Season 5, Episode Three April 23, 2023 Kids these days

Hello! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about gunpowder, newspapers, and three of my favorite things: girls, girls, girls. Plus, kids these days...including (not the headlines)…

The only reason this qualifies as a Not the Headlines story is because the Network News gave it absolutely no airtime when it happened. That’s the story about large groups of young people, mostly teenagers, wreaking havoc in neighborhoods of large cities. Most recently, Chicago and a suburb of Los Angeles. In Compton, California, a large mob of people in their teens and early twenties barged their way into a convenience store and ransacked the place. They emptied the shelves of alcohol, cigarettes, condoms and everything else they could use or sell. I’m glad they took condoms, as we’ll be better off if people like this don’t reproduce. The lone employee locked herself in the bathroom until the coast was clear. The police were outnumbered. The store lost thousands of dollars worth of products. The assault was a tributary of what’s now being called a “street takeover” which also included cars drifting and doing donuts. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department told ABC News that because they have limited staff, being outnumbered by the mob prohibited them from law enforcement because of safety concerns. In other words, the police couldn’t do their jobs because they no longer have any authority. Unless, of course, they can assemble a posse larger than the mob. Even though there’s plenty of video of the mob breaking down the door and ransacking the joint, no arrests have been made. Not a mention of it on network news.

In Chicago, mobs of teens have terrorized the general public on two recent occasions. The first also described as a “street takeover” that resulted in innocent people being beaten, cars set on fire, and large amount of property damage. The Mayor-elect made a statement in which he condemned the violence but justified it by blaming society for the lack of preoccupation young people have today. In other words, it’s our fault because we haven’t given the kids enough other stuff to do. Like it’s every one elses job to entertain young people. Even if that was a good excuse, which it isn’t, these events are happening when kids should be home, if not in bed sleeping. The most urgent question we need to ask is, “where are the parents of these kids?” More on that in a bit. The second event in Chicago was the ambush of a young couple who was knocked down and beaten by a mob of teenagers who even posted video of the attack online to brag about what they’d done. In the melee the couple was robbed of their shoes and phones, as well as a watch. The man suffered a shiner on his right eye and a swollen nose, among other injuries, the woman suffered damage to her face. Both are traumatized for life. A good Samaritan took them to a nearby hospital for treatment. Afterward, it was revealed that the police drove by while the attack was happening, and just kept right on going, as if it was none of their business. How useless must you feel if you’re a Chicago cop. Or an L.A. cop. Knowing that even if you do your job, even if you follow all the rules, go through all the training and procedures, even if you take the time to get out of the car and make connections with the people, even if you make an arrest for what should be an open and shut case, you know you don’t have the backup by the local District Attorney to prosecute the charges. It’s like printing a newspaper that no one reads, or having a radio station and no one listens, or making steel that nobody uses to build something. All of your hard work and dedication to your community is cast aside as if it’s a burden. Today’s big-city cops are being outflanked by the very people elected to prosecute those charged with crimes. District Attorneys in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City, among other places, are decriminalizing criminal behavior to the point that certain places let you steal what doesn’t belong to you without penalty. You can steal whatever you need up to a certain value without the police even coming when they’re called. Is it any wonder our young people don’t have any respect for authority or property? Is it any wonder mobs of young people are assaulting innocent people on the street? The police aren’t enforcing the law because it’s a waste of time to go through the hassle of making the arrest and filling out the paperwork only to see the alleged criminal back on the street before the ink dries. And not a word of it from the network news. But Bob, these are isolated incidents! IT’s just one or two gangs of kids doing one or two things that are against the law. Or is it? Just in the last week, two teenagers were shot because they were where they weren’t supposed to be. One young man was shot because he rang the doorbell at the wrong house, and a young lady was shot because the car she was in pulled into the wrong driveway. We’ve got to the point where people are scared of what might happen, and take preemptive measures, regardless of the credibility of their fear. Shoot first, ask questions later, if you will. This isn’t the kind of world in which we want to live. This isn’t the kind of society we aspire to be. It’s said that those who give up freedom for security have neither. That might just be where we are right now. We may have to relinquish freedom, but with weapons, we can take security into our own hands. When criminals are let loose among us for the sake of protecting the criminal, people will take it upon themselves to provide security. The Second Amendment not only guarantees that right, but prohibits the government from infringing upon it. When political powers allow criminals to commit more crimes, the people have to take matters into their own hands. That’s what we’re witnessing. 

