June 25, 2023

Season 5, Episode Ten June 25, 2023

Season 5, Episode Ten  June 25, 2023

Send us a text In Not the Headlines we hear about a terrorist trial in Russia, a plan to manage plastic, and a new law in Missouri that accomplishes nothing but theater. Bits of History include Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, great British boxers, the National Organization of Women, and what may or may not be a banner day in gay rights, which is also the theme of the Epilogue. Support the show Subscribe to the Listening Tube here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1940478/supporter...

Send us a text

In Not the Headlines we hear about a terrorist trial in Russia, a plan to manage plastic, and a new law in Missouri that accomplishes nothing but theater.  Bits of History include Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, great British boxers, the National Organization of Women, and what may or may not be a banner day in gay rights, which is also the theme of the Epilogue.   

Support the show

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

00:35 - Not the Headlines

20:24 - History

30:43 - Epilogue

Hello! Thank you for putting your ear to The Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. I once met Debbie Reynolds at a highway opening in Las Vegas. She didn’t know who I was, either, so you’re in good company! On this episode, we’ll hear about the lottery, boxing, and how conservatives blindsided a Michigan city, and these aren’t MAGA Republicans. But first, (Not The Headlines)!

We haven’t talked about the war in Ukraine on the program for awhile. Well, it’s still going on. It seemed, from a news standpoint, that the conflicts were in sort of a stalemate over the winter, and everyone was gearing up for the spring. The prevailing wind was that Ukraine would enact an offensive, and it would be up to the Russian forces to find a way to stop it. To make a point, the tyrant Putin moved nuclear weapons into Belarus as the Ukrainian counter-offensive was about to get started. While the news of the war seems to have increased, we don’t yet know if either side has given their wherewithal to win. 

What we’ve learned from watching is that western weapons have a distinct advantage over the aggressor’s. With the right training and tactics, the Ukrainian military has done an excellent job of repelling the invading forces; forces that are more depleted than Moscow ever thought they would be. Once we give the Ukrainians fighter jets, the tide will turn. How Putin responds will be an important point in world history. The tyrant Putin has shown himself to be nothing more than a kidnapper and extortionist on the world stage. He’s led his country into a war that winning would provide them with nothing more than fertile farmland and a port, while invading another sovereign country would bring a wave of condemnation and sanctions from most of the civilized world. Losing wasn’t even part of the plan. As you may recall, the tyrant Putin thought the invasion would be over in a few weeks, and his forces would be greeted as heroes. 

While Putin keeps throwing his own people at the war he started, he also has imprisoned many Ukrainians, as well as vast numbers of children who will no doubt grow up in Russian schools now instead of Ukrainian schools. Let’s not forget them, or the twenty-two people facing trial in Russia, accused of terrorism. Normally, people who are captured during wartime are classified as such, and not subject to trial unless they committed a war crime. All is fair in love and war doesn’t always apply, according to the Geneva Convention. So, who are these war criminals facing trial in a Russian court? What sort of atrocities did they commit to be so damned for something they did during war? How could they have done something so heinous that even the Russians find it to be beyond the limits of war itself? Do they even deserve a trial?

Well, let’s take a look at it. Right off the bat, two of the group who were captured and categorized as part of the same group were used in prisoner exchanges. That’s not surprising, as prisoners are often exchanged during wartime. But it was only two out of 24. The other twenty-two are considered terrorists, and will stand trial in a Russian court, not as soldiers, but as terrorists. So, who are they, and what did they do? Well, you may recall hearing about a group of soldiers holed up in a steel mill in Ukraine. They were the last remaining forces in the battle for Mariupol, part of the Azov battalion. Azov was such an elite battalion that they were able to hold off the Russian army trying to take the port in Mariupol for three months. They were forced to surrender in May of last year, and now, more than a year later, they’re facing trial in the country that invaded their country. All because these 22 remaining so-called terrorists did what any patriot of any country would do. No doubt, they’ll be found guilty and sentenced to long prison terms. Possible sentences run the gamut from 15 years to as much as life in prison. That will give the tyrant Putin more pawns with which to play his dastardly game of chess. Oh, did I mention that eight of the 22 terrorists are women who cooked for the soldiers? That’s right! Putin is charging the people who feed Ukrainian soldiers as terrorists.

