Season 5, Episode Two April 16, 2023

Hello, and thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we’ll hear about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, bicycle day and places that are out of this world! But first, (not the headlines...Unfinished Business)

Before we dive in, I’m not in my studio this week, I’m in the woods of Virginia. Well, at a home in the woods of Virginia. So if my voice sounds a little different, don’t worry. I wasn’t replaced by Artificial Intelligence.

Last week we heard about a man who was denied a school superintendent job because he addressed the committee chair and executive secretary as “ladies.” Well, they’ve since had another meeting, and the two woman at the center of the story have made statements to the press regarding the perceived transgression. The executive secretary threw the chairwoman under the bus, posting on social media, she said, “I want to be clear, I am a Lady. I appreciate being called such, and I appreciate being treated as such. To me, the word represents respect," she said. "I am not offended by the word or term, HOWEVER, I am respectful to those who may be offended by the word or term. Those of you who know me, know how important it is to ME to be respectful of ALL individuals. Now, I respectfully ask everyone to please refrain from further defaming my name, my reputation, and my character for something I did not say, nor did I have a say in.” So she’s not taking any of the blame for the hoopla. She doesn’t have a vote. Although an administrative assistant for a school board should know better than to end a sentence with a preposition. See? That’s a teachable moment. As for the chairwoman herself, the one who did have the authority to change the outcome of the vote, continued to defend her actions, although with a different approach than calling the man’s action a microaggression. 

"It is true that I was insulted by the familiarity with which the candidate addressed me and the committee’s executive assistant in correspondence that was part of a salary negotiation," she said in an email to the local paper, also demonstrating her inability to use proper grammar when writing. "While I speak informally most of the time, if I am addressing a public official — especially in written communication, and even more so if engaged in salary negotiations — I would always use formal titles. The salutation ‘Ladies’ raised concerns among most that the candidate might make administrators and teachers feel uncomfortable if used in the future instead of calling them by their names or titles." Raised concerns among most? Most of whom? Most of the cells in her body? From the demonstrations held to support the man, along with the responses to the issue on social media, most of the people have more of a problem with her than with the man.

She certainly lost that battle, but she won the war. A five to two vote against re-entering negotiations with the man led to the job being offered to someone else, pending negotiations, of course.

That can’t be right liner

While humans are the most advanced species of animal on planet Earth, it isn’t always obvious. Douglass Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy suggested both mice and dolphins are more intelligent than are we. There are certainly animals that do thing we can’t, and we’ve learned a lot from observing other animals. It’s said that the martial arts were developed by watching insects fight. The wings of a bird inspired human flight plans. Yet because of our assumption that we’re the smartest life form on the planet, we’re often amazed when another animal learns from us. We’ve heard of the gorilla that knows sign language, and the octopus that can open a jar. Well, now there’s an elephant in Berlin that’s learned how to peal a banana. Oh, big deal, you say. Well, consider this: The gorilla has all the fingers needed to perform sign language. The octopus has the suckers and flexibility to wrap tightly around a jar lid and twist. But an elephant has no thumbs. In fact, it uses its trunk to accomplish the process, which has a form of pincers, but certainly not all the tools needed to easily peel a banana. What’s more amazing is there’s no need for an elephant to peel a banana. They just eat the whole thing. So where’s the reward for the behavior? The gorilla learned how to ask for a treat. The octopus was opening the jar to get to the food inside. There’s no incentive for the elephant to go to the trouble of peeling the banana. So why did an elephant start peeling its bananas? Well, it saw the zookeepers peeling them, and learned on it’s own. There was never any intention to teach the elephant how to peel bananas. In fact, because it doesn’t have thumbs, it can’t peel the bananas in the same way that a human might. This elephant created its own technique for peeling bananas. It twists its trunk around on itself, breaks the seal at the stem, then drops it. Picking it up again in the right way uses the weight of the banana to release from the peel until the inside is exposed. 

