Season 4, Episode 4 January 15, 2023

Not the Headlines, a crime that could cost you your penis, the separation of church and state, the first transatlantic radio message and prohibition. Plus, what kind of change?
Subscribe to the Listening Tube here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1940478/supporters/new
Want to be a guest on The Listening Tube? Send Bob Woodley a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/thelisteningtube
Hello! And thank you for putting your ear to season 4, episode 4 of The Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. My wife won’t listen to me for 40 minutes, so I’ll talk to you! On this episode, we’ll hear about a crime that could cost you your penis, the separation of church and state, the first transatlantic radio message and prohibition…..but first, (not the headlines!)
For millennia, religion has had a major role in the way we treat the deceased. Rituals and funeral ceremonies have become a part of our cultures, from the ancient Egyptians to today, what happens to our bodies after our spirits move on has been something we contemplate. Very often, our final wishes are dependent on our religious beliefs. Financial commitments also play a role in the route our remains will take to become once again a part of the earth. Aside from a Viking funeral or burial at sea, most of us are interred six feet underground, or cremated, or if you die in New Orleans, you’re put on a shelf until you disintegrate and raked away to make room for the next occupant. While many places are becoming less religious and more secular, there’s been a shift in how we plan for what happens to our remains once our intentions become irrelevant. As the great Rodney Dangerfield once proclaimed, “Country Clubs and Cemeteries: Biggest waste of real estate there is.” So people who haven’t seen the movie “Soylent Green” are looking for alternative ways to dispose of themselves that aren’t rooted in religious bylaws but by environmental guidelines. Personally, I don’t care what happens to my body after I pass on. I don’t need a grave site, or a headstone. All I want is a giant statue of myself at the intersection of Market and Independence Streets in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. So people can look at it and wonder how that guy got a statue. You can throw my body in a dumpster for all I care. I know it’s against the law. They call it “abuse of a corpse” as if the corpse cares what happens to it. For some reason, you, or somebody else has to make a legal decision about what’s going to happen to your body after you’re done with it. Bury it, burn it, donate it to science. Well, now six states have made legal another option: Human composting. The State of New York recently made human composting legal. . California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Vermont had already done so. Instead of being buried in a box or a concrete vault, or being turned into ashes, only to sit on a shelf somewhere, you can turn your body into about a cubic yard of soil. Wait, a cubic yard? Most of us don’t even make up a cubic yard when we’re alive. An Axios story by Alex Fitzpatrick describes the process. In a religious like ceremony called a laying-in, a person’s body is put into a container surrounded by other organic materials. Wood chips and alfalfa among them. A company called Recompose has figured out the procedure for maintaining the proper ratio of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to support the microbes needed to move the process along. Mechanical steps are also needed. By that, I’m guessing they mean they have to stir you around every once in a while. After you’re stirred and possibly shaken for about a month, you and the other ingredients, minus any artificial body parts like dental fillings, will become soil, for your loved ones to do with as they please. Odds are you’ll end up in the garden. Part of my late wife ended up in a flower box in front of the house where she died. Like my late wife, people often die suddenly and unexpectedly. A woman in the story says she found the idea attractive because the month long process means you don’t have to absorb the death so quickly. “...it helps break down the barrier we have between here one minute, gone the next — this invisibleness of death." Plus, according to Recompose CEO Katrina Spade, the process saves about 1.2 metric tons of carbon compared to traditional methods. One-point-two metric tons. The story doesn’t give another parameter, like 1.2 metric tons a year, or a month, so take that for what it is. Either way, it costs about 7-thousand dollars for the service, which is in between a full-blown funeral and a simple cremation. Hundreds have already signed up and are making advance payments. The author of the story was also kind enough to include some background in the practice of composting mammals. It’s a recommended practice in places where there’s little topsoil to farmers and ranchers who find themselves with animal carcasses. Biology is a never-ending cycle of life and death. The death feeds the new life, unless it’s locked in a box or a vault. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It’s a very long cycle for most of us, and if you don’t want to wait until you die to use what your body produces to help the planet, you don’t have to! Unless you’re bald, then you’ll have to wait until you die to help the planet. Because the hair that grows out of your head can have a great impact on the health of our planet. Specifically, our water. As it turns out, human hair has some amazing qualities, and those of us who can grow it on our heads average about a quarter-inch, or about six millimeters of it every month! And not just one hair, but every hair on our heads! That’s a lot of hair! And all of that hair has amazing absorption properties. One kilo of hair, or 2.2 pounds of hair can absorb up to 8 liters, or over 2 gallons of oil and hydrocarbons. One strand of hair can support up to ten-million times its weight! Plus, its keratin fibers make it very elastic. That’s according to a co-founder of a company in Brussels, Belgium that takes human hair and creates large mats made of human hair that are used to soak up pollutants. They’re putting the mats in drainage pipes to soak up fats, oil and hydrocarbons before the water gets to the river. The hair can also be made into bio-composite bags. The story in Reuters describes where the hair comes from: Dozens of hairdressers around the country pay a fee for the Hair Recycle Project to collect the hair they accumulate from their customers. I don’t know if it’s cheaper or more expensive than throwing it away, but the story quotes a Brussels hairdresser as saying she’s motivated to be part of the program because it’s a shame to throw the hair away when so much can be done with it.
