Season 5, Episode Eleven July 2, 2023

On this episode, Not the Headlines examines a new holiday in New York City and new laws in California. History touches on a show in the sky, a friendly reunion of enemy soldiers, and sliced bread. The Epilogue takes a critical look at Affirmative Action.
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00:37 - Not the Headlines
18:13 - History
22:25 - Epilogue
S5E11
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 hypothetical global panic, and a friendly gesture in an abbreviated history segment, and that’s because I had too much to say about the Affirmative Action ruling by the Supreme Court. I was going to use soundbites from President Biden, but I didn’t have time to fit those in, either. But first, (Not the Headlines!)…
There are some new laws for the people of New York City and the Republic of California in the works. In New York City, the Mayor is proposing adding a new school holiday to the list of school holidays to recognize Diwali. Diwali is also known as the festival of lights, and it sounds like a worthy celebration and a fun one, too. I mean, any day you don’t have to go to school is a fun one, right? But the origin of the word and the meaning of the holiday are what appeal to me. It comes from Sanskrit words, one of which, avali, means a row, range, continuous line, series, and the the other, dipa, meaning a lamp, light, lantern, candle, that which glows, shines, illuminates or knowledge. So the Sanskrit word dipa, equates light with knowledge. I like that. So, the literal meaning is a row of lights. But it could also mean a row of really smart people.
“This is a city that’s continuously changing, continuously welcoming communities from all over the world,” the New York City Mayor said in announcing the new holiday. “Our school calendar must reflect the new reality on the ground.”
But in New York City, it’s easier to light a lamp than it is to educate a child. Although, getting the children to stand in a row can be a challenge! So schools in New York City will literally be using a holiday that equates light with knowledge as an excuse to give kids there a day off from school. But if the reality on the ground is really changing that much, it’s certainly appropriate to accommodate another culture’s customs with an acknowledgment. So, just how many people celebrate this holiday in New York City? Well, it’s observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and even some Buddhists. Well, that sounds like it could be a lot of people in a melting pot like New York City. New York City has such a diverse population that any minority is still represented well. The story, reported by Fox News, the New York Daily News and others, says there are more than 200,000 New York City residents who celebrate Diwali. That’s about twice the number of people who live in my entire county! But in New York City, is it a lot? Well, the population of New York City is currently about 8-million, 804-thousand people. So if 200-thousand of them recognize Diwali, that would mean that 22 one-thousanths of the population is effected. Twenty-two people out of a thousand. If you were to turn that into a sort-of scientific equation, you would say 22 parts per thousand. By comparison, salt water is generally regarded as 35 parts per thousand. So, by comparison, it’s a very small percent of the population. Even smaller would be the number of school children who would celebrate Diwali. But now, more than 1-million kids will have a new school holiday. Millions of parents will have to figure out how to get to work that day while the kid or kids are at home. Child-care will have to be arranged, lunches will have to be made. Families all over New York City will have to adjust to a school holiday. A school holiday that’s meant to celebrate light and knowledge. But not this year, because Diwali is a holiday based on the Lunar calendar, so it can occur in October or November, and this year it falls on a Sunday. November 12th. It seems this performative gesture is actually even less than that. At least this year. Kids in New York City won’t get an extra day off, unless, of course, they just don’t go in the following Monday.