The elephant doesn’t peel every banana, of course. That would be too time consuming. It won’t even try to peel green bananas, as that’s the most difficult. Plus, they can just eat the whole banana anyway. It prefers to peel yellow bananas with just a little brown on them, but if they’re too brown, it won’t eat them at all. But like you and I, the elephant prefers to peel the right bananas when time permits. In a group setting (there are other elephants at the Berlin Zoo, you know), the elephant will just eat bananas whole, not taking the time to peel them. Plus, it seems it wants to keep the technique a secret. The story in Live Science says when other elephants are around, it will only peel the last one it has, demonstrating to us that even elephants know bananas taste better without the peel. But only one has figured out how to peel them. This is Berlin, though, so all of the elephants know how to open a beer bottle. 

Let’s go back liner

1770

Marie Antoinette marries Louis XVI in a proxy wedding. While they didn’t know it at the time, the bride and groom’s relationship was cemented when they were mere toddlers. Their parents agreed to have them marry, which they did in their mid-teens. Neither was at the wedding, though, which is why it’s called a proxy wedding. It took place in Vienna. It was nearly a month later when they finally met. Another ceremony and celebration would take place then. In fact, the celebration would last nearly two weeks until a fireworks display killed more than a hundred thirty people. While proxy weddings aren’t common, they still happen, even if you’re not royalty. I was once married by proxy. My bride was in Montana, I was in Guam. But unlike Marie and Louis, we had already met, and we arranged the marriage, not our parents. Her best friend stood in my place at the ceremony, while I sat in front of my barracks room drinking a bottle of Champaign. Of course, there were a lot of jokes about a proxy honeymoon, but I wasn’t worried. Like my wife, her best friend was also a heterosexual woman. 

1775

American Revolution: The British advancement by sea begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements. “One if by land, two if by sea.” So….two. It was two. Two what, exactly?

Look that up liner…

The British are coming! Is how the poem about the event recalls the phrase used to warn the colonists. But according to an article on history defined dot net, He most likely called out, “The Regulars are coming!” since that what the British militia was called. After all, until the Revolution, just about everybody was British! But to answer our question, it was two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church. It stood head and shoulders above all else, and could be easily seen from any direction. Two lanterns in the church steeple signaled that the invasion would begin by sea, or the long way, rather than over land. What the people of Concord needed to know was from where the attack would come, and at the time, this signal would be the quickest way to get the word from Boston to Concord. The British had been messing with the people in the colonies, but it seemed Massachusetts took a lot of the crap, and were tired of it. The Stamp Act, the Quartering Act...it all added up, and all hell broke loose in Lexington and Concord, where the first shots were fired in the American Revolution, or the American War for Independence. A little over a year later, that independence would be declared.

1782

John Adams secures the Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy. This was a huge step in the United States becoming a legitimate nation. Sure, we had help winning the war of Independence from France and others, but to officially recognized by another country was like getting noticed at the high school dance. You’ve been standing by the bleachers for awhile now, and you’re beginning to think this was a bad idea. Maybe you should have stayed home and worked on your macrame. But, no. You got all dressed up, made sure your hair was perfect, and went out there and presented yourself to the world as “available—looking for a relationship.” It was risky, but worth it. Now you’re dancing with the kid from the land of tulips. Your life will never be the same. John Adams’ life would change, too. He would later become the second President of the United States. You may have heard me say on this program before that John Adams is the most important President of the United States because he was the second President of the United States, having come to power in a peaceful transfer at the will of the people. 

1864

The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that mandates that the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.