Sometimes being arrested is what a young person needs to get their life back on track. It’s better for that to happen while the kid is young. When you’re young, you can get away with a little more than you can when you’re an adult. Most of the time, arresting a kid can be the best thing to happen if the kid wakes up and smells the roses. American freedom is all about second chances. But with freedom comes responsibility, and the sooner you learn that, the better. These mobs of kids have the freedom to assemble, but they also have the responsibility to act in a civil manner and show respect for other people, who are also free to enjoy their lives without being attacked. The lack of law enforcement in large metropolitan areas has led to anarchy. There are tangible results to show the negative effects of lawless policies. From drug stores locking up things like toothpaste and razors because of rampant theft, to entire chains of stores closing because they can’t keep their employees safe, large cities are suffering an exodus of business and citizens. Unless the local governments can figure out a way to maintain soft-on-crime policies while still maintaining social order, large cities are destined to become oasis for what will become a cancer on the rest of society. Unlike a cancer, the cause of this disease is obvious. The push to decriminalize even the most violent crimes in the name of equity or criminal justice is just a way to excuse criminal behavior by making the criminal the victim. “It’s society’s fault he has to steal to survive” or “it’s not her fault her father abused her and she killed the family next door.” Sure, America’s a place of second-chances, but where do we draw the line? Well, some places have abandoned the line all together. America is now a place for never-ending second chances, even if you don’t need them. After all, you don’t need a second chance if you’re not held responsible in the first place. 

The Mayor-elect of Chicago told us to not demonize the kids who are committing crimes. They don’t have anything to do in their own communities, he said. Is that a reason to gather in gangs and commit crimes out in the open without fear of prosecution? Because in Chicago, it sure looks like that’s what’s happening. In Compton, it looks like that’s what’s happening. Teenagers so bold and confident that there will be no repercussions for their criminal behavior as long as they assemble in groups large enough to deter law enforcement. Plus, some jurisdictions won’t even prosecute retail theft under a certain dollar amount, so as long as you stay under that amount, which I believe is around 80 or 90 dollars, you have nothing to fear from law enforcement. But if a mob of a hundred all take just under a hundred bucks worth of stuff, that adds up to a significant loss for the proprietor, and that doesn’t even include property damage, which is rampant in these so-called “teen-takeovers.” 

Our big-city police have become desensitized since the Death of George Floyd and the riots that followed. Cities across the country found themselves being held hostage by opportunists pretending to be social warriors. Weak city leaders let the bleeding hearts dictate policy, calling it the Summer of Love, and pretending everything was fine while the media called the rioters “mostly peaceful protesters.” People saw how spineless city leaders could be, while the city leaders thought they were helping the very people who were about to take advantage of some misguided sympathy for what has become a lack of morals for fear of being labeled the wrong way. Now, it almost seems like the only way to get any attention or even try to make a societal change is through violence. Those not willing to resort to violence will try to be the loudest. There’s no room for reason without talking points. There’s no way to justify compromise anymore without being called a traitor. So while the right calls for stricter law enforcement, the left finds themselves trapped in a spiral of criminal behavior created by the notion that the criminal is the victim. It’s not their fault they were bullied in sixth grade! As long as we keep making excuses for teenage criminals, we’ll keep digging a deeper hole for them to climb out of. 