unfinished business liner

You may recall hearing on the Listening Tube about microplastics. They’ve infiltrated our food and water, our bloodstreams and our brains. Well, it turns our somebody was Listening! Pun intended! A United Nations treaty concerning plastics was agreed upon in Paris that would cut plastic production by 80 percent by 2040. Implementation may begin as soon as 2025. It wasn’t an easy negotiation, but a story by Emma Bryce in the Guardian says 180 nations and/or nation states agreed to a legally binding treaty to regulate the entire life-cycle of a plastic product. Almost four-hundred tons of plastic are produced every year, with an increase expected in coming decades. Already, our oceans are littered with an estimated 14-million tons of plastic a year. The story didn’t say, but I would imagine that a lot of it is for consumer packaging. Plastic beverage containers line the giant coolers at every convenience store. Rows of consumer goods at each supermarket encased in plastic. Plastic bags are still used in most parts of the country to take home you plastic packaged goods. Plastic is dominant in the interiors of cars and airplanes, but they have a longer usefulness to us than the one-time use plastic soda bottle or margarine tub, or ketchup bottle.

Something has to be done to manage the world’s plastic, from the time it’s produced to the time it’s discarded to when it becomes used to make something else. 

So why wasn’t this an easy negotiation? Seems like a no-brainer to limit the effects plastic has on our environment by using it in a more responsible way. Of course, the plastics industry lobbied hard against more regulation, but you’d expect that. Delegates also heard from a variety of other non-government groups like civic organizations, scientists and people who rely on plastic waste to eke out a living by harvesting it. The story called them waste-pickers. They were given limited seating in the room as compared to the people who are creating the plastic. There’s a long history of people relying on disposed-of plastic to make a living. People in the Philippines were known to go through piles of trash to find plastic bags they could wash and resell as far back as the 1980’s. Apparently it’s enough of an occupation that the UN felt compelled to recognize their opinions. As it turns out, they say if the rest of us got our wish and eliminated single-use plastic products, they would be deprived of earning a living. But the problem has got so bad on some south Pacific islands that the larges mountain on the entire island is the pile of empty soda bottles. Once they’re brought to the island, they have no where else to go. There’s no mechanism to manage the product once the consumer purchases it and throws it away, and the plastics industry isn’t convinced it’s their responsibility to manage that. 

But the agreement just made is only an agreement on what should be included in the actual agreement. Don’t ask me, I don’t know why the UN has an extra step. But the trail has been blazed for where the world wants to go when it comes to plastics and the process of making it, the forever chemicals involved in the process, and how it’s managed post-consumer. 

Illinois has become the first state to outlaw the banning of books by libraries. That’s the same state where it seems like dozens of people are shot every weekend. But the taxpayers of Illinois can be proud of their state legislators and their governor passing a redundant law for the political theater not quite worthy of a Shakespeare play. As a side note, my word processor just told me I spelled Shakespeare wrong, when in fact, Shakespeare himself spelled it at least three different ways. Two examples of over correcting where no correction at all is necessary. The first being the Illinois law against banning books. We already have that. It’s called the First Amendment. Illinois’ law will cut off state funding to any library in the state that even tries. The Governor of the state made the redundancy of the law perfectly clear when he was quoted by CBS Chicago as saying, “Book bans are about censorship; marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts. Regimes ban books, not democracies." That’s right, gov’na! Our Constitution makes that perfectly clear.

So why did Illinois think they needed a law about it? While the story originated from CBS Chicago, the story I read came from the Associated Press. The story said, “The new law comes as predominantly Republican-led states continue to restrict books some consider offensive in schools and libraries across the country.”