1919

Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute. I’ve often wondered about the first person to do anything. Who was the first person to take a bite out of a tomato? Who was the first person to die by being the first person to try something? It takes a special kind of person to be the one who stands up and says, “I’ll try it!” The people who died gave us just as much wisdom as the people who lived. But jumping out of an airplane takes it to a whole new level. I’ve been to the Wright Brothers monument and I don’t recall the Wright Brothers hoping that someday people would be jumping out of their flying machines. But that’s what Leslie Irvin wanted to do. He designed his own parachute with a rip cord and gave it a try. It worked. The same year, 1919, he opened a parachute company. Twenty years later, according to skydiving museum dot com, he had six factories and led the way in parachute innovation. When America was pulled into World War II, parachutes were made of silk from Japan. Irvin developed nylon parachutes to replace the now-hard to get silk ones, which are still preferred today.

1927

Mae West is sentenced to 10 days in jail for obscenity for her play Sex. It didn’t happen on opening night, though. It was a popular show until some people complained about the content. Ultimately, the police raided the Broadway theater, arresting the writer, director and star of the show, Mae West herself, along with the cast. She could have paid the fine and walked away, but she was a savvy marketer of herself and her image. She knew that going to jail for writing the script of a play would bring the play and her a lot of attention. She was right. The play was criticized by prudish writers at the time, but a play called “Sex” was still commercially popular for some reason….hmmmm. According to an account in wikipedia, while in jail Ms. West dined with the warden and his wife, and she was allowed to wear her silk panties, as opposed to the burlap the other female inmates were issued. I was curious to find the script to see for myself what words may have led to an arrest. I didn’t have any luck. But it was 1927, so it probably didn’t have to be very bad by today’s standards, or lack thereof. Mae West would go on to write other plays and continue a career in entertainment. They say she never met an innuendo she didn’t like, and she wasn’t shy about her womanhood.

Hang your hat liner 

This week in 1943, Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately takes LSD for the first time. He’s the guy who discovered LSD. He wasn’t looking for a halucinogenic drug. He was just looking for pharmaceuticals that could be synthesized for commercial use. He actually found the substance in 1938, put it aside for five years, and then began working on it again. He accidentally absorbed some of it, and was introduced to its effect. He described it as “a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After about two hours this condition faded away.” Three days later, he was like, “I think I’ll try that again.” So he ingested 250 micrograms of his substance. About an hour later, the story is he began wild changes in perception. He wanted to go home. He asked his lab assistant to follow him. They rode bicycles. It was a strange trip, indeed. He experienced anxiety, a belief that his next door neighbor was a witch, a feeling of going insane. A doctor was called to the home, but could find nothing but dilated pupils. As the drug wore off he began to enjoy the experience, writing later, “ Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux.”

Hofmann was glad to have discovered what he believed would be a valuable psychiatric tool. He never considered it would be used for recreation. But today, the day is commemorated as “Bicycle Day” by fans of the drug, and the term “trip” is used to describe the use of it. Neither term can trace its roots back to the first LSD bicycle trip. The term trip was coined by U.S. Army scientists when they studied the drug in the 1950’s. Bicycle Day began in 1985 by a professor at Northern Illinois University who wanted to recognize the occasion of 1943.

1952

Secretary‘s Day (now Administrative Professionals’Day) is first celebrated. Here’s on example of how trying to be politically correct can ruin something, even though it has good intentions. A florist I know told me recently that Secretary’s Day was once a bustling business opportunity for her. CEO’s and bosses of all levels would take the opportunity to buy a bouquet of flowers for their secretary to show their appreciation for the hard work they do and the invaluable services they provide, many of which the boss knows nothing about. A great secretary was more than an assistant, but also a fixer and a gate-keeper, and all kinds of behind the scenes help. But somewhere along the line, it became verboten to call someone a secretary, especially if that person was a man. So, to take the sexism out of the job title, as if secretary meant female in some way, the term was replaced with Administrative Professional. While some may think that title is more respectful, it seems to be less marketable. It’s also more descriptive, limiting the position to administrative duties alone. Any secretary will tell you administrative duties are but the tip of the iceberg. So while Administrative Professional may sound more respectful, it isn’t. It’s an insult to wide range of abilities and value a good secretary brings to the table. And, as it turns out, a boss is less likely to buy flowers for their Administrative Professional than they are for their secretary. Just ask a florist.