America does incarcerate a lot of people. Our prisons are often overcrowded. Judges have had to order places like California to lower the prison population because the facilities weren’t built for the load. The United States is compared to China for the number of people in jail. Here’s the difference: America is a free country. China will put you in jail for a lot more benign reasons, like political dissidents. But in America, we were given enough rope to hang ourselves. There was a line you knew you didn’t cross, and if you wanted to stay out of trouble, you didn’t cross that line. Now, it seems the line keeps getting harder and harder to reach, to the point that you almost have to kill somebody in order to be arrested. Other than the question, “Where are these kids’ parents?” we should be asking ourselves, “How much more of this should we tolerate as a civilized society?” There’s a fine line between civilized and uncivilized. Civility seems to be optional for many young people today. The parents don’t want to hold them accountable. Law enforcement tries to hold them accountable, but the legal system has found a way to pity the criminal while browbeating the victim for their intolerance of made-up mitigating factors. There’s more effort put into protecting the criminal than there is protecting the victims. If somebody grows up being beaten by their parents, there’s a good chance they’ll grow up to be violent. We’re not allowed to assume they will, but if they do, we attribute it to childhood trauma and justify the behavior. But we also blame society for the negative effects it has on people, as if society plays an active role in the actions of an individual. Well, here’s a thought: You can’t blame society if only a small percent of the population practice criminal behavior. It can’t be society’s fault if most people not only cope with it, but find it quite satisfying. Most of us live normal lives without ransacking the local convenience store or beating up random couples walking down the street. If society were the problem, we just might! But we don’t. So you can’t blame society. It’s a personal responsibility to act in a respectful manner, aligned with societal expectations, and not infringe on other people’s freedoms and property. When the absence of personal responsibility crosses the threshold of law-abiding citizen, people need to be held responsible. Especially young people. It might be the only chance, the only excuse they have to put themselves on a path to productivity in a civilized society. Let’s not give up on our young people by making excuses for poor behavior. While we’re at it, maybe we should also reward good behavior instead of demonizing the young people who try to talk instead of scream. 

Let’s Go Back liner 

1503

The Battle of Cerignola is fought. It is noted as the first battle in history won by small arms fire using gunpowder. Even though gun powder was invented in China nearly 5-hundred years earlier, this battle was fought between Spanish and French armies in what is now Italy. According to wikipedia, Both had help. The Spanish were joined by German pike men, wielding their long spears, which were common weapons of the time. The French had Swiss pike men. Both had cannons. But the Spanish army of about 63-hundred men were able to defeat a nine-thousand man French army with small arms fire. The Spanish had about a thousand men armed with long guns called arquebus’s. That was the difference. 

Here we are nearly five-hundred years later, still using gunpowder to win battles. Unfortunately, there seem to be many of us who use gun powder for nefarious purposes. People are shot and killed every day all around the world, and we continue to grapple with the causes and the cures. Some people blame the guns that put gunpowder to work. Other people blame the people with the guns. Still other people say that even without guns, bad people would still find ways to kill other people, while depriving potential victims of an effective tool for self defense. So you have catch phrases like “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” or, “Citizens don’t need weapons of war.” I find it interesting that very little attention is given the the gunpowder, or the bullets. When I lived in West Berlin, it was an occupied city, and the occupiers made the rules. If you were a citizen of West Berlin and you wanted to collect guns, you could. What you couldn’t collect was the ammunition. Hence the catchphrase, “Guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.” Humans have been firing bullets at each other for almost five-hundred years. Bullets and guns are valuable tools for defense and deterrence. 

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is written in a slightly different style than many of the other parts of the Bill of Rights. For example, the First Amendment dictates that no laws shall be created that prohibit freedom of religion and speech and the press. It also guarantees other rights like to peaceably assemble and petition the government. But the Second Amendment tells us that a well regulated militia is necessary to a free state, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. So, unlike the First Amendment, which prohibits the creation of laws that would violate specific rights, the Second Amendment doesn’t prohibit the creation of laws about the right to keep and bear arms. So what did they mean when they wrote “shall not be infringed?” 