Before I go any further, let me make it clear right now that there is no such thing as a banned book in the United States of America. There are age restrictions on some types of material such as pornography or graphic descriptions of it. Most Americans agree that kids should be protected from certain content. The line in the AP story is correct. It says, “restrict books some consider offensive” and that’s exactly what has been done since I was a kid. That’s nothing new. But activists use the word “ban” because it sounds a lot worse if you put it that way. It’s another way the media is used to try to manipulate us. Make a law against something that’s not happening and tout your success as thwarting some sort of imagined authoritarianism. Patting yourself on the back for solving a problem that only existed in your mind. 

So, what are libraries in Illinois supposed to do now? How can they fit every book in every library?

"We are not saying that every book should be in every single library," said Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who according to the story, is also the state librarian. Alexi also was the driving force behind the legislation, which was defined in the statement, "What this law does is it says, let's trust our experience and education of our librarians to decide what books should be in circulation." 

I don’t know about you, but it sounds to me that the power of deciding what books are in your local library and the library at your child’s school now lies with the Librarian. That means that in the state of Illinois, only librarians have the power to legally ban a book. They do, however, have rules to follow, as the Illinois law mandates that the librarians follow the American Library Association guidelines, or the misnamed Library Bill of Rights. There are seven of them. Here they are: 

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation. That sounds fair. The extent to which those resources can be provided will depend on the size of the library.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. Don’t hide the present, don’t hide the past. Got it.

III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment. Odds are, any censorship that’s gonna happen happened long before the book got to the library. Publishers and editors do more censoring than anybody when they decide which books will get printed in the first place. Libraries really don’t have any influence there. A library can only provide what’s available.

IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas. Now, here’s where the librarians get out of the library. This has nothing to do with books or music or anything else a library provides. This is a call for activism, albeit for a good cause. 

V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views. This, too, isn’t about what’s in the library, but who’s allowed to enter. Notice age is not something that can be restricted. People of all ages may enter the library.

VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use. Yes, we should all share the library.

VII. All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect people’s privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information. So, if you’re looking at pictures of naked people in a book or on a computer at the library, they promise they won’t tell anyone. But the person next to you might.

The library bill of rights also comes with deeper interpretations of them, and they’re listed on the American Library Association’s website. These interpretations are accompanied by the ALA’s statements on where they stand when it comes to specific things like age and origin of material. Here’s where the Librarians and the majority of American’s disagree. The Librarians are forbidden to restrict what a visitor can view based on the visitor’s age. So any kid can walk in and ask to be guided to the pornography section, if the local library has one. Whether or not it has one is up to the local librarian. In Illinois, that means even the library in your kid’s school can have a section of books that show or describe pornography. Illinois has given the go-ahead to libraries to be a free-for-all, with no rules or guidelines as to what may or may not be appropriate for your child. There was a time when the library was a safe place for children, but now it depends on the librarian’s morals in the state of Illinois. 

But we can’t have books being banned! The First Amendment to the US Constitution says so. And now Illinois law says so, too. And it’s a good thing, because the website of the American Library Association has a tab on which you can click to find all the banned books. You know, the real juicy ones that are so much fun to read that we have to keep them off the shelves. But before you get there, they have a tab with an updated guide to LGBTQIA+ books for children and teens. But when we click on the Banned books tab, something strange happens. The banner says “Banned and Challenged Books.” So there’s a list of banned books…

Look that up liner

They have a list of the top ten most challenged books, but no list of banned books. That’s because, like I said earlier, there are no banned books in the United States of America. A look at the 13 most challenged books reveals that every single one of them has sexually explicit content. More than half of them have sexually explicit LGBTQIA+ content. All of the descriptions say, “claimed to be sexually explicit” as if nobody from the Library Association read any of them.

The law goes into effect on January 1st of next year. After that, you can count on a lot more challenges to books in school libraries in the state of Illinois. That will surely be used as an argument that more attempts are being made to ban books, when in fact, no books are being banned at all. It’s just a word game the left is playing to turn public opinion about morals and children’s innocence into something evil. There are things kids shouldn’t see, and we can no longer count on our school librarian to protect them if they follow the American Library Association guidelines, or Bill of Rights. 