There’s a good chance that who ever came up with the idea to use human hair to soak up pollution was extremely bored when that thought occurred. Which would also indicate the person wasn’t a frequent user of social media. How do I know that? Well, according to an article in Communications, researchers in Dublin did a study on boredom. The pandemic of a few years...you thought I was going to say The pandemic of a few years ago, but no. The pandemic of a few years gave researchers a rare opportunity to study what happens when we’re locked down, isolated, and running out of ways to occupy our time. What they discovered is the two levels of boredom first described by the brilliant philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1929: Superficial boredom, which is when you’re getting restless, or you’re stuck somewhere waiting for something like a ride or a meteor shower, and Profound Boredom, which is the kind of boredom you might experience in solitary confinement, or living with a spouse you don’t like anymore. As it turns out, while boredom is most often seen as a negative feeling or emotion, it has benefits. What’s happened is social media has become a roadblock to those benefits, as in today’s society, the moment we find ourselves not doing anything else, we pull out our phones. Because our level of boredom never exceeds the superficial, we don’t reap the benefits of profound boredom. So what are the benefits of boredom? Doctor Timothy Hill, who helped write a study about boredom, time and technology, says boredom can be, “intensely positive if people are given the chance for undistracted thinking and development.” In other words, some of our best ideas come to us when we’re bored out of our skulls. Today’s technology is preventing us from achieving that profound level of boredom, thus depriving us of our most creative thinking and the discovery of new passions. Instead of letting our minds wander, we take it by the hand and guide it through social media posts that have little to contribute to our progress as individuals. And you know what? I get it. Here’s why: One of the things I do is color commentary/analyst for radio broadcasts of High School Football games. We go on the air at 6:30pm, and my play-by-play guy and I are live for the next several hours until the game is over and the post game show is done. Usually around 9:30 or 10 O’clock we turn off the mics and pack up. It’s a very intense time, and you’re constantly living in the moment, first a pre-game show, then watching a play, describing the play, moving on to the next play, a half-time show and so on until it’s over. Once I get home, I don’t turn on anything. I have to wind down. I crack open a beer, and I stand in the living room and think. I also walk around a little bit. But it’s during these moments I think of some pretty cool, or stupid, or profound, or funny stuff. I write a lot of it down, and believe it or not, it was during one of those post-game thought fests that I came up with the idea for The Listening Tube! Whether or not it was a good idea has yet to be determined, but those sessions of quiet introspection have produced some of the most interesting thoughts. Now, I’m not suggesting you start your own podcast, but I highly recommend you spend some quality time with your own thoughts. You might be surprised by what you discover. But in order to do that, you have to allow yourself to become bored. Not just superficially bored, but profoundly bored! I only raised my voice there in case you were actually getting bored. OK, time to move on…
Let’s go back liner
1120
The Council of Nablus is held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were 25 of them, dealing mostly with adultery, sexual relations and theft. But before the laws are presented, they’re justified. Jerusalem had been cursed with mice and locusts for the four years leading up to the Council, and it was believed that the sins of the people were responsible. Therefore, laws were needed to eliminate the sins so that the city could prosper. To that end, adultery was discouraged by the removal of a man’s penis if he’s found guilty a second time. If the adulterer is a woman, her nose would be mutilated unless her husband forgave her, in which case they would both be exiled. Sodomy was punished by being burned at the stake, if both parties were adults. The only exception being if the “passive” partner was a child or elderly person. However, if you repented, you could avoid punishment. Then you could do it again and repent again, but instead of being burned at the stake, you would be exiled. Inter-religious sex was also frowned upon. Any Christian man who had sex with a Muslim woman would lose his penis, and the woman would have her nose mutilated. Theft was also met with harsh punishment. A conviction would cost you a hand, foot or eye. Plus, the stolen good must be returned. If the convicted thief didn’t still possess the goods, he (or she) would become the property of the victim.