1956

Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco. This was the marriage of the century. Imagine, a prince marrying a mere Hollywood starlet. Her dream coming true at the same time as his. She would become Princess Grace, and she and her prince would transform the Monaco into more than a vacation spot. She was everything a price could want from a princess. Both are remembered fondly the world over as a shining example of true love and royal highness. About 60 years later, another Hollywood actress would marry a prince. This time it would be a prince of England. But this time, the princess would find it too difficult to participate in the festivities of royal life. Too troublesome to deal with the press. She and her prince would flee back to the United States, where they would bad-mouth his relatives, release a tell-all book and give scathing interviews to gossip columnists and talk-show hosts.

When Princess Grace passed away, Prince Rainier had his grave dug next to hers. I wouldn’t be surprised if some day we find the latest American actress and her prince buried next to each other. It’s good to be the King.

1962

Walter Cronkite takes over as the lead news anchor of the CBS Evening News, during which time he would become “the most trusted man in America”. That’s the difference between yesterday’s media and the media of today. There was a time when all of America could watch the news and believe it. They might not understand why it happened, or who’s side they were on, but they know what happened, and it would be discussed later that evening or tomorrow at the office or work site. We didn’t have to wonder if it was the truth. That’s what Walter Cronkite brought to the table, and that’s what’s missing today…………………...

1970

Apollo program: The ill-fated Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely. An entire nation let go a collective sigh of relief. It was a reminder, though, that space travel is dangerous, even today. Apollo -13 was on it’s way to the moon. It was the only mission intended for the moon that didn’t get there. We’ll be going back to the moon soon. We may lose people along the way. Those who train to be astronauts understand and accept this possibility. They also know the best and brightest are working to get them there and back safely. As moon missions resume, let’s remember that the men and women who go not only volunteered to do so, but competed to do so. Let’s embrace their bravery and recognize their contributions to the next step in the exploration of space. I almost said the “manned” exploration of space! I can’t call it that now, because I might piss off somebody who’s not a man.

1970

The first Earth Day is celebrated. We still celebrate Earth day, as well we should! ‘tis a fine planet on which we live. It provides us with warmth and sustenance, resources and a point in space from which we can view the rest of the universe. We can’t see it all from here, of course, but we’re building tools to help us see things we haven’t seen before, even beyond our understanding. I belong to an organization called the Newberry Community Partnership, and we pick organize a trash pick up twice a year. The first one is always in April near Earth Day. We should be good stewards of our home planet, and use wisely the resources she provides. There are various viewpoints on how best to do that. Some things we do voluntarily, other things are thrust upon us. Despite all the talk about global warming, our air and water are much cleaner now than in the 1970’s. The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency did a lot of good work to educate people about pollution and how to be responsible citizens of the planet. Now, though, the EPA seems to be overstepping its authority, with the help of progressive-minded people who seem to forget that electric cars are powered primarily by coal. 

This week in 1985, the FBI siege on the compound of The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSAL) in northern Arkansas took place. The ATF would also join the operation. What started as a Christian survivalist group in 1970 had turned into a white-supremacist training ground for the Aryan Nation and similar groups. Eventually these so-called Christians began buying and selling weapons, among other criminal activity, as well as distributing hate-inspired literature and planning assassinations of government officials. They also set fire to a church with a gay congregation and attacked Jewish people and businesses. The federal government had had enough, and sent more than three-hundred agents to surround their compound. This would be the first time the federal government confronted a well-equipped militia, according to Britannica dot com. Both the feds and the felons were prepared for all hell to break loose. The standoff would last for four days. It would end without violence through negotiation. Several of the group would serve time in prison.

1990

The “Doctor of Death”, Jack Kevorkian, participates in his first assisted suicide. The doctor has since passed away himself, without any outside help. But back then, this was a hot button issue you don’t hear much about anymore. If you’re not familiar, Doctor Kevorkian devised a machine that would give the participant the power to end their own life in a humane way without anyone being held legally responsible for it. Or so he thought. 