There was a time when the school librarian was a sideline player to most students. Now they may be as influential as any teacher. What happens if a teacher assigns a book the library doesn’t carry? What happens if the librarian starts targeting students with reading suggestions to influence the student’s views? Who’s in charge of hiring the librarian at your child’s school?

Banned books aren’t a problem, as any book ever written is available to any American adult in some form of media, be it physical book, downloaded e-book or however the written word may be distributed. Don’t fall for book-banning rhetoric. Even the American Library Association can’t name a single banned book, even though they have a category for them on their website.

Let’s go back liner

1882

Charles J. Guiteau is hanged in Washington, D.C. for the assassination of U.S. President James Garfield. A lot of people forget that President Garfield, along with Lincoln and Kennedy, was assassinated. Unless your mom went to Garfield Elementary school the year it burned down. Then you never forget it.

1886

The first transcontinental train trip across Canada departs from Montreal. It arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia on July 4. Port Moody? How the hell are you supposed to prepare for arrival at a place called Port Moody? Did you have the option of just staying on the train? No, Martha, really. It’s fine. I’ll just eat my sandwich right here. 

1943

Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved. Present-day Tokyo is not a city at all but an area of Japan that includes 26 cities, as well as 23 special wards, 62 municipalities, 5 towns and 8 villages, all of which have their own governments. It’s a relatively large area for Japan, and one of the world’s densest populations. You’ll find an average of 16-thousand people per square mile, or 61-hundred per square kilometer. 

1948

Shirley Jackson’s short story The Lottery is published in The New Yorker magazine. I had an English teacher in middle and high school who would show the film of this story in her class every year. I had Mrs. Zelinski for English class in 7th, 9th and 10th grades, so I saw it at lease three times. I never understood why she wanted us to see it rather than read it, considering it was English class. I found it to be quite disturbing, and one scene became particularly memorable to me. Spoiler alert! It was the scene of a woman handing a stone to a little boy, encouraging him to participate in the activity that resulted from the premise. I can still see it, like a still photo, even though it was a film. Nothing against Mrs. Z, though! She was a delightful teacher who loved the English language and she not only let us, but helped us discover all the different ways reading and writing and speaking can add value to our lives. For as much as I was bored with most of my high school classes, I found English class to be the most entertaining. Teachers like Mrs. Zelinski helped make it that way for me, even if she did make me watch a movie depicting a short story that would leave half of today’s students in a state of shock. The Lottery would have trigger warnings all over it, in rainbow colors, flashing lights and a siren that turned on when you opened the DVD case. But at least it wasn’t Shakespeare. 

1948

Boxer Dick Turpin beats Vince Hawkins at Villa Park in Birmingham to become the first black British boxing champion in the modern era. Well, what a coincidence...my favorite British boxing champion is also black! Lennox Lewis. What a dangerous gentleman. I was at the post-fight press conference for Bowe-Hollyfield III at Cesear’s Palace in Las Vegas, covering the match for CBS Radio. I had my tape-recorder all set up and ready to go, when I look to my left and notice Lennox Lewis standing there, waiting, like the rest of us, for the press conference to start. I figured I better take this opportunity to introduce myself. I walk up to him and say, “Hi, Mr. Lewis. I’m Bob Woodley from K-News radio and I just wanted to let you know I’m a big fan.” We shake hands, and while we’re shaking hands, Riddick Bowe walks on to the stage, and Lennox Lewis yells up at him, “Hey, when are you gonna fight me?” Bowe’s reply was, “When are you gonna start winnin’, faggot?” I pulled my hand away lest I might get accidentally dragged to the stage by an enraged Lennox Lewis. But like a true gentleman, he kept his cool. Plus, Lewis already beat Bowe before, as an Olympic athlete at the 1988 Seoul Games. Lennox Lewis was so good at boxing that both Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson refused to fight him until they ran out of excuses. In fact, Mike Tyson gave up the Heavyweight Title rather than fight Lennox Lewis. After our handshake, Lennox Lewis went on a winning streak. I’m not saying it’s because of our handshake, but that doesn’t mean Lennox Lewis isn’t saying it. So, for the record, Mr. Lewis, if you’re wondering who the white guy was who was shaking your hand when Riddick Bowe called you a faggot, and if that moment changed the trajectory of your career, it’s me! I’m the white guy who was there at that moment!

