposed to be the watchdog of the government. The fourth estate. Unfortunately, freedom of the press has metastasized into the freedom of the press to support whichever political party is favored by the owner of the company and the editors who control the content of the final product; the product we call the news. As I mentioned earlier, a majority of the American public seems to trust the Fox News Chanel, even those who are politically opposed to its right-wing approach to the stories of the day. In any case, it is the responsibility of neither the church nor the government to determine the truth. We, as individuals, are soley responsible for determining what we hear or read deserves to be believed. Now more than ever, we need to take individual responsibility for being our own fact-checkers. You probably have a phone in your pocket that provides access to most of the world’s knowledge. 

1521

Ferdinand Magellan arrives at Guam. I lived in Guam for more than two years. I was in the Air Force, and it was my first job out of Broadcasting School. Guam was a great place to live and work. I was a disc-jockey there for the Armed Forces Radio Network, more specifically the Far East Network, which included Japan, Okinawa and Guam. The other places also had television, but in Guam, we just had radio. But this isn’t about me, this is about Ferdinand Magellan. There was a hamburger joint on Andersen Air Force base called the Magellan Snack Bar. It had a jukebox that played 45’s. Forty-fives are records that spin at 45 revolutions per minute while they play the song you selected. They tore the place down while I was there, in 1984, and built a modernized place more like a fast-food restaurant. They kept the name, Magellan Snack Bar, but not the jukebox. Ferdinand Magellan was probably rolling over in his grave. If he has one.

1616

Nicolaus Copernicus’s book, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the catholic church. See? The church should not be the final arbiter of truth. This book was written in 1543, and described how the Sun was the center of the known cosmos, and not the Earth, as had been taught. Today, we know that even the Sun isn’t the center of the universe, but only our Solar system. And our Solar system is just one of many in our galaxy, which is but one of millions of galaxies. Keeping an open mind about earthly subjects is easy compared to keeping an open mind about the vastness of the universe. Or, if you prefer, The Heavens.

1770

Boston Massacre: Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, and a boy, are killed by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War (also known as the American War of Independence) five years later. At a subsequent trial the soldiers are defended by John Adams.

1841

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally. This was antebellum, and the slave trade was still alive and well in America, although there were now laws against bringing new slaves to the mainland. This ship, La Amistad, was on it’s way to a port in Cuba when the slaves broke free, killed the captain, let two of the crew escape on a lifeboat, and ordered the two navigators to take them back to Africa. The navigators tricked the slaves and headed north, up the coast of America, and were apprehended by what was then the coast guard near Long Island, New York. That was in 1839. The fate of the slaves, as well as the ship itself, was the subject of a lot of negotiations both internally with the U.S. government, but also Spain. Spain claimed the ship and its contents, including the slaves, belonged to them, and Spanish courts should have jurisdiction. The U.S. courts prevailed, and the case eventually made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed with a lower court ruling that the slaves should be set free, but overturned the lower courts decision that they should be returned to Africa at government expense. So it took a few years, but the men and women who were on the ship against their will finally had the freedom to do what they wanted. Local supporters set them up with temporary housing and travel expenses. Thirty-five of them returned to Africa. Christian missionaries went with them.

1876

Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the telephone. Oddly, though, he still hadn’t made one that worked. It was actually a few days after he was awarded the patent for the telephone that he made the now famous call to his assistant in another room, saying, “Mr. Watson, Come here. I want you.” And this started the evolution of man in a direction we could never have before imagined. The ability to talk to someone in another location as if they were right there. Today, we still use the telephone, and we still call it a phone, even though the telephone part of it is probably the tool it has of which we use the least. Today, our telephones are a portal to not just somebody in another location, but to most of the world’s knowledge. It’s a camera, a mini-television, a calendar and notebook. Every day more ways to use what we call a phone are being invented, so that we can fit our whole life in our pocket. Fifty-two percent of you are hearing this on your phone, even though I didn’t call you. I don’t even know your number! 

1888

The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States. This was no ordinary blizzard. From the Chesapeake Bay north to Maine, snowfall began on a Sunday night, and 10 inches of snow had fallen by Monday morning. It didn’t stop there. Some areas got as much as 50 inches of snow, and along with it came winds of 40 miles an hour, with gusts up to 80. Britannica dot com establises below freezing temperatures and the high winds that toppled telegraph and electrical poles. Snow drifts piled up to 50 feet and people who tried to go to work on Monday morning found themselves stranded in buildings and modes of transportation, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400. The event led to New York City moving utilities underground. “Climate change!” said no one.

1899

Bayer registers aspirin as a trademark. In the late 1970’s, long after the patent had expired, I had the privalege of creating aspirin in science class. Chemistry class, to be more precise. I was a poor chemistry student, but I still remember the scientific name for aspirin: Acytlsalicilic Acid. So there, Mr. Williams.

1916

Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico. I used to hang out occasionally in a bar called Pancho Villa on Hueneme Road in Oxnard, California. I was usually the only white guy in there. But I knew how to order a beer, and I could play pool because I knew all the numbers in Spanish. The other patrons, entirely of Hispanic origin, were always nice to me. You might think it was because I had the guts to walk in the place, but I’d like to think that it’s because most Hispanic people are nice people. I’ve met many.