This week, a bunch of new laws go into effect in California. I loved living in California. Port Hueneme was so welcoming and beautiful back in the mid 1980’s. I don’t know what it’s like now, as I haven’t been there in decades, but one of the things I remember from living there was the system of California’s government. It seemed like every election, the population had the responsibility to vote on all kinds of laws that most states decide at the Legislative level. If you could get enough signatures, you could get the whole state to vote on something. You still can. The ca dot gov website even tells you how many signatures you need to get. I didn’t like the system myself, as it made me wonder why we needed state representatives. Isn’t it their jobs to vote on all that stuff? I think it’s much safer to have laws decided under the decorum of a state legislature rather than the will of mob mentality. Regardless of how they became law, there are several worthy of attention. As many of you already know, fads, customs and laws that begin in California often spread east across the country. That’s why the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act might be of interest to the gun shop owners in states with large numbers of hunters. This new law, which is in effect as you’re hearing this, as are the other new California laws we’ll talk about, makes it easier to file civil suits against retailers should a crime or perhaps even an accident happens with a firearm that was bought at your store. The story in the Sacrament Bee says the new law creates a new firearm industry standard of conduct. But then it goes on to say that firearm dealers will be required to establish and enforce practices that would prevent the sale of guns to traffickers, anyone else who’s not allowed to own a gun, and anyone the seller would have reason to believe is a risk to anyone, including themselves. So California made a law that makes gun retailers make up their own rules and also enforce them. Then it makes it easier for anyone who is a victim of a gun crime, public officials, and the Attorney General to file lawsuits against the industry members for violations of their own rules.
Now, you might be thinking, “Gee, Bob, if the gun stores can make up their own rules, it should be easy to follow them.” And you would be right. But that’s not the most important part of the new law. That just puts more unfunded mandates on the gun retailers in order to harm them financially and add layers of red tape. It doesn’t really matter what rules they come up with, it’s only meant to add to the complexity of selling guns in the first place; to discourage more people from opening gun stores. Plus, it adds more ways for mistakes to happen for which the retailer can be held responsible. For example, let’s say a man displays a handgun in a bar or on the street, and somebody calls the police. The guy is arrested for brandishing a weapon, made to pay a fine, and is set free. A week later, there’s a two-paragraph story about it in the local newspaper’s Police Blotter section. Should that person be allowed to buy another gun? Is the publication of the story in the newspaper enough to provide probable cause that a gun dealer would or should be responsible to know? The ambiguity of the law leaves a lot of room to play with the livelihoods of those who legally sell guns in California. But there’s one more part of the law that’s even more ambiguous. The law “prohibits the manufacturing, marketing, importing or offering to sell any gun deemed “abnormally dangerous.”
Now, despite earning my Small Arm Expert ribbon in the Air Force in 1985, I’m not a gun expert. But I’d be willing to bet that any gun more powerful than a pellet gun could be found “abnormally dangerous.” A .22 caliber might just make it under the threshold, but other than that, pretty much all guns are “abnormally dangerous.” But hey, that’s just my opinion. How much danger is normal? Who decides that? Which guns are only “normally dangerous?” Does it have to be able to blow my whole arm off, or does it have to it a vital organ to be dangerous? The ambiguity is the minefield of the law. What will happen is in California, a study will conclude that most gun deaths are caused by .38 caliper handguns. Then, statistically, .38’s can be defined as “abnormally dangerous” because they have a higher death rate when compared to other “normally dangerous” guns. But then once the death rates for the .38’s drop below the second-highest type of dangerous weapon, that weapon, let’s say it’s a .45, will then become the top killer, and thus, “abnormally dangerous” enough to be banned from being legally sold.
It’s a brilliant but long-term strategy to insure that someday, only criminals will be able to buy guns in California.
What else is on the docket? How about a law that permanently seals your criminal records four years after you’ve paid your debt to society and didn’t get in any more trouble? Well, America is the land of opportunity and second chances. The story says there are 8-million criminal convictions on record in the state, of which 225-thousand will be vacuum-sealed from the start. A million more through the result of petition. The disparity between the the number of convictions and the number that will be sealed is proportional to the number of repeat offenders. Many convicted criminals will simply get some of their records sealed, but not those accumulated in the last four years.
So, if you’re a one-time offender, you get to clear your name more quickly. That can give you more job opportunities as long as you stay out of trouble moving forward. Sex offenses, however, are not sealable. My motto is: It’s easier to stay out of trouble than it is to get out of trouble.
Juneteenth will now be an official holiday in California, following the federal recognition last year. So, just like Diwali, we’ll have to wait another year before we can officially celebrate.
But another California law now in effect as we speak is one designed to crack down on stolen goods being sold on the internet. The law will target “high-volume, third-party sellers.” Those deemed as such will be required to provide bank account information and other data, including contact information.