1492
The first grammar of the Spanish language is presented to Queen Isabella I. Which means that when Christopher Columbus returned from the New World, he may have sounded funny to the people who were living in Spain the whole time.
1572
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. The Ridolfi plot was a plan to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. Howard’s plan also included him marrying Mary, thus becoming King of England. As a Roman Catholic, he could then pronounce Catholicism as the official religion of England. But two years earlier, Pope Pius V condemned Queen Elizabeth I and excommunicated her. Catholics were thereafter seen as threats, so nine years later, this week in 1581, the English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism. It stayed that way for more than 200 years, until in 1829, Parliament passes the Roman Catholic Relief Act.
1782
Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage, eventually leading to the term “dimebag.”
1783
The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain. So what, you say? Well, the peace treaty officially ended hostilities in the American Revolutionary War! France and Spain supported the colonies in the battle for independence, and played a critical role in ending it. The treaty had 10 articles, only one of which is still in effect. The other nine have been rendered irrelevant by progress. The only article that really mattered is the one still in effect. Article 1, which says, “Britain acknowledges the United States to be free, sovereign, and independent states, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, property, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof.”
1786
The Commonwealth of Virginia enacted the Statute for Religious Freedom authored by Thomas Jefferson. It is because of this statue that Jefferson is credited, or blamed for the “separation of Church and State.” He also wrote the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was a religious man, but balked at the thought of a virgin birth and resurrection. Instead, he saw Christ as a teacher of common sense and morals, and even compiled his own version of the Bible. But it was in 1802, when Jefferson became the third President of the United States, that he wrote a letter to a group of Baptists in Connecticut who congratulated him for his election victory. But because of his religious beliefs, his political opponents accused him of being and infidel and an atheist. When he was elected President, according to a story written by an American University professor, people were scared that their Bibles would be confiscated. Huh, politics. Hasn’t changed a bit. Anyway, Jefferson wrote a letter back to the well-wishers to assure them that their religious liberties would be maintained under his administration. It said, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” Thus, the separation of church and state became a part of the lexicon of American law, established as a precedent by the U.S. Supreme Court, and often interpreted as freedom from religion instead of freedom of religion.
1788
The first elements of the First Fleet, sailing ships carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia, arrives at Botany Bay. A day or so later in 1788, the second group of ships of the First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, bringing even more people and supplies, then also this week in 1788, the third and main part of First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay. Arthur Phillip decides that Botany Bay is unsuitable for the location of a penal colony. There was insufficient fresh water and the soil was poor. Wikipedia says the trees were hard to cut down and the port too shallow. So the gov’na decides to move the penal colony to Port Jackson, just north of Botany Bay. You might be familiar with the area of the former British penal colony. It’s now the site of the Sidney Opera House, often seen on televisions around the world on New Year’s Eve.