1933

Great Depression: President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a “bank holiday”, closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions. Imagine if that happened today. For one day, you couldn’t get any money from the ATM, you couldn’t use a credit or debit card. Any wealth you had accumulated and stored in a bank became useless for one day. That 1933 Packard Twelve you wanted to buy had to wait.

1944

The Soviet Air Forces conduct heavy bombing on Tallinn, Estonia, killing up to 800 people, mostly civilians. Sound familiar? Russian war tactics haven’t changed much. In the past year the Russians have bombed apartment buildings in Ukraine. Not ones where soldiers were living, but regular citizens who suffer the attacks of the power structures and the buildings they serve, even if they house innocent people. But back in the 1940’s, we didn’t have the same rules of war we have now. That’s why this week in 1945, The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces began, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history. The American Army Air Force had been running bombing raids in Japan, targeting strategic sites like industries, but they weren’t having any real effect on the Japanese will to fight. It was decided that a different tactic was needed, and the result was Operation Meetinghouse; a force of 279 B-29 Superfortresses. Heavy bombers dropping firebombs at low altitude at night. Up to 100-thousand civilians were killed, a million left homeless. Fourteen American aircraft and 96 crew were lost in the most destructive air attack in human history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to get the Japanese to surrender. 

1946

Winston Churchill uses the phrase “Iron Curtain” in his speech at Westminster College, Missouri. The Iron Curtain lasted until 1991. It was basically a boundary between communism and capitalism. Communism heavily influenced by the former Soviet Union, of which Russia was the controlling power, and the countries of NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, heavily influenced by the United States. There were exceptions. A few neutral countries, and Yugoslavia, which was formed after World War II and is now broken up into eight different countries. Yugoslavia was on the western side of the Iron Curtain, but still practiced socialism. West Berlin was the only part of NATO that was entirely on the other side of the Iron Curtain. When the Iron Curtain came down, metaphorically, several of the former Warsaw Pact countries switched sides, or at least pulled away from the rules of Moscow. Less than a decade later, the tyrant Putin took power, and seems to have fantasies about reassembling the old Soviet Union, or at least the Warsaw Pact. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is in its second year now, and the men and women of Ukraine are showing a lot of strength and resolve. Surly Putin is losing sleep over his army’s failure to fulfill his dream of owning such a valuable expanse of real estate, with it’s rich agriculture and gateway to the sea. It was a calculated risk of the tyrant Putin, and it seems now that the calculations were wrong. It’s now a battle of attrition, and Russia still holds the advantage, despite the resolve of the Ukrainian forces armed with modern weapons supplied by a variety of countries, but by a large margin American-made defensive weapons at first, but gradually weapons that could counter-strike invading Russian cannon fodder. Modern tanks are on the way, after diplomatic wrangling with Poland and Germany. Fighter jets are now on the list of weapons needed for the next step in the conflict. There will be more diplomatic back-and-forth before that happens, but it will happen. There’s going to come a a time when Ukraine will have to invade Russia, not just try to keep Russians out of Ukraine. I’m not saying Ukrainian soldiers are going to breach the walls of the Kremlin, but Putin won’t quit until Ukraine takes control of part of what is now Russia. Then there will be incentive for Putin to bargain with the Ukrainian President. I say give Ukraine the fighter jets they want. Give them bombers, too. Let them destroy Russian cities like Russia has done to Ukraine. Let Ukraine destroy Russian cities until Russian soldiers are evacuated from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. Then let the Russian people deal with the tyrant Putin. But we need to do it sooner rather than later, because Putin and the Chinese leader Zi Shinping are starting to work together. Although I suspect Zinping is just going to use Putin because when the whole Ukraine war ends, Putin will be at his most vulnerable, and Zhinpin will be there to take advantage.

1959

The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York. The Barbie Doll. Perhaps one of the most beloved toys ever invented. Barbies adventures were endless, and her desires always met with whatever prop or property required. Little girls loved the variety, and little boys wanted to see what was underneath the shorts and matching blouse. Barbie has made many transitions since then, changing with society’s whims. Her boyfriend Ken came along soon after, then in 1968, Christie came along to add diversity to the line. Christie was an African American friend, but by 1980, Christie was deemed not black enough, so Francie was added to the mix. Even the white Barbie went through different physical changes in facial features and body shape. Instead of being something a young girl can dream about, it’s more like something a young girl can find in her own closet in the morning. Too bad. Today, it’s almost taboo to let young people dream about something they know will never happen. When I was a kid, I had fantasies of being a kung-fu master, and playing drums in a rock band. I wanted to be an astronaut. I knew I couldn’t be all of them. I hoped I could be one of them, and knew the chances were slim. I was ok with that. The Barbie doll did the same for little girls who didn’t care if the body wasn’t anatomically correct. It was just a fun thing to play with until people started persuading others that Barbies should look just as plain as most of us. There’s a difference between a full-figured blonde in a convertible headed to her Malibu beach house who pulls over to pick up a hitch hiker named Ken and an average woman in a minivan pounding For Sale signs in a cul-de-sac. Just what are we letting our kids fantasize about these days, anyway? We’ve may have taken away our children’s fantasies by giving them access to all of the information known to mankind, also known as a phone…. 