1963

ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail. What’s the most famous zip code in America? Is it Beverly Hills 90210, or is it this…

Zoom song

1966

The National Organization for Women, the United States’ largest feminist organization, is founded. I”m guessing the National Organization for Women doesn’t exist anymore. I could be wrong, but it seem to me that right now is one of those pivotal times in American history that we need an organization focused on the advancement of women’s causes to step up and protect women’s sports from the invasion of men pretending to be women. If the National Organization for Women doesn’t see the need to intervene in the assault of women’s rights in sports, then you might wonder why such an organization is needed at all. Based on the reaction so far, I’m going to continue believing the National Organization for Women no longer exists. You had a good run, though. Women can now wear pants to the office. Good job.

1969

Stonewall Riots begin in New York City marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement. Since then, all kinds of other sub-groups have latched onto their coattails. The transexuals, queer and two-spirit people have all found room under the Gay umbrella. Maybe it’s time the gay community begin focusing on their own issues again, and abandon the other groups that are more show than anything.

1971

The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve. That’s the exact opposite of what happened to the people on the Titan submersible in the north Atlantic Ocean last week.

1978

The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time in the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. The Pride Flag has undergone some design modifications over the years, with new categories added. More on that in just a bit.

1978

The United States Supreme Court, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke bars quota systems in college admissions. This week, the US Supreme Court is once again looking at a similar system, that of using race as a factor in admissions at all. There are contradicting views on the benefits of using race as a factor in college admissions. The colleges and universities love the idea, as it gives them an excuse to create a diverse student body. The problem is, it also creates the illusion that people of color need special consideration to make it into college. It’s an insult to the people of color, and a roadblock to fair acceptance standards. We’ll hear how the Supreme Court sees it later this week.

1990

East Germany accepts the Deutsche Mark as its currency, thus uniting the economies of East and West Germany. Prior to that, the people of East Germany uses what those in the West called Eastmarks. The exchange rate was interesting. You couldn’t use American dollars to buy Eastmarks. Only West German money could be exchanged for Eastmarks, and boy did you get a lot of them! I literally had to buy another wallet while in East Berlin just to put all of the East German money in! Both of those currencies have since been replaced by the Euro. However, I still carry a one phenig piece in my wallet. A phenig was the west German equivalent of an American penny, but only worth about a third as much at that time. Even though a phenig had little value, not having one could cost you plenty. Because in West Berlin back then, anyone in a bar could call a “Phenig Check.” Anyone who didn’t have a phenig was responsible for buying the bar a round of drinks. Because I’m cheap, I still carry a phenig in my wallet, just in case.