1870
A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey. The cartoon was called “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion” and it was drawn by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly magazine. At that time, there were two factions of the Democrat party, those who opposed the civil war and wanted to make peace with the recently defeated confederates, and the War Democrats, who had other ideas. The Donkey in the cartoon was symbolic of the anti-war Democrats, also called “copperheads.” The dead lion in the cartoon was symbolic of President Lincoln’s War Secretary, Edwin Stanton. Ironically, Stanton was a Democrat, and even publicly criticized the Lincoln Administration. But Lincoln hired him because of Stanton’s intelligence and determination in 1862, and Stanton immediately changed the entire Army. The two became friends. IT was Stanton who was at Abraham Lincoln’s side when he died from an assassin’s bullet, saying, “Now he belongs to the ages.” I think the interpretation of the cartoon “A live jackass kicking a dead lion” means that the copperheads weren’t happy with the pace of peace talks and reconciliation following the Civil War. Feel free to draw your own conclusion...or your own cartoon!
1903
President Theodore Roosevelt sends a radio message to King Edward VII: the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States. Well, it wasn’t a radio message like we might be familiar with today…
“Here’s a long-distance dedication from Theodore Teddy Bear Roosevelt to the Big Man, His Majesty King Edward the Seventh in London…
Louie Louie clip
No, it was actually in Morse code. And much to the surprise of Guglielmo Marconi and his four assistants, it actually worked on the first try! The message read: “In taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of scientific research and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting a system of wireless telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American people most cordial greetings and good wishes to you and to all the people of the British Empire.”
Theodore Roosevelt
Wellfleet, Massachusetts, January 19th, 1903
Big deal, you say? Well, six years later, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in physics and his work led to many of the conveniences we have today, such as radar, microwave ovens, cell phones, and perhaps the most influential and life-changing thing ever: Radio.
1915
Georges Claude patents the neon discharge tube in the United States. That’s right, the neon light! Made famous by the Las Vegas strip and Times Square in New York City. Georges Claude was considered the Edison of France. Yea, he was from France. He was already 45 years old when he patented neon lights for use in advertising. But his life was about to get a lot more complicated. When the Nazi’s occupied France in the early 1940’s, he was a Nazi collaborator, and when France was liberated in 1944, he was arrested. He spent about five years in prison for propaganda, and lived for another 10 years, passing away in in 1960 at the age of 89. He had other scientific breakthroughs, but the neon light he invented will forever burn an indelible vision of a brand of beer in our minds.
1919
Boston Molasses Disaster: A large molasses tank in Boston, bursts and a wave of molasses rushes through the streets. Now, the speed at which molasses rushed through the streets is relative. You might think that a herd of gazelle would be a lot faster than a wave of molasses. And you would be half right. While a gazelle can reach 60 miles per hour, they can only sustain speeds of 30 to 40 miles per hour. The speed of the molasses wave was 35 miles per hour. The two-point-three million gallon wave reached a height of 8 feet! It killed 21 people and injured 150. So, from now on, if somebody tells you the person at the DMV moved at the pace of molasses in January, you may safely conclude that speed was 35 miles per hour.
1919
The United States ratifies the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorizing Prohibition in the United States one year later. The amendment had been proposed about 13 months earlier. It was the result of decades of work by members of the Temperance Movement, who believed that if we didn’t have alcohol, we wouldn’t have poverty and other social setbacks. Some of the other social setbacks included immoral sexual behavior, which at that time, had a much different definition than it does now, and violence, which for some people is spot on. The temperance movement is often seen as a group of crabby old ladies who don’t want anyone to have any fun. Quite the opposite. The temperance movement believed that the absence of alcohol would, according to wikipedia, “inspire new forms of sociability, create happier families, reduce workplace accidents, and improve the world overall.” That does sound better, doesn’t it? Alas, that wasn’t the end result. The amendment gave everybody a year to prepare for it, and most of us did so by figuring out how to find alcohol, or how to make money selling alcohol. Speakeasies and organized crime filled the need, and the men who transported the liquor from where it was made to where it was sold became today’s NASCAR series of stock car races. Prohibition would last until 1933, encompassing the Roaring 20’s of the 20th century. The Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution repealed the Eighteenth, and sent the responsibility of alcohol regulation back to the individual states. While many states now have liberal alcohol laws, that wasn’t always the case. I lived in Leavenworth, Kansas in the mid-1990’s, and if I woke up on a Sunday morning to discover I didn’t have any beer in the fridge for watching football, I had to wait until noon and then drive over the state line to Missouri to buy some. Not only that, but in Leavenworth, you had to be a member of a bar, any bar, to have a drink there. It cost 11 dollars to join a bar. Your membership would not become valid until two weeks later. But the 21st Amendment was seen by most as a victory for personal freedom; one less way the government intrudes on our lives. A recent Supreme Court decision also returned regulatory authority to the State level. Repealing Roe vs. Wade essentially did the same thing. It turned over to the States the responsibility for regulating abortion. That’s what the 21st Amendment did for alcohol. While the 21st Amendment is seen as a success for personal freedom, the abortion ruling is seen as a restriction of personal freedom.