This is clearly a reaction to the high levels of retail theft going on in many California cities. Brazen criminals in large groups can be seen on video storming retail stores and taking whatever they can. Many businesses simply closed up and left many urban areas. The theft then went high-end, with famous-name boutiques and flagship stores being tested on a regular basis, knowing the employees are instructed to not intervene. The internet is certainly a convenient place to fence stolen goods, so California will try to keep track of who’s stealing stuff based on how much stuff they’re selling on-line. It’s a shallow gesture meant to pacify those big-name retailers who are simply moving out of California altogether. It won’t help, as the people who are stealing the merchandise will simply find another way to make it available to the willing buyers. In the meantime, the laws regulating theft will remain the same. The laws regulating theft are the reason for the theft in the first place. And in some places, even those laws aren’t being enforced. Even if they were, the benchmark for prosecution is so high that nobody will ever be held accountable. Well, maybe the websites that enable the fencing, even though they have no control over what people are selling in real time. This is a prime example of ignoring the root cause of a problem and instead trying to regulate the resulting problems. There might not be any “high-volume, third-party sellers” if there were better laws against stealing the stuff in the first place! When you tell the potential criminals that they can steal up to 900 dollars worth of stuff, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Especially if they know they can probably go over that amount and still get away with it. When liberal District Attorneys turn their backs on crime, the result is easily predictable. Trying to create laws that only deal with the aftermath is not only a waste of time, but also an insult to anyone who sees the real problem and how foolish it is to only treat the symptoms.
Meanwhile, companies are leaving California. Stores are being boarded up. They cite the inability to keep their employees and customers safe. The food deserts and lack of competition result in higher prices for the products that are still locally available. Those who stay rely on package delivery, and even that service is threatened.
Considering the social and environmental conditions in some of the most beautiful places in the United States of America, it may come as a surprise to hear that nearly half of the state’s residents are considering leaving. A USA Today story points out that the high cost of living in the Golden State has become a deterrent to staying there. As a result, the population has declined for three years in a row. Even immigrants, who for a long time were a major contributor to California’s population and diversity, have decided to move elsewhere. The story attributes the high cost of living to the demand for more housing. There aren’t enough houses, so the ones that are there now keep getting more expensive. The part that I found interesting was that even though there are record numbers of homeless people in California, even though there are more people there than there are places for them to live, even though there are empty office buildings, and property is sold not by the acre but by the square foot, the biggest problem California has with housing isn’t all the homeless people, but creating more purchaseable homes.
Homeless people are harder to count on a census, and as long as California’s homeless aren’t accounted for, it’s representation in Washington will diminish along with it’s population decline. At some point, California will be nothing more than homeless encampments surrounded by wealthy blind people. But California is certain that it can maintain or increase its population as long as they can create more homes that people can buy. The only way to do that is to sacrifice agricultural land. Agriculture is the protein of the California economy. The question is: How much agricultural land is California willing to give up to achieve their goal of stopping the exodus?
The sad part is, while the goal of California is to maintain or increase their population, none of the proposed solutions addresses what can be done to make the people who are living on the streets part of the solution. California wants to attract more residents by finding places to build new homes in order to make them less expensive while more than a hundred-thousand people are living in tents on city streets and along public beaches. When you live in a socialist state, it’s all about the tax base. That’s why California’s taxpayers are leaving in droves. What will be left? My guess is beautiful, empty homes and the strip malls that come with them, on what was once fertile farmland.
Let’s Go Back liner
1054
A supernova is seen by Chinese, Arab, and possibly North American observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough in the sky to be seen during the day. Its remnants form what we now know as the Crab Nebula. The Chinese and Arabs have records of it. But what we don’t really know is what the people thought about it. Did they take it in stride? Did they panic? Did the novelty eventually wear off? It’s fun to think about. Also fun to think about is what would happen today. Various religious groups would declare the end of the world. Various environmental groups would declare the end of the world. Various governments would appoint special committees to study the impending end of the world and how to pay for it while the teacher’s union won’t go back to school until there are enough tin-foil helmets for everybody.
