The Listening Tube with Bob Woodley -Panda Diplomacy, voting rights and "Who's the Racist Here?"

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This is The Listening Tube.

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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 voting rights and Crownhog Day. And I'll ask the question, who's the racist here? But first.

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Not the headlines.

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Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and I'm always looking for new ways to let my wife know I love her. Mostly because I screwed up many of the old ways I tried. So I decided I would try AI to find a new way to make my wife happy. I entered all the pertinent information. Our likes and dislikes, income levels, habits and hobbies, all the stuff I could think of. It suggested that in order to make her happy, I should offer to let her divorce me. Then it gave me tips on where to get moving boxes. Speaking of divorce, I'm sure it's always rough, and especially for any kids involved. There's an international divorce happening, and the quarreling parties are Japan and China. The children, it would seem, are two giant panda bears. It seems China has recalled their pandas from Japan. Yes, they are China's pandas, and you better not forget it. Although the first set of pandas sent to Japan in 1972 were a gift, all other pandas, including their offspring, are officially the property of China. The two who were recalled this week were born in Japan about five years ago. They know no other home than the one at the zoo in Japan. But diplomatic relations has soured between the two neighbors recently, especially after the Prime Minister of Japan indicated Japan would take the side of Taiwan if China made any territorial claims there. As a result, China's taking their pandas and going home. It'll be the first time in half a century that there will be no pandas in Japan. The Associated Press quoted a Chinese foreign ministry's representative as saying, I know giant pandas are loved by many in Japan, and we welcome Japanese friends to come visit them in China. Less than two dozen countries around the world have had the privilege of hosting giant pandas from China. Nearly all are on some type of loan agreement. The agreements are limited by requirements that include habitat accommodations, financial investments in Chinese interests, often but not limited to panda research and conservation, collaboration on such research, and reproduction support, as well as being friendly with the Chinese Communist Party or having something they need. It's often called panda diplomacy, and China has been practicing it for generations of pandas. Unlike the precursors for fentanyl, the Chinese Communist Party keeps a tight grip on where pandas go. The CCP knows other countries are willing to make long-term investments in order to get possession of a set of pandas. They know how much money can be made, just letting people come in and look at them. At the zoo in Japan, each visitor has one minute to spend in the viewing area. That's a pretty good turnover rate. And many were repeat customers. Countries and the zoos within them compete for the ability to say they have pandas from China. People love panda bears, and China has a monopoly on them. I could not find a solid list of where pandas are on loan, but you can be sure that China has a list that's as closely guarded as whatever remains of the Epstein files. The AP quotes an economics professor in Japan as saying the zoo there will lose about 128 million American dollars, or 20 billion yen, every year they don't have pandas. Meanwhile, the World Wildlife Fund continues to use the panda in its logo, despite the monopoly the Chinese Communist Party has on our big old furry friends, the giant panda bear. Established in 1624, it was a Dutch trading post until 1665 when it became New York City. Hey, we just heard about that last week. This week in 1870, the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to citizens regardless of race. There's a push by the right to insist on voter ID requirements. The main argument against voter ID is that it would disproportionately affect minority groups. That's an argument based on race, because there is no legitimate argument. All kinds of things we do every day require identification, and suggesting that an ID requirement to vote is somehow going to affect anyone's ability to vote because of their race is nonsense. Constitutionally, it's been nonsense since 1870. I understand that there were a lot of struggles along the way, but voter ID in the 21st century isn't one of them.

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You can hang your hat on that.

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This week in 1887, in Punxitawney, Pennsylvania, the first Groundhog Day is observed. As a native Pennsylvanian, I gotta admit, this is a weird tradition. Trust me when I tell you that the mixture of cultures in the coal region of Pennsylvania led to the discovery of a lot of cultural wackiness. That might be why allowing a groundhog to predict a month and a half of weather is somehow considered normal. As long as it only happens once a year, and there's a party involved. I've never been to the festivities myself, but my cousin Dan and his significant other Vicky have, and they really enjoyed the experience. But it often happens when the air temperatures drop to dreadful levels, and to me it almost seems a punishment to endure the ceremonies. If I went there, I'd probably end up like an iguana falling out of a tree. This week in 1976, the Groundhog Day gale hits the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. I'm not sure if Punk's a tawny Phil saw his shadow that day, but I'm guessing his instinct was to not come outside. The cyclone dropped the atmospheric pressure to record lows along its path through New England and into southeastern Canada. Cyclonic winds and plenty of snow led to widespread disruptions for millions, from New York through Vermont, Massachusetts, all the way up to Caribou, Maine, and into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. For many who lived through it, it's the benchmark by which all other weather events are measured. Climate change, said no one. And this week in 1947, the lowest temperature in North America is recorded in Snag, Yukon. Negative 81 degrees Fahrenheit. Air temperature, not including wind chill. The coldest I've ever experienced was a negative 70 wind chill. That was in 1981. Indiana, USA. And this week in 1959, a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa kills Buddy Holly, Richie Vallins, the Big Bopper, and the pilot Roger Peterson. And the incident becomes known as the day the music died. There were other plane crashes that killed famous musicians, members of Leonard Skinnard, Randy Rhodes. We lost them all while their stars were still rising. I miss Randy the most. I would like to have been a fly on the wall when Ozzie showed up in heaven and Randy was there to greet him.

