Season 6, Episode 5 August 27, 2023

Hello! Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube! I’m you host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, Canada answers the question ‘are women persons?’ when an attack on a radio station started a war, and the Republican Presidential debate….but first, (Not the Headlines!)

While Russia has been in the news for more than a year because of their illegal attempt at annexing Ukraine again, what you might not have heard about Russia is that their most recent attempt to land an explorer on the moon ended in a crash landing. A Reuters report points out it’s been 47 years since Russia, which at that time was the Soviet Union, tried to land a craft on our satellite. The Luna 25 reportedly spun out of control and crash-landed after a problem preparing for a pre-landing orbit. The official statement from Russia said, “The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon." I like it. It’s a very nice way of saying the spacecraft started to do what we didn’t want it to do, and then crashed. Luckily, there were no people on it. It was merely a craft that was designed to land on the south pole of the moon and see if there’s any water there. As we’ve talked about on the Listening Tube before, if there’s water on the moon, it could be a stepping stone to further space exploration.

Now, you might be wondering, “But Bob, why didn’t we look there back in the 70’s when we up there all the time?” Well, back then, we had no reason to believe there was any water on the moon anywhere. From looking at it, it seems like a dry, desolate place made of nothing but dirt. Even the pock marks of asteroid strikes haven’t revealed any minerals worthy of pursuit, let alone something as precious as water. Today, we understand the possibilities, and a number of countries want to be the first to mine water from the Moon. 

Russia just tried, and failed. They were able to get a spacecraft up the relatively quickly because they don’t have the same safety protocols other countries have. It’s a calculated risk that didn’t pay off this time. The United States is working on returning to the Moon, being the only country to get there and back so far. I think it’s funny how we did this back in the late 1960’s and now we’re having trouble figuring out how to do it again. It’s a poor reflection on NASA’s record-keeping.

But hey, it doesn’t look like Russia’s record-keeping wasn’t much better. The Soviet Union, after all, was the initial winner of the space race. The Soviets launched the first satellite into space in 1957. All it did was circle the earth and make a beeping sound, and it took the Americans a little while to figure out what it was doing up there, it was still a great accomplishment. It showed that the Russians could not only put a satellite in orbit around our planet, but that they could also determine the orbit. That meant that as soon as they could put a camera on that thing, they could see whatever they wanted. They could send up a satellite that would fly over the Pentagon, or Fort Dix, or some part of Alaska. America was losing the space race. Then the Russians dropped the mic when four years later, they put a man in space. After enough Americans said, “What the hell?” President Kennedy challenged our country to take the lead, to not only send someone into space, but to walk on a surface other than the Earth.

Play soudbite

It’s been a long time since we’ve been to the Moon. There are many who wonder why we even go. I understand. It’s comforting to stay in the interplanetary state we currently enjoy. Why ruin a good thing by going out into space and looking for trouble? Odds are, if we find anybody, they’ll be way more advanced than us, and will easily be able to make us their pet humans. Although they’ll probably make up their own names for us as a species and as individuals. And since we don’t have the same type of vocal chords as they do, we won’t even be able to duplicate whatever sound they decide to call us. I just hope that whoever makes me their pet doesn’t give me a name with a weird English translation like “Tiny Brain Mutant” or “Dadbod.”

However you feel about space exploration doesn’t change the fact that India is the next in line for a lunar landing attempt. In fact, by the time you hear this, they may already have done it! Again, attempting to land on the south pole of the Moon. 

There have been plenty of spacecraft flown over the region, taking readings and analyzing whatever data could be gathered from an orbiting explorer. One that’s a little more complicated than Sputnik 1, but still unable to tell us what we might discover by actually landing and exploring. That’s what the next big goal of human kind is. Discovering usable minerals and compounds on the Moon. There’s evidence to suggest there are water deposits on the south pole of the Moon. It’s frozen water, but water nonetheless. Proving there’s water on the Moon is one thing, getting to it is another. There’s a possibility that whoever gets there first will decide what happens with it, but that remains to be seen. 

Russia’s hurry to get there ended in failure. India just landed a craft on the south pole of the moon. America has the most experience, and has even left behind evidence of our triumph on the surface of the satellite.

One could argue that the United States already owns all the resources on the Moon, as we’re the only country that’s been there, but that’s not how we operate. There are many who believe we should start operating that way, as competition between countries seems to be increasing. America has always viewed space and whatever lies within it and without it doesn’t belong to anyone on Earth.