1754
French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces. I guess it wasn’t that necessary after all!
1776
The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain, although the wording of the formal Declaration is still being debated and put to paper with quill. It would be final and approved two days later, July 4th. The day The United States of America becomes an independent country. It will have to fight a war to keep it that way.
1863
United States begins its first military draft; exemptions cost $300. That would be about 72-hundred dollars today. Of course, you can’t buy your way out of Selective Service today, but you can lie about an injury or get a psychiatrist to say you’re crazy. When I was joining the Air Force, I had to convince a psychiatrist that I wasn’t crazy. Go figure. Luckily, I was able to pull the wool over his eyes. Nice guy, though. He gave me a glaring review.
1886
The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States. The people of the United States would accept the generous offer while wondering, “Where the hell are we gonna put it?”
1913
Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913, 50 years later, reenact Pickett’s Charge. My wife and I visited one the Gettysburg battleground sites recently that included a part that was under Confederate control at the time of Pickett’s Charge called Devil’s Den. The landscape there is so rocky and exposed and mountainous that to fight a battle like the kind fought during the Civil War is unimaginable today. When the same men rushed those hills at a much slower pace 50 years later, they were met by the outstretched hands of friendship from survivors of the Union side.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “best thing since sliced bread,” it’s because this week in 1928
the Chillicothe Baking Company of Missouri sells the first pre-sliced loaf of bread. That also means there’s practically nobody on the planet who predates sliced bread.
Phone and email liner
The definition of Affirmative, according to the dictionary, is an adjective used to describe an answer when that answer is in agreement, or to describe positive, or affirmative influences.
It can also be a noun, as the affirmative statement is a thing.
So, for example, gender affirming care can be described that way because it’s an attempt to make a person’s body agree with what’s in their mind.
So, what exactly is Affirmative Action? According to a story by Emma Sarran Webster in, believe it or not, Teen Vogue, it was President Kennedy who used the term to describe his order to government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or natural origin.” You might notice that the statement doesn’t say anything about giving anybody special treatment, only that we’re all treated the same, regardless of our color or ancestry.
Today, Merriam-Webster describes Affirmative Action as: the use of policies, legislation, programs, and procedures to improve the educational or employment opportunities of members of certain demographic groups (such as minority groups, women, and older people) as a remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against such groups.
Originally, Affirmative Action only applied to government contractors. It still does. It also still exists at America’s service academies like West Point. The military says they need it because there is an unequal proportion of minorities in the officer ranks as compared to the enlisted men. They want them to more closely resemble each other for a variety of reasons.
But not everybody is in the affirmative when it comes to affirmative action. In fact, seven states have prohibited the use of affirmative action. Oklahoma is the latest state to ban affirmative action, according to Pew Research. That happened in 2012. Before that, affirmative action was banned in New Hampshire, Arizona, Nebraska, Michigan, Florida, Washington and perhaps the most liberal state of all, California. California was the first state to jump off the Affirmative Action bandwagon back in 1996.
But Affirmative Action found a home in post-secondary education where states allowed it. While it had good intentions; creating a more diverse campus population, it began to be used to pit one minority against another. It wasn’t “are you a minority” it was “which minority are you?”
The federal Affirmative Action policy covers not only minorities, but also women (who are actually a majority), disabled people, and old people. Colleges seem to have made up their own rules about the categories, favoring certain minorities over others. That’s what happened at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The lawsuit that made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States wasn’t brought by a majority group, aka white people. No, it was brought by Asian-American students who were being discriminated against because of their race. The Supreme Court agreed that these two Universities were employing discriminatory admissions policies that were based on a person’s race. The Universities maintained that it was justified in order to insure diversity on campus. The Supreme Court ordered an end to it when it comes to college admissions.