Look that up liner…

Werriam-Webster defines infringe as “to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another.” Now, I’m no legal scholar, but the way I read that in relation to the Second Amendment, is that the government can make any laws regulating guns they want unless those guns are part of a well-regulated militia. And we do have laws about guns; about who can own them, where they can be used, what type of gun, et cetera. So the Second Amendment doesn’t prohibit the government from making laws about guns, it merely prohibits the government from in fringing, or encroaching upon our right to keep and bear arms in a way that violates the law. But they make the laws. And the National Rifle Association and similar groups know this, and that’s why they raise and spend millions of dollars on lobbyist to make sure that the laws aren’t created in the first place. I wish I had the answer to the problem of people killing other people with guns. I don’t. 

1704

The first regular newspaper in the United States, the News-Letter, is published in Boston, Massachusetts. I wonder what the last newspaper in the United States will be. I printed newspapers for 20 years of my life, from California to Kansas to Pennsylvania. I worked on all kind so printing presses. It was a great job, with tangible results of your work at the end of the shift. It was a dirty job, too. Ink and grease and oil and paper dust and other chemicals were a part of everyday life. Clean fingernails were out of the question. I asked my first pressroom foreman, Ralph Martinez at the Oxnard Press-Courier, how to get my fingernails clean. He’d been in the profession for along time, so I figured he’d have some tips. You know what he told me? “Make a meatloaf.”

Today, newspapers are being tossed on fewer and fewer porches. My wife recently canceled our local newspaper delivery. I got it for free for a long time, since I could just take one that I printed, but for the past 10-plus years we’ve had it delivered. It’s now printed in an off-site location in another city, and printed circulation has dropped to a fraction of what it was 10 or 20 years ago. All the guys I worked with now have other jobs, including me. I got out before the local press went silent, and I’m glad I did. It’s all on-line now, and you can subscribe to it.

1910

Theodore Roosevelt made his The Man in the Arena speech. It was actually called the “Citizenship in a Republic” speech, and it was just one of many speeches the former American President made while touring northern Africa and Europe following his presidency. According to Mental floss dot com, he was in Paris, and was greeted by 25-thousand people who wanted to hear what he had to say. He used part of this speech to raise an eyebrow to cynics who were quick to point out the mistakes of people trying to improve society. He drew huge applause when he said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” 

1951

American journalist William N. Oatis is arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. Today, a Wall Street Journal reporter is imprisoned in Russia. He’s accused of espionage. Like others, some of whom have been released and some of whom who have not, he’s now a pawn in the giant game of chess the tyrant Putin is playing with the West. Meanwhile, Ukraine is still under attack. 

1965

Teenage sniper Michael Andrew Clark kills three and wounds six others shooting from a hilltop along Highway 101 just south of Santa Maria, California.

1982

57 people are killed by former police officer Woo Bum-kon in a shooting spree in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea.

1989

The deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 1,300, injuring 12,000, and leaving as many as 80,000 homeless. Then just two years later, this week in 1991,

Seventy tornadoes break out in the central United States. Before the outbreak’s end, Andover, Kansas, would record the year’s only F5 tornado. Climate change! Said nobody.

1994

Former Central Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia. But post ‘em on the internet, and you’re just a kid trying to impress his friends.

1996

In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more.

1999

In Alberta, Canada, 14-year-old Todd Cameron Smith fires upon three students, killing one and wounding another in the W. R. Myers High School shooting.

2002

Robert Steinhäuser infiltrates and kills 17 at Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot.

See, it’s not just the United States. Five-hundred years of people shooting people.

2003

Beijing closes all schools for two weeks because of the SARS virus. Huh. 

2003

The Human Genome Project comes to an end two and a half years earlier than expected. I guess we’re not as complicated as we thought we were.