1961

Sputnik 9 successfully launches, carrying a human dummy nicknamed Ivan Ivanovich, and demonstrating that Soviet Union was ready to begin human spaceflight.

1967

Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana defects to the United States. She became known as Lana Peters, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. It was quite the coup for America, having the daughter of the leader of the Soviet Union abandon her home country for America. It was a circuitous route, from India to Rome and Geneva, eventually to the United States, where she held a press conference and denounced her father’s legacy and the government of the Soviet Union. She returned to the Soviet Union from 1984 to 1986 and had her Soviet citizenship reinstated. She would return to the United States and spend her last year in Wisconsin. 

1977

Astronomers discover rings around Uranus. Probably from sitting on the toilet for too long.

1981

After 19 years of presenting the CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite signs off for the last time. And that’s the way it was for the final time.

1994

Copyright Law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that parodies of an original work are generally covered by the doctrine of fair use. There should be no restrictions on comedy. Parodies are a form of comedy. All is fair game. The public will decide if it’s funny or not. We heard earlier about a Bishop who decided it was his job to decide what the public should hear or read. We recently had the Biden administration attempt to create a department to decide what was truth and what wasn’t. But in 1994, the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that parodies are allowed. It almost deserves it’s own Amendment to the Constitution, as a continuation of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech. More on that in a moment... 

Phone liner

The freedom of speech, as described in the U.S. Constitution, isn’t as all-encompassing as it might seem. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. I find it interesting that the press was singled out, but I guess our founding fathers felt it necessary. Making no law abridging the freedom of speech would also include the press. But the freedom of speech was a fairly new concept when the Constitution was written, and although it’s recognized by the United Nations in Article 19, which says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” But here’s the catch: That impressive U.N. statement is only a resolution and not a treaty, so it’s not legally binding like the freedom of speech is in the United States. But even the United States has restrictions on the definition of free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater if there isn’t a fire. You can’t make false claims about products on commercials. Speech deserves to be free if it’s speech that serves a good purpose. Does speech have to be true to be protected? Not particularly. Scientific theories that haven’t been proven would be one form of speech that may or may not be true, but certainly deserve to heard. Philosophies and religions say things that make us think or can’t be proven, but as long is it causes no harm, the philosophers and preachers are allowed to continue to say it. Well, at least in America they are. Many other countries aren’t as disinterested in what people are saying. Many countries have strict rules and even criminal penalties for what you say or write. America is one of them. A man was recently ordered to pay millions of dollars to victims of the things he said about a school shooting that he claimed never happened, that it was all a hoax. Sure, he had the freedom to say it was a hoax, but he also has to take responsibility for the harm it caused. But that’s a civil matter. He’s not going to jail for what he said. In many countries, jail, even torture in the form of whipping or caning can be the penalty for saying or writing the wrong thing. Being exiled from your country has also been a penalty for having an opinion or sharing information with which your government has an issue. Alexander Solzhenitsyn comes to mind. He wrote The Gulag Archipelago and exposed Soviet punishment in Siberia. He ended up in the United States, living a private life. As far as the Soviet Union was concerned, that was his punishment. Another example is Salmon Rushdie, who to this day has a bounty on his head by the Iranian government for his book called. The Satanic Verses. Sure, he’s free to write it, but he also has to deal with the consequences. I have a podcast called The Listening Tube. I’ve done 49 of these so far. There’s a good chance I’ve said something somebody else though poorly of. That’s a risk you take when you put your thoughts into a form others can comprehend. It could be through writing or expressed verbally. In the case of The Listening Tube, it’s both written and spoken, just to make sure that if I piss somebody off, I do it in more than one way! But I didn’t create The Listening Tube to upset people, I created it to say the things that the extremists weren’t saying. Because as I’ve said on this program before, it’s often what’s not said that matters the most. Freedom of speech is also freedom of silence. But quite often in today’s environment, silence isn’t a freedom, but a requirement. There are too many people today who won’t express themselves because of the threat of a backlash. It’s safer to keep quiet than to express how you truly feel depending upon the company you keep. So it turns out to be a humorous bait and switch. What was freedom of speech and freedom of silence has turned into compulsory silence and freedom to say what others want to hear. Freedom of speech is a wonderful concept. It’s so liberating that entire governments still can’t comprehend it. Even governments that claim to cherish it sometimes have a hard time defending it. You’re free to way what you wish, but if what you say is wrong, society will let you know. If what you say is right, you never know, somebody else just might agree with you. But right or wrong, you have the freedom to say it if you live in the United States. But you also have the responsibility of what your words might create. Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences.

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2023. Thank you for putting you ear to the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley, for thou ad infinitum.