Clearly, we’re in another space race, but not for being the first to get there, but for being the first to profit from it, or put it to work in furthering space exploration.

Hey, if you’re a Star Trek fan or a Star Wars fan, and yes, I know the difference, you know that propulsion is the largest obstacle to space exploration. If we can find a way to use other heavenly bodies as fuel stations, it just might lead to hyperspace travel, or even better, Infinite Improbability Drive.

Speaking of driving, or in this case, not driving, the autonomous taxi service Cruise has been asked by the California Department of Motor Vehicles to cut its fleet in half in the San Francisco area after a string of accidents. Believe it or not, the fleet had been up to a hundred cars during the day and up to 300 cars at night. A story in the San Francisco standard by Garret Leahy outlines four incidents, three of which happened in one week. Ironically, within a couple weeks of the the city voting to allow the company to operate the autonomous taxi service around the clock.

In one incident, a fire truck, as it was racing to an emergency, ran into a taxi that had a passenger inside it. The passenger was taken to a hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

In the second crash, an autonomous taxi was hit by another vehicle running a red light, although this one wasn’t a firetruck, and there was no passenger in the taxi. The driver of the other car was treated and released at the scene, according to the story. The story does say the human driver who was treated and released ran the red light at a high rate of speed, but it doesn’t say if the driver was breaking the law by traveling at a high rate of speed. 

The only witness to the third crash was the human driver who hit an autonomous taxi that also was empty. Police said the human driver was at fault in this one, too.

So, in two of the cases, the robocars tried to stop in time to avoid getting hit by a human driver running a red light, and in the third, the human driver was also found to be at fault. So, what’s going on then, when the robocar company is being throttled because of human error? In these three examples, the autonomous car was following traffic laws, moving along in a responsible manner, when it was struck by another vehicle driven by a human. If humans were driving the autonomous cars, would they have been able to avoid the accidents? Maybe, maybe not. Is an autonomous car able to hear a siren? Can it tell from what direction the siren is coming? Because I can’t. If the radio is turned up too loud, a human driver won’t hear a siren, either. How much sooner will a human detect flashing lights on an emergency vehicle, if at all? If the robocar that got hit by the firetruck was being driven by a human, would it have stopped in time? Or would having another human in the vehicle doubled the chances of a serious injury? But before I get too deep in to this, I want to make sure I have some context. Maybe three accidents in a week is common in San Francisco. Maybe this is just hype about autonomous vehicles meant to advance some sort of agenda. Well, there’s a website called accident data center dot com that keep track of such things. According to them, there were only two accident reports in the month of July. So, okay, these autonomous vehicle seem to be the variable here. But it was still the human driver’s fault in the three accidents that happened in the same week. Now, I don’t think human drivers are going out of their way to hit robocars. The robocars were just minding their own business, going along as predicted and programmed.

So where’s the disconnect between man and machine when it comes to autonomous vehicles? I’m sure the engineers who design all the systems would quickly point out the human error. But if human drivers were taken out of the civil engineering equation, would our roads be safer? If cameras and other types of sensors were in charge of keeping order on our city streets, could humans absolve ourselves of responsibility behind the wheel? Imagine the amount of human error we could remove from the variables of transportation! If all of our cars and trucks were autonomous, every accident could be blamed on a programming error. Only the programmers would need auto insurance.

Man’s relationship with the machines we build has always been filled with hazards. Perhaps no human achievement has led to so much human misery as the machines we taught ourselves to build. From the weapons of war that have killed millions of us, to the meat slicers and the countless fingertips they’ve claimed, our machines have been worth the sacrifice in the time and effort they save, and the problems they help to solve.