Phone and email liner
The world is full of slogans. From advertising jingles to political statements to words of inspiration, Slogans have been used to influence what we buy. “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer.”
“I like Ike.” was a slogan used to elevate General Eisenhower to the President of the United States. The founder of the Oakland Raiders inspired his team with, “Just win, baby!” You may have even been inspired by a poster with a photo of a cat hanging from a tree branch with the caption, “Hang in there.” And by golly, you did! Mostly because you had to pay the rent, but partly because of the poster! Slogans are a powerful tool when it comes to making people act and think in a certain way. We generally accept them as a part of our culture, just like a billboard that we hear instead of see. Like a lie, a slogan can sometimes become truth if it is repeated enough, even if the slogan is false. The more vague a slogan, the more likely it’s being used in a misleading way. “If you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer.” is a very specific slogan about one particular brand of beer. Miller High Life. The slogan was also a jingle that included the brand of beer in the lyrics. People all over America knew, or know what brand of beer is available when you have the time. “I like Ike” was about a specific person. An Army General running for President of the United States in the early 1950’s, when the threat of communism was ever-present and America needed a strong leader, but also a nice guy. We already knew General Dwight Eisenhower was a strong leader, “I like Ike” made him human, too.
The Oakland Raiders of the 1970’s were a force to be reckoned with. They were often the most penalized team in the NFL, yet they overcame it to produce victories. Their owner, Al Davis, didn’t seem to care how the victories piled up, as long as they did. Rules had to be put in place because of the way the Raiders found ways to win. Hence the slogan, “Just win, baby!” and they did. Until they had to play the Pittsburgh Steelers. But his players and coaches knew exactly what he meant. When you know exactly what a slogan means, and you agree with what it says, it’s easy to jump on board and express your support. You might even repeat the slogan, and that slogan might even become part of American folklore. Like “Jump the shark.” Just be careful which slogans you choose to support, because, as I’ve already mentioned, the more vague a slogan, the more likely it is to be misused. Advertising and political slogans were, at one time, very specific in the product or person it was promoting. You either liked Ike or you didn’t. But there’s a slogan being promoted by the National Football League called Inspire Change. You can sometimes see the phrase on the back of some players helmets. It’s the NFL’s way of getting involved in social justice initiatives, which they agreed to do in negotiations with the players union a few years back. And just as social justice is a very vague description of something, so is the phrase, “Inspire Change.” “Inspire Change” might just be the dumbest slogan in the history of mankind, as it doesn’t even indicate if said change should be for the better or the worse.