Here’s what I can’t help but wonder: If ending Affirmative Action in college admissions will be harmful to diversity, does that mean that the people who decide who gets admitted to their university are all racist? Will the delicate balance of the campus population be thrown out of whack without policies that favor certain minorities over other minorities? Or will only majorities get in? Will our colleges and universities be packed with white women? It seem the same people arguing for Affirmative Action in college admissions are the same people in charge admissions! Don’t they trust themselves to make good choices? Probably not, if they need Affirmative Action to affirm their choices. “We need affirmative action, otherwise we’ll only admit white people!” is not a good argument to put before the Supreme Court.
Regardless of the argument, the Constitution of the United States already addressed the issue. It’s one line in the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment covers a lot of administrative stuff, but it starts with the definition of an American citizen and restricts states from making laws that impede the federal standards, and prohibits denying any citizen equal protection of the laws. Affirmative Action, in the way the colleges were applying it, did not treat applicants equally by giving preference to one minority over another, based on their race. A majority of the Supreme Court recognized that, but three of them didn’t. So what were their arguments for keeping Affirmative Action? Well, in dissent, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the 14th Amendment doesn’t impose a blanket ban on race-conscious policies. Some programs during reconstruction were made specifically for recently freed slaves. Certainly they were needed at the time. She argues that colorblindness isn’t the objective of any equal rights law. The newest justice, Justice Jackson, who couldn’t define a woman in her confirmation hearings, said this, “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life." Perhaps the new Justice doesn’t yet understand the job of a Supreme Court Justice. Her Let them eat cake comment indicates she sees the six consenting Justices as ignorant of what’s going on in the streets of America. Her “pulls the ripcord” comment makes me wonder if she reviewed any precident cases, as this subject has come before the Supreme Court before, in both 1978 and 2006, and that seven states have already banned Affirmative Action. The last part of the quote, “deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life” paints Justice Jackson as an activist on the bench. The work of a Supreme Court Justice is to interpret the law without regard to how it effects life, unless it’s a state law restricting the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. I don’t need your opinion about life, Justice Jackson, I need your opinion about law. That’s your job. That’s the job you wanted enough to sit there and stare blindly when asked what a woman is. If you want to be an activist, resign.
To me, the saddest part of this whole decision is that, once again, one minority is being recognized while others are ignored. Nearly everyone who has a negative opinion about this case calls out how it may effect black people. But Affirmative Action was meant to also protect other minorities, women, old and disabled people. I haven’t heard a single thing from any dissenters about how it might effect those other groups. The reason why is obvious. It was one of those other groups that brought the lawsuit in the first place. Asian-Americans who felt Affirmative Action was not working for them, but against them. Affirmative Action was being used as a tool to by college admissions at Harvard and UNC to discriminate. In this case, discriminate against Asian-Americans. So, who was to benefit from the discrimination? Well, certainly not the old people. Probably not handicapped people. Women, as I’ve noted earlier, are a majority, not a minority. So who’s left? It would seem to the dissenting Justices and the talking heads on television that the only minority group left is colored people. People of color. Not me, though, ‘cause my skin’s kinda pink. Wrong color. I guess there aren’t any other minorities out there that will be harmed by this ruling. Does that mean Affirmative Action wasn’t helping any other minority? That seems to be the case if the only minority being harmed by its removal is the Black minority. Justice Sotomayor said, “Ignoring race will not
equalize a society that is racially unequal.” That’s true Justice Sotomayor, but congress cannot create a law that will, nor is it the responsibility of the Supreme Court to find a way to interpret them in such a way as to equalize society. Only birth and death rates can do that.