Phone and email liner

Someone once said, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” and it’s a phrase that’s even more accurate today than when it was first said, however long ago that was. I’m not gonna look it up. The point is that strange bedfellows is now more literal than figurative. That seems to be a particular problem for one marginalized group. After the terror attacks in 2001, Muslims were viewed with suspicion, if not outright disdain, by many. It was tough to be an America-loving Muslim, and many right-wing extremists were hostile to Muslims living in America. As a marginalized group, they became a champion liberal cause, and the Muslim community accepted the morale boost. What the left didn’t realize at the time was that Muslim beliefs and leftist beliefs were contradictory in a number of very important ways. But especially in one way. The difference in conviction became apparent recently when a majority Muslim city council banned pride flags from being displayed. That’s right! Pride flags, the rainbow-colored with additional colors and angles that has evolved over the years, the flag that symbolizes the gay people and all the other varieties of people other than heterosexuals, has been banned by the City Council of a Michigan town. Surely, it must be a violation of the First Amendment!This wasn’t some plot to gerrymander and force an agenda down the throats of a willing populace. This was a city council that was celebrated by the media and the left as a success in multiculturalism when it became the first majority Muslim City Council in America back in 2015, according to a story by Michael Deacon. It’s a city in Michigan called Hamtramck, which I’m only going to try to pronounce that one time. If you want to see how it’s spelled, you can look at the transcript. Anyway, no more Pride Flags are to be displayed in town unless you’re proud of being a heterosexual. I don’t think we have a flag for that. We probably never figured we’d need one. Well, you don’t in that Michigan city!

The recent decision to ban the Pride flag has left a lot of lefty’s flabbergasted. They supported the Muslim enclave and even helped elect Muslims to important positions all the way to Congress. Now, they’re stuck between a rock and Mecca, wondering what the hell happened! If the people represented on the pride flag want to claim discrimination, City Council can simply say, “you voted for us.” 

City Hall was packed with residents who cheered when the resolution was passed. It didn’t just sneak through. It wasn’t some middle-of-the-night deal. A former mayor of the city who was quoted in the story said this wouldn’t be such a problem for the left if the City Council was Christian. She said liberals would have know exactly how to respond. “Denounce the council for its queerphobic bigotry, and lead a furious protest march against heteronormative, patriarchal white supremacy. Simple.” There’s that word Heteronormative again. We came across that one on a recent episode. If heteronormative wasn’t such a long word, heterosexuals might be able to use it on their flag. But I’m sure heterosexuals don’t need a word to establish that heterosexual is normal. Personally, I don’t see how heterophobic people didn’t see this coming from a mile away. It only takes a brief look at laws in Muslim countries concerning sexuality. According to USA Today, in Yemen, if you’re a single gay guy, you can get 100 lashes or a year in prison, whichever you might enjoy least. If you’re a married gay man, death by stoning. Gay women get up to three years in prison. Boy, talk about sexual discrimination. In Iran, a man was hanged for having gay sex in 2019. Death by stoning is also the preferred punishment in Mauritania. In Qatar, gay sex will get you seven years in prison, but extramarital sex of any kind is punishable by death. Is it any wonder a City Council of Muslims would outlaw pride flags? Couldn’t heterophobics recognize that Muslims might be more conservative than Christians? There’s certainly plenty of evidence to support the possibility. The possibility also exists that there are Muslims in America who are gay, and they came here to they could be without the possibility of the death penalty hanging over them; preferring something else to be hanging over them. So in that sense, someone who practices Islam would probably be less conservative and more liberal. But we certainly can’t assume all the Muslims in this Michigan city are homosexuals or some other category represented by the pride flag. The cheering that occurred when the resolution was passed would be evidence that most are not. 

This turned out to be a terrible miscalculation by the liberal party planners. The Muslim City Council that was celebrated by the left is now in charge of the celebration, and one of the left’s most championed sub-categories is no longer invited. To the Muslim City Council, the people represented by the pride flag are the pork chops of the pot-luck that is the Democrat Party. The big tent may have got too big, and now the party that wants you to fly your own flag has found some of the flags don’t get along. The winds of change may be blowing those flags in different directions. Sure, politics and religion shouldn’t influence each other, but they do. How will a Muslim city council in Michigan that bans the pride flag effect the next election? How with the lines be drawn moving forward? Will the left abandon Islam as it has Christianity? Will the people represented by the pride flag become islamophobic? Are Muslims homophobic? Will the Democrats cast out the Muslims for their conservative values?

The liberals have tried to pull so many minorities into the tent that they forgot to check their credentials at the door. It turns out, just because you’re a minority doesn’t mean your liberal. The left learned a valuable lesson from a town in Michigan. Wait until they find out how conservative Mexicans can be.

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.