“Gee, wiz, this is working great!” too bad we have to change it! Should we always strive to improve? Yes. Should we do something in a certain way because it’s always been done that way? No. But we shouldn’t change things just for the sake of change. There’s also a slogan that says, “If it works, don’t fix it.” So “inspire change” is one of those vague phrases that an entity like the NFL can use to claim they’re doing their part to whatever. Inspire change doesn’t really tell you what kind of change we’re supposed to inspire, or expect. The NFL’s inspire change web page describes 32 different people who are receiving help from the NFL to pursue their goals. Some are very admirable: Feeding the hungry, helping athletes improve academically, improving the lives of wayward veterans. Some are suspect: Mentorship programs that seem to exclude white kids, initiatives promoting equity that discriminate. But by putting everything under the same umbrella of “inspire change” you’re not allowed to criticize the initiative without also being accused of racism or some other form of prejudice or bigotry. So, using a slogan so vague as to encompass a variety of causes will also result in being shamed for disagreeing with anything covered by the umbrella. “Oh, you don’t like equity initiatives? You must also hate veterans!” Instead of putting “inspire change” on the backs of the helmets, they should have been more precise, such as, “support Judge Dominique Collins.” or “support Van Brooks.” You can look them up later if you wish. But the bottom line is that the NFL took the easy way out with a slogan so vague it can me misinterpreted. If you don’t look at the website, “Inspire Change” can be anything you want it to be. If you want to inspire change in the tax code, the NFL’s got your back! If you want to inspire change in the way grass grows, the NFL’s probably already looking into it. If you want to inspire change in the defensive pass interference rule, even the NFL can’t define what “inspire change” means.
Inspire change is a slogan meant only for those of us who are unhappy! In that regard, the campaign couldn’t have come about at a better time! Most people are unhappy right now. Unhappy about the economy, unhappy about inflation, unhappy about our energy dependence, unhappy about the invasion of our southern border. How could you possibly go wrong with a slogan like inspire change? There’s a lot that needs to be changed in our society right now. There’s a lot that needs to be changed in our government right now. But somehow the change the NFL campaign is talking about isn’t the same change our country needs right now. The change the NFL is advocating is for abstract goals like social justice and equity; goals forced upon them through union negotiation. The NFL is grasping at straws to find worthy beneficiaries that meet the strict criteria of the so-called “advocates for change.”
On the other side of the coin, you’ll find the people who are happy. The people who aren’t calling out for change. There are many people who like many of our societal norms. These are the people who like things the way they are. But there is nobody calling for us to “inspire the status quo.” It’s much harder to show that what we have now is as good as it’s going to get, than it is to imagine how things might be better. So we often confuse change with improvement. We assume that different is better. That’s not always the case. “Inspire change” is a perfect example of how we can be led to support a cause that has no clear direction, and may even lead to undesired results. The timing of such a slogan was perfect, as most Americans are unhappy with the current federal administration. At the same time, most conservatives see it as a liberal slogan, and wonder why the NFL is even getting involved in social issues. But here’s where I think the problem lies. Much like the left believes the right has commandeered the American flag, the right believes the left has commandeered the word “change.” Just as the left sees the stars and stripes as a threat to change, the right sees change as a threat to the stars and stripes. As a result, the left has been able to use the promise of change as a selling point while the right has been relegated to trying to inspire the status quo. I’m sorry, but even the mind that came up with “I like Ike” can’t come up with a slogan that somehow inspires the status quo! I don’t think, “Vote Joe for the status quo!” would work. Nor would, “If you want to keep it the same, then Joe’s the name!” It’s much easier to convince people that things would be better if they were different than they would be if they stayed the same. But that’s not always the case. Sure, we want progress. Sure, we want innovation. Sure, we want improvement. But let’s not equate change with progress, innovation and improvement. Change for the sake of change is merely an exercise in control. When you advocate for change, make sure it’s a focused change, something you’re sure you believe in. Try to not get caught up in vague slogans like “inspire change” or “yes we can” or “make America great again.” Don’t get me wrong, they’re all good slogans, but we need to peel away the layers of broad statements and determine if the slogan has any real meaning or if it’s just a way to lead us in a direction we wouldn’t go unless we were led there like sheep. A good slogan is like a pied piper leading the way to another destination. The problem is, slogans like “inspire change” and “Black Lives Matter” don’t have a specific destination in mind. There’s no specific goal that we can achieve if we work together; an open-ended charade with no clear goals. A meandering route to no where in particular. But if you don’t get in line, you subject yourself to criticism and labels like “racist” and “white supremacist.” Even if your skin isn’t white! So, be careful which slogans you champion. You might be leading yourself down a path of never-ending pursuit of an ideal that hasn’t been defined. It’s ok to inspire change, but be careful what changes you promote. Change isn’t always a good thing.
The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2023. Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.