Here’s where I think the problem lies: Machines aren’t meant to operate themselves! Machines are meant to be operated by humans. The only machine that should run on it’s own is a perpetual motion machine, and we haven’t been able to invent one yet. But more and more often, car manufacturers keep taking away our ability to drive our own vehicles. They’ve replaced competent drivers with so-called safety features that take away the responsibility of the drivers and try to replace them. My wife’s car is a perfect example, and that’s why I don’t like it. While I was driving it the other day, it put the brakes on for me because it thought I might run into the car in front of me. It wasn’t really even in front of me anymore, as it was turning right, and I was going straight. Suddenly, the car jolts to a halt, warning lights go on on the dashboard, and I’m screaming, “What the hell was that?” Of course, my wife took her car’s side, and accused me of unsafe driving. But there was no way I was going to hit that car even if the car I was driving didn’t stop when it did. What was more likely to happen in that situation was that the car behind me would hit me because I stopped so suddenly. Luckily, my wife was wearing her seatbelt, or she might have been kissing the windshield. Another so-called safety feature that pisses me off is what they call “active cruise control.” It’s sort of like cruise control, but if you catch up to the car in front of you, and your car thinks you’re too close, it will automatically slow down to the speed of the car in front of you. The car gives you three options as to how close you’re allowed to get to the car in front of you before the “active” part of the cruise control takes over, and the setting with the most space between the two cars is unknown to me, but judging by how far away your are even at the closest setting, it must be about a quarter of a mile at the farthest. So, you set the cruise control at a certain speed you wish to travel, and the next thing you know, you’re doing ten miles an hour slower because that’s the speed of the car in front of you. Now you have to accelerate again to pass once you change lanes. That’s not cruise control. That’s cruise capitulation. Active Cruise Control literally lets the car in front of you determine how fast you go. It takes the power of determining how fast you want to go out of your hands, and gives it to a stranger. My car, luckily, does not have it. However, I know that sooner or later, I’ll have to get a different car. In anticipation of that, I went to a local new car dealer, and explained to one of the salesmen there that I wasn’t shopping for a car right now, but just doing some advance work for when the time comes. I explained to him how much I hated Active Cruise Control, and made it very clear that I will not buy a car that has it, unless there’s a way to turn it off. Well, to his credit, knowing that I wasn’t there to buy that day, this young man with the pink hair bun and peanut butter and jelly sandwich earrings took a good half hour of his time to explore the options with me. Neither of us knew it, but there is a way to turn off the active cruise control! At least on one brand there is. I tried it on my wife’s car, and it worked! Only problem was, it doesn’t come back on automatically, and if you turn off the active cruise control on your wife’s car, you should probably tell her before she drives her car again. That was a close one….and once again, she took the car’s side and yelled at me. But, all’s well that ends well. No harm, no foul.

I guess what I’m saying is the more car manufacturers and their autonomous-supporting partners try to take the human element out of driving in the name of safety, there comes a tipping point where human drivers no longer have their own autonomy. At what point do we become so complacent and comfortable with not having to pay attention to our driving that the safety features actually put us in danger?

Imagine being in a driverless car, and you see that your car is about to collide with another object, be it a car or a light pole or a brick wall, and there’s nothing you can do about it? There’s no chance for you to swerve out of the way, no option of accelerating or braking to avoid the collision. There’s no steering wheel, no brake pedal, no driver’s seat. It’s a helpless feeling. One that makes your muscles tighten all the way to your eyelids in anticipation of impact, bracing yourself, if you’re unlucky enough to see it coming, when studies show the more loose you are is an advantage in a collision. But you didn’t have time to remember that.

Maybe autonomous cars are a bridge too far right now. Maybe it’s not the car’s fault. Maybe it’s the way we’ve designed our roadways and signs and signals. Maybe, because we’re human, we designed them so they work for us. Now, engineers are trying to design robocars that can understand a system built for humans. It might be easier to redesign our roadways, signs and signals in a way that the robots can understand, and then have humans learn it, too.

But in the meantime, let’s keep humans behind the wheels of our automobiles. We’re not perfect, and many of the legitimate safety features in our cars have made significant improvements in our survivability in case of a crash, and some good ways of helping us avoid a crash in the first place. But there are some things robocars will never be able to do. Their brains aren’t as advanced as ours. They can’t make eye contact with each other and give that nod to go ahead of me, or that look that says, “Let’s go, lady, I got ice cream in the trunk.”

For good or for bad, human imperfections are integrated into our transportation system. Trying to take humans out of the equation has proven to be a challenge. Perhaps it’s because we all have different imperfections that no computer can yet comprehend. 