Jack Kevorkian was a compassionate doctor. He’s seen people live long after they wanted, long after they could function. He didn’t want people to suffer. People were being kept alive without any quality of life. There were people who wanted a way to die with dignity, regardless of how long medical science wanted them to live. Let’s face it, medical science will do anything it can to keep you alive regardless of whether or not you’ll ever get out of bed again. That’s your problem, not theirs. But Jack saw it another way. He helped more than a hundred people end their own lives, and insisted that “Dying is not a crime” according to wikipedia.

But in 1998, Doctor Kevorkian made a fatal mistake (pun INTENDED!). He helped a man suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease end his life, and made a video recording of the event. In the video, the Doctor himself administered the lethal injection, rather than the patient doing it, as it was believed happened with prior uses. The video tape aired on 60 Minutes. He was arrested and convicted of second-degree homicide. He would serve eight years of a 10 to 25 year sentence. Upon his release, he agreed to limit his role in assisted suicide to being an advocate, but not in practice. He was also prohibited to advise on any procedure involving assisted suicide. Some people accused him of “playing God” and he argued that all doctors play God. “Any time you interfere with a natural process, you are playing God” he said on CNN in 2010. Most doctors prolong the living process when they play God, while Doctor Kevorkian went in the other direction. Ultimately, he was portrayed by Al Pacino in a movie about his life, and ran unsuccessfully for a House seat representing Michigan’s 9th District. He live to be 83, finding death with help from no other.

I once did a radio call-in talk show that sometime nobody would call. But the most popular show was the one about assisted suicide. It was about the time Dr. Kevorkian was going through this whole drama. A lot of people called that day, and there were varying viewpoints. One of the calls that still stands out to me from that day was a call from a nurse who worked with terminally ill patients at a local hospital. She told a story about one particular instance, but insisted it was something she had witnessed in other patients. She said there are things that people see, or hear, or even smell or taste prior to death if they die a natural death. Things that bring them comfort, remind them of long-gone memories of friends, family and occasions long forgotten. There’s a process, she said, that people who die a natural death go through that brings them a type of closure a hasty death won’t provide.

As for me, I’m shooting for 150! I told myself in second grade that by the time I get old enough that I’m supposed to die, science will have figured out a way that I don’t have to if I don’t want to. And as long as I’m still alive, I still believe that. So I’m not even halfway done yet! 

1994

The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by an astronomer named Alexander who’s last name I will probably mispronounce. It looks to me to be a Polish name spelled W-o-l-s-z-c-z-a-n. I’m gonna say Wolszczan, or Volszczan, based on what I know about Polish names. Anyway, one of the fundamental questions of life, the universe and everything is, “are we alone?” For thousands of years, we had no reason to believe we weren’t. We had no indication that there were other planets around other suns. Of course, UFO sightings and other science-fiction perpetuated the possibility, but there was no concrete proof that other planets outside our solar system even existed until 1994. Extrasolar planets are so commonplace now that we have the James Webb space telescope not just looking for extrasolar planets, but extrasolar planets that are similar to Earth. The James Webb Space Telescope is capable of not only spotting extrasolar planets, but it’s also capable of analyzing the chemical makeup of the planet and any atmosphere it may have. 

The question now isn’t if there is life on other planets, but if we’ll recognize it when we see it. We now know that there are multitudes of other planets in our galaxy and beyond. Here’s the problem: Space is expanding, and every second that goes by, everything out there gets farther away. Even at the speed of light, it would take years to get to the nearest star, and that distance grows every day. We may find other planets like Earth, but getting there is a challenge we haven’t yet learned how to overcome. So, even if we were to prove there is life on another planet, even if we were able to communicate with them, we’ll still be like two ships passing in the night, but in this case, the night is the never-ending vastness of space, and the two ships are but molecules in the sea. So, yes. We are alone. 