In the meantime, President Biden has come down firmly against the ruling, pledging to find a way around it, and threatening “legacy admissions” as a way to put colleges on notice that they better find a way around the ruling themselves or face the Biden wrath. Legacy Admissions are those of alumni and professors children getting accepted automatically. Plus there are those who’s clout determines who gets in and who doesn’t. By the way, did you know that Hunter Biden’s daughter got into the University of Pennsylvania after then Vice-President Joe Biden made a phone call to the University President? There were many candidates more qualified, and the granddaughter was even warned that her Senior year of High School needed to show some improvement, and she should also join the Lacross team. According to a story in the Washington Free Beacon that examined emails from the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, It took more than one phone call, of course, but Hunter and Joe pulled as many strings as possible to get it done. There was even a meeting between the three of them at Joe’s beach house. Hunter himself even canceled a meeting with the Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast to attend a meeting with the University President at the Vice-President’s residence because dad said he had to be there. No mention of why Hunter Biden was supposed to meet with the Prime Minister of the Ivory Coast, of course. Now, there’s a Penn-Biden Center where he hid classified documents that, as a Senator, he wasn’t even allowed to remove from the building where the belonged. Oh, and that University President is now the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. The relationship that resulted from the current President’s granddaughter’s dream of going to Penn has paid off for both the Univeristy and for the Bidens. The University brought in more than a billion dollars of foreign funding for the Penn-Biden think tank, and Joe himself was paid over 900-thousand dollars by the University for little more than attending public events at the campus. Maybe President Biden feels guilty for depriving a more worthy student a slot at Penn, so he pretends to stand up for the same people he used his clout to outflank, while threatening to take away the same privilege from others.
Perhaps we are at a reckoning. Maybe America is finally waking up to the fact that we can fight discrimination in a different way. Maybe being colorblind is a better course. After all, if Affirmative Action is needed because we can’t trust college administrators to be fair, or if Affirmative Action is needed to keep college administrators from being fair, then it’s a flawed system coming and going. Justice Sotomayor can cite all the post Civil-War policies she wants. At that time, there was an emphasis on helping the newly-freed slaves. Today, there are a myriad defined minorities in the United States of America, and any policy that favors one over another is unconstitutional.
As for legacy admissions, let the President carry through with his threat. Let’s put an end to legacy admissions and deny the children of alumni and professors unqualified admission or preferential treatment. If you want to break the cycle of systemic racism, as the left constantly preaches, let’s start with equal opportunity based on knowledge and skill, regardless of race and pedigree. Maybe the law doesn’t have to be colorblind. I don’t know. But we can start with colorblind admissions to our institutes of higher learning. If the goal of Affirmative Action is to promote diversity, then charge the most intellectually gifted of us with finding a way. Remove the barriers of race and privilege from college admissions and watch to see if our lives are improved by diversity of thought rather than diversity of skin color. Then, maybe our elementary and high schools will be more interested in teaching intellectual success rather than social acceptance.
There is one more thing about this issue that bothers me. In order to get around race-based evaluation, the Biden administration, with help from the majority opinion, has suggested instead using the struggle of a person’s life journey instead. We can’t judge you on the color of your skin, but we can listen to the horrible life you’ve had to endure to get this far. My fear is that if the race card is no longer valid in college admissions, but hardship is, then to what lengths will parents go to put their children through hardship in order to increase their chances of acceptance to a prestigious school? Will it result in abuse? How much sympathy will “growing up in the ghetto” get compared to “Found my school uniform to be humiliating?”
Let’s face it, as long as there is a search for ways to admit anyone but the best and brightest a college can attract, there will be discrimination of some type. There will be discrimination against a minority to benefit another minority, or there will be discrimination to benefit a minority over a defined majority. There are many minorities that could suffer harm through Affirmative Action and only one majority. That would be women. To keep Affirmative Action policies in effect to protect minorities, old people, women and disabled people would only be excluding one segment of our society: white men. Today’s Affirmative Action isn’t the Affirmative Action President Kennedy talked about. Kennedy’s Affirmative Action was equal treatment for all when it came to employment and treatment thereafter. Today’s Affirmative Action is a bitter remnant of what it was meant to be. Today, Affirmative Action is an excuse to justify racial stereotyping and quota percentages to meet the needs of performative justice or some other guilt-enabled comeuppance. Perhaps without Affirmative Action and legacy admissions, we’ll finally find out which of our colleges and universities are actually worth the investment, which ones can stand on their own merit and the value of the education you get there. Maybe then the influence will have no weight. Maybe if we improve early education, colleges will have more diverse candidates. Thank goodness one of those marginalized groups came forward to expose the inequities of Affirmative Action.
The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2023. Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube. Subscribe today. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.