There might come a time when all of us will be carted around by autonomous electric cars. We won’t have to buy a car of our own, we won’t have a choice of style or comfort. We won’t care how it handles, as long as it gets us to where we want to go, preferably unharmed. As for now, I’m getting from point A to point B in a six-speed manual transmission 87 octane drinking internal combustion engine two-door atmosphere-slicing bucket seat that you have to consciously drive if you want to get anywhere. Plus it looks good in my driveway and because it’s a stick, it’s less likely to be stolen. Not that I worry about that. I enjoy driving my car, and the thought of being a passenger in a robocar doesn’t appeal to me at all. What I wonder is, will robocars be given priority at some point? Will the dinosaurs who still want to operate a car be relegated to some type reservation? A retirement community where instead of golf carts, you’re allowed to drive your Pontiac? Until all the science of autonomous cars is figured out, we should keep them off our streets. We don’t need to combine the imperfections of autonomous cars with the imperfections of being a human in an arena where lives are at risk.

Let’s go back liner

1758

The first American Indian Reservation is established. Would you like to guess where? Was it somewhere in Oklahoma? No. There was no Oklahoma at the time. In fact, there were no states at all! Only territories. And now, one reservation. It was, believe it or not, at Indian Mills, New Jersey.

1859

Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world’s first commercially successful oil well. Some people find it unusual for a place in Pennsylvania to be called Oil City, but the northwest corner of Pennsylvania is where America’s oil boom began. In fact, Pennsylvania is so rich in fossil fuels, it’s almost criminal. Pennsylvania has for over a hundred years produced coal. Good coal. Anthracite coal. Then we discover oil! Now, Pennsylvania is prime real estate for natural gas. With the war on fossil fuels being waged by the Biden Administration, I have to wonder why anyone in Pennsylvania would vote for him again. If all of the energy Pennsylvania has was let loose, the state would be an economic powerhouse. 

1859

A Solar Superstorm unlike any that had been recorded by man before or since had an amazing effect on planet Earth. A story on History dot com by Christopher Klein recalls what happened. At the time, the telegraph was the most modern form of electronic communication. In Pittsburgh, a telegraph manager reported that the solar storm cause currents through the wires that nearly melted the platinum contacts, and that “streams of fire” were coming out of the circuits. In Washington, D.C., a witness said an arc of fire jumped from an operators head to the equipment, and paper caught on fire. In Boston, it was discovered that the aurora caused a current that let them disconnect the batteries and still transmit messages. 

The light show was also historic. What we call the Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Cuba. Birds awoke, thinking it was morning. It was said you could read the newspaper by the light of the aurora in Boston. In North Carolina, the ocean appeared crimson, as it reflected the light in the sky. Shells on the beach looked like burning coals.

What might be more amazing than all of that is one man witnessed why it happened. An amateur astronomer near London just happened to be looking at the sun. Not directly, of course, but in the way a 19th century astronomer would. He was making sketches of the dark spots on the sun when he saw “two patches of intensely bright and white light.” They lasted about five minutes. Those patches of white light were on their way to Earth in the form of a solar superstorm unlike any in the last 500 years. That night, the full effects began to be felt here on Earth. The man who witnessed those solar flares as he was sketching sunspots was Richard Carrington. The occasion is commonly referred to as the Carrington Event. If Carrington were to witness such a thing today, a 2008 report done by the National Academy of Sciences predicts what it called “extensive social and economic disruptions.” In other words, the world would come to a halt, unless you were paying cash. Speaking of cash, it’s estimated that an event like that today would cost between one and two trillion dollars of economic liability.

While the telegraph was all the rage in 1859, by... 

1878, Emma Nutt becomes the world’s first female telephone operator when she is recruited by Alexander Graham Bell to the Boston Telephone Dispatch Company. One hundred years later, she would still be ridiculed (one ringy-dingy….). One hundred 40 years later, she would no longer exist. When was the last time you talked to a phone company operator? Wait, wait...I think you still can if somebody from prison calls you collect. I’m not sure, and I’m not going to get arrested just to find out.

1920

The first radio news program is broadcast by 8MK in Detroit, Michigan. More news about radio in a bit, but first...

1927

Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, “Does the word ‘Persons’in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?” These women obviously felt as if it did not. Ironically, when the British North America Act of 1867 was passed, everything in it was subject to the pleasure of the Queen. Queen Victoria, who ruled England from 1837 to 1901. But in 1927, England once again had a King: King George V. It’s an important question, as Section 24 states: The Governor General shall from Time to Time, in the Queen's Name, by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, summon qualified Persons to the Senate; and, subject to the Provisions of this Act, every Person so summoned shall become and be a Member of the Senate and a Senator. Well, the Canadian Supreme Court, in 1928, ruled that women are NOT, in fact, persons. That made them ineligible to serve in the Senate. But, unlike in the United States, where only the Supreme Court can overturn a Supreme Court ruling, the Canadian Encyclopedia says the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed the Court’s decision on October 18, 1929. Today, the British North America Act is long gone, replaced by the Canada Act of 1982, removing any British powers that remained.