Phone and email liner

In case you haven’t noticed, women are under attack in a way that they have never been before. While the culprit is the same, the tactic is fairly new. It’s men who are still attacking women, but this time, men are coming at them from an angle we haven’t seen before. Which reminds me of an old Wolfman Jack bit where he says, “Baby if you got the curves, I got the angles!” There was a time when that was funny. One could interpret it as mathematical humor. I’m just gonna pause here while you giggle. Now here’s the funny part: That old Wolfman Jack line is now considered more offensive than the fact that men are pretending to be women and beating them in sports. That’s an angle Wolfman Jack probably didn’t consider. But we have to consider it now. As I’ve said on this program before, if you truly believe you were born in the wrong body, I hope you can find the help you need. But when you take medical steps to change your gender, then you disqualify yourself from athletic competition that has male and female designations. You have rendered yourself neither. 

That’s why when a Supreme Court nominee was asked to define a woman, she wouldn’t. Even though she could look in the mirror and describe herself. She said she can’t define a woman because she’s not a biologist. More recently, in the last week, the Biden Administration’s Secretary of Education refused to define a woman in a hearing about the boundaries of Title IX. In case you don’t know what Title IX is, it’s basically laws that insure equal opportunities for women in scholastic and college sports. The Biden Administration wants to include transsexuals under Title IX protections. Therefore, if anybody in the Biden Administration defines a woman, Title IX automatically excludes transsexuals. There is no way to define a woman that also includes someone who was previously a man. The only title is Transsexual Woman, a title that distinguishes itself from a biological woman. So the Biden Administration has found itself in somewhat of a pickle. They refuse to define a woman, while trying to include men in a law meant to protect women. If they admit they know what a woman is, they’ll have to admit that Title IX doesn’t apply to transsexuals. Checkmate. If our Secretary of Education can’t define a woman, we should have no Department of Education. They say crap rolls down hill. Well, that’s the kind of crap we’re getting from the top of the education chain of command.

It’s funny how you don’t hear anything about women claiming to be men in order to win athletic competitions. The advantage is clearly one-sided. There may be exceptions, as I’ve met a few women who could kick my ass. I married every one of them. It’s a quality I look for in a woman. Well, that, and I have to be able to take her home to meet my mom. Bonus points if she can out drink me.

Here’s the difference between how women are being attacked now compared to how it used to be: In the past, men were the chief antagonists. In this case, women themselves are failing to stick up for themselves. Any woman who identifies as a Liberal won’t touch this issue with somebody else’s penis. Any woman who stands up for the sanctity of women’s sports is labeled transphobic. The title transphobic suggests a fear of transsexuals. Nobody is afraid of a transsexuals unless Mike Tyson is a transsexual. Look, if you’ve gone through the entire process of a sex-change, and I mean there’s a vagina where there used to be a penis, then you deserve credit for your conviction. You still have no business competing in women’s sports. Regardless of what your testosterone levels are, you’re still not a woman in the realm of physical competition. You can be a total woman when it comes to how you look or how you feel, how you entertain and how you present yourself to the world. But when it comes to sports, you disqualified yourself from gender-defined categories when you took steps to separate yourself from your gender. Someday, there may be a category for you. 