Phone and email liner

Well, the big story of the week has to be the document theft alleged against an Air National Guard member from Massachusetts. They say he shared secret government documents with his buddies, some of whom live outside the United States, in an on-line chat room. These documents contained sensitive information about the war in Ukraine, clandestine American operations and more. The documents were shared over a period of months without detection. This guy is an Airman First Class, which I believe is still an E-3, just above Airman Basic and Airman. While the guy did work for an Intelligence Wing, I find it hard to believe he would have access to final reports. Intelligence from the classification of Secret and up is on a need to know basis. This guy didn’t need to know any of what was in those documents. Yet somehow he figured out how to get access to them, and was even able to bring them home where he could photograph them and share them with his buddies. As an Air Force veteran, this really tans my hide. What, or how many, mechanisms had to fail for this behavior to go unnoticed? How many of this Airman’s superiors weren’t doing their jobs? I don’t know what the Air Force is like today, but when I was in it, security was paramount. We were taught security from day one. Dorm guard was a responsibility you had to take seriously. Every flight had a guard at the door 24 hours a day. Keeping anything of value out of the enemy’s hands was fundamental. We were even taught how to render a rifle useless, rather than let it be used against us. I can only imagine the protocols in place for top-secret documents. I never needed access to anything like that, as it was my job to tell as many people as possible all kinds of things. My Air Force job was definitely not secret-keeping. This Airman in Massachusetts didn’t need access to the documents he shared. I sure hope that right now there’s an entire chain of command who can’t sleep at night. An entire chain of command who let a lowly wingnut walk out the door with national secrets and sensitive information. Somewhere in Massachusetts there is a Sergeant or two, plus a low-ranking officer, perhaps a Captain or a Major, and maybe even a General who’s trying to come to grips with the fact that they let America down. The let a rogue show-off rummage through America’s secrets and bring shame upon himself and those responsible for his supervision. I expect heads to roll. 

But here’s the problem: Too many times now the idiots who steal or otherwise find access to sensitive documents and make them public somehow get public sympathy and support. They call them “whistleblowers” instead of traitors. Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Private Manning and others who made secret documents public have become admired by many as folk hero’s. The only difference between these traitors, along with the newest one in Massachusetts, and a spy is the spy gives the secret documents directly to a foreign government instead of posting it online for anyone to find. It doesn’t make it any less wrong. The United States Air Force instilled in me such a devotion to security that I don’t even post pictures from my vacation on social media until after I get home. Meanwhile this goofball Airman is posting pictures of national secrets. What one of the goofball Airman’s high school friends told NBC reveals a lot about how our national security is viewed by young people today. He said, “Everyone's innocent until proven guilty. That's the great thing about this country. I don't think he's really doing anything malicious, I think he's probably just...messing around with his friends." Such a casual attitude toward the security of our country. I’m glad he’s not wearing a blue uniform, too.

Well, it’s true, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. But you don’t have to be trying to do something malicious to break the law. Clearly, the law was broken when the documents were taken, photographed and shared. Is this the guy who did it? We’ll find out, but it certainly seems that way. Private Manning was pardoned by President Obama. President Biden initially downplayed the most recent incident at first, but then issued some orders that I’m sure were already being carried out before his orders were issued. This Airman First Class from the Massachusetts Air National Guard, and the entire chain of command above him, is responsible for this national embarrassment. But if we take a few steps back, the larger picture may indicate a larger problem. When a relative youngster has access to some of the most sophisticated computer power in the world, there’s a good chance he’ll figure out how to use it more effectively than the older people who are in charge. That’s the thing about the military; if you get good at your job, you get promoted out of it, relegated to watching younger people do what you once did. At the pace of today’s technology advancements, just a few years on the sidelines can result in becoming obsolete. The servants know more about the kitchen than the King. In yesterday’s world, a rogue servant could only poison the the taster of the King’s food. In today’s connected world, a rogue servant can poison the entire kingdom. 

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.