Getting back to radio news...

1936

Radio Prague, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, goes on the air.

1939

Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day thus starting World War II in Europe. Gleiwitz is now part of Poland.

1945

World War II: Combat ends in the Pacific Theater: the Instrument of Surrender of Japan is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1956

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens. More on that later...

1980

After two weeks of nationwide strikes, the Polish government was forced to sign the Gdańsk Agreement, allowing for the creation of the trade union Solidarity. The fall of the Soviet Union begins here, although it would be a long process. By the time I got to broadcasting school in the fall of 1981, we had to learn how to pronounce the names of places like Poznan and Wraclaw, which, if you look at the transcript, don’t sound anything like they’re spelled. Some of those Polish words were brutal. Solidarity and Glastnost were all the rage while I was lucky enough to be learning how to deliver news correctly.

1990

Transnistria is unilaterally proclaimed a Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void. Transnistria isn’t recognized as an independent state by any recognized independent state. I had never heard of it before. So, where is it?

Look that up liner

Transistria, not to be confused with Transylania or Transexual, is a relatively small strip of land on the southwest border of Ukraine, where it meets Moldovia. It doesn’t have a rich history despite its location. Control of the region has bounced around over the years. According to Wikipedia, as of 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution that defines the territory as under military occupation by Russia.

1991

Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. And on the same day...

1991

Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

2005

Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $80 billion in damage. Five years later, my wife and I went there on our honeymoon. We wanted to help the economy recover, and neither of us had been there before. We had a great time. Maybe five years from now, we’ll go to Maui.

Phone and email liner

So, last week was the first United States Republican Presidential debate. It was not attended by the front runner, Donald Trump. Those who were there included Florida Governor Ron Desantis, former Ambassador and North Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Businessman Vivek Ramaswami, former Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, South Carolina Senator Tome Scott, North Dakota Governor Doug Bergum, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.

As a registered Independent, I’m forced to watch the debates of both parties. I must admit, they can be entertaining, plus, they give you a first-hand look at the candidates outside of rehearsed talking points unless that’s all you got. Like Mike Pence. Mike Pence came off as a Constitutionalist who didn’t steal the spotlight, but if you gave it to him, he didn’t want to give it back. He prepared for a speech instead of a debate.

Nikki Haley tried to highlight her foreign policy experience, and did. Then quoted a foreign leader who said something sexist a long time ago and got a round of applause for it. Ambassador Haley, we noticed you were the only woman on the stage. You don’t have to point it out.

Vivek Ramaswami seemed a little isolationist in that if we ignore the Ukraine war it would go away. And6 he might be right. If the U.S. pulled back on financing the war there, maybe the European countries would handle it from here. It’s a chance he feels is worth taking.

Chris Christie said a lot of things that indicate he’s a guy who’s gonna follow the rules, and he knows what the rules are. He’s willing to sacrifice himself on the Republican alter if it means the Party can move on from Donald Trump. 

Ron Desantis said all the right things, and tried to make the election personal through the part of the third person, but he’s the only one who tried. He’s the guy the polls say you need to beat if you want to come in second place.

Asa Hutchinson said he wants to do for America what he did for Arkansas, which was to reduce spending and cut the number of federal employees by 10 percent. He talked up his experience as well.

Tim Scott touted his efforts to reduce spending as well. Plus, he pointed out his own rags-to-riches story of a poor kid wondering if he could share in the American Dream. He says every American can live the American Dream, just like he’s doing.

Doug Bergum was very hawkish, cautioning the viewers about the threat of China, and how we need to show a strong defense in order to avoid a war. He pointed out the China has neither energy nor food security, and we need to take advantage of that by not killing American energy like the Biden Administration is doing.

But for the most part, none of the candidates stood out from the others. They all had very similar viewpoints and goals for the country. There were variations on how to get there, and differences of opinion on what the top priorities should be. All of them feel like they could do a better job than our current President. Not one of them said they could do a better job than Donald Trump. The day after the debate, Donald Trump was placed under arrest in Georgia for charges that, if found guilty, would put the top Republican candidate in jail for a minimum of five years.

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.