It will likely be decided by the courts. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court. Maybe then the Biden administration will be forced to come up with a definition for a woman. My definition is probably something like, “a mature female human.” And you know what? I’m a big fan of mature female humans. Especially the pretty ones. I know, that’s very sexist of me. Too bad. You see, I’m a heterosexual male, perhaps the most reviled type of human on the north American continent. Plus, I’m a baby-boomer! OK, boomer! I’m at the tail end of the boomer generation, but I still get flack for it. Politicians everywhere are coming up with ways to recognize and support people with all kinds of so-called alternate lifestyles, and that’s fine. Old white guys don’t care what you do in the privacy of your own home. They just don’t want to see guys pretending to be girls winning sporting events for women, nor do they want to see a guy pretending to be a woman selling sports bras and beer. Actual women should be selling sports bras and beer. What surprises me is how many women won’t stick up for themselves and other women. While there are plenty of women who have spoken up about the issue of men competing against women in sports, the roaring silence from the women on the left is palpable. The same women who fought so hard for women’s rights have suddenly found their lips sewn shut by progressive policies. What a dilemma! The left has buried themselves so deep in the inclusion and equity realm that they’ve backed themselves in to a corner and they don’t know how to get out of it. If they stick up for women, they’re being exclusionary. If they stick up for transsexuals, they’re ignoring actual women. But because the Democrats champion the LGBTQ, they have to stick up for the T’s. Meanwhile, there are homosexuals who might be wondering how the Transsexuals got lumped together with the homosexuals. The L, G, B and Q are all ways to describe people with homosexual or bisexual preferences. But they stick with the body they have. The transsexuals are different in the respect that they’ve actually made changes to their bodies. It’s not a sexual preference. But because the transsexuals somehow got put in the same category with homosexuals and bisexuals, anyone who isn’t heterosexual feels compelled to support people who get sex-change operations even though they’re content with their bodies just the way they are. I’ve said it on this program before; Homosexuals and heterosexuals have more in common than homosexuals and transsexuals, or heterosexuals and transsexuals. Unless, of course, you’re a man who transformed into a woman who still prefers having sex with women. Then you would be a homo-transsexual. Then we would have something in common, as I, too, enjoy having sex with women. But I digress. The point is, there’s a deafening silence when it comes to feminists speaking up about the unfair practice of men pretending to be women in order to win sporting events. Only the conservative women are speaking out about the discrepancy. So what changed? Three words: diversity, inclusion and equity. The left has taken the reigns of those three words and made them more important than things like qualification, ability, and fair. Now, anyone who claims to be marginalized has a seat at the table, unless you’re a single heterosexual white guy with a good job, then you’re the problem. This diversity, inclusion and equity platform has become the ring in the cow’s nose, used to lead the Democrat Party around. Common sense be damned. To hell with biological women. The left will cast you aside in order to accommodate the latest alternate lifestyle. 

At the same time, there are many who believe the right has also abandoned women, taking away reproductive choices. The U.S. Supreme Court this week shut down a Texas law involving the distribution of an abortion drug. The drug will remain available, much to the dismay of many right-wing cheerleaders. 

So, once again, women are made to fight for themselves. But the help they need isn’t coming from the source they once had. While women make up more than half the population of the United States, the women who control two-thirds of our federal government have abandoned their own. They can say it’s in the name of diversity and inclusion, but it’s really because they painted themselves into a corner. 

In the meantime, they try to justify the allegiance by increasing the number of transsexuals by insisting children should be able to transition from one gender to another. They have to jack up the numbers to make it look like a legitimate cause. The only way they can do that is to make transforming your body from one sex to another look like it’s normal. One could argue about the definition of normal, so let’s say average. Well, the average person doesn’t get their genitals changed, and the fact is, neither do most transsexuals.

We’re making laws and policies for humans who are somewhere in between a man and a woman. Unfortunately, the men who want to be women are ruining the lives of actual women, and our federal government is hell-bent on making sure they do. The Democrats think they have the support of all women because of the abortion stance of the Republicans. But now, the Republicans are building support from women who don’t want to see men pretending to be women take over women’s sports. While the Democrats seem steadfast in their support for transsexuals, I get the feeling the Republicans are having fun watching them squirm when trying to figure out how to play the hand the transsexuals have dealt them. Meanwhile, the legacy media is reluctant to draw attention to the issue, as they’re in the same position as the Biden Administration. They’ve championed leftist issues so long that they’d rather ignore the story than admit they too have a dilemma. So, women become the sacrificial lambs. Or ewes. I could also say, “fall-guys” but that would be sexist. So, trans rights are human rights, but apparently, women’s right are not. 

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.