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The listening tube will return at the speed of sound. Send email to thelistening tube at outlook.com. And now it's time for Who's the Racist here?

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A writer in Slate magazine recently suggested that Vice President Vance and his wife are expecting to give birth to their fourth child as a way to appease the Make America Great Again Republican Party. That seems pretty far-fetched, as there are a lot of reasons couples have babies, including by accident. But what isn't far-fetched is that someone in today's media would suggest it. But in order to make it look like journalism, you have to have some sliver of evidence, however insignificant, to justify the possibility. And the writer could have stopped at appeasing the right wing with a macho man making babies to promote the ideology. But the writer didn't stop there. The writer also suggested that J.D. Vance got his wife pregnant to stifle any rumors about an impending divorce. Rumors, which have been circulating since November. Why November? Well, that's when the same author published a story in Slate suggesting a love affair between Vice President Vance and Erica Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk. Although admitting it's unlikely, it's enough to say that there are rumors, and that other people who create rumors are creating them, so now it's officially a rumor. All based on a hug between the two in public. The writer of the stories also suggested that Usha Vance, the nation's second lady, is too educated and of the wrong race for the Make America Great Again crowd. The writer claims Usha undermines JD's street cred, so to speak. In case you don't know or don't care, the vice president's wife is of Indian descent. Not American Indian, but the India with nuclear weapons and a billion people.

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And if that wasn't enough.

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Here's a quote from the story by the writer in Slate. Quote, for all we know, there was never any trouble in their marriage, and the cognitive dissonance is pure projection. But it does make a kind of sick sense that if Vance can't have a white wife standing next to him as he clearly looks toward the 2028 presidential election, the next best thing is a pregnant one. A woman wrote that. A very private woman, who doesn't share any of her personal information about her family, husband or kids if she has one or them, or even her age. Until she began writing for Slate, she was never more than an intern at two other publications. Yet she feels compelled to intrude into the lives of J.D. Vance and his wife as if she were in charge of it. Her bio says she's a Native American journalist. The N in Native is not capitalized, so she's just as much a Native American as I. She's a white woman, a sick white woman. To say that American Vice President J. D. Vance would rather be with another woman than his wife and the mother of their three kids and another on the way because of the color of her skin is a clear display of the racism and bigotry of the writer. Yet the writer tries to make conservatives look like the bigots. By the way, Usha Vance was born in San Diego, California. That makes her just as much a Native American as the writer from Slate.

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So who's the racist here?

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In West Chicago, a teacher from a public elementary school is on administrative leave because of activist outrage over a social media post. The teacher posted, Go ice. People are calling for him to lose his job over it. Now, before we even get to the racist part of the story, I feel the need to point out that we do not live in England or Canada. We have freedom of speech in the United States. There is nothing inherently wrong with saying something like go ICE. Yes, I'm sure it referred to immigrations and customs enforcement. Even if you disagree with what ICE does or how they're doing it, there can be no punishment for supporting a congressionally approved and funded part of the federal government. Not even the government will punish you for that. The teacher expressed support for a legal arm of the government doing important work. Not to mention the term ice is and of itself so generic that no crime associated with it would ever hold up in court. He could have been talking about the ice forming on the Chicago River from the recent cold snap, or a player on the visiting team at the Blackhawks suddenly tripping on a fast break and missing the open shot. Go ice. But aside from all that, it seems that this area of West Chicago has a significant Hispanic population. That's not unusual in a lot of places in America now. But for some reason, activists have focused on those two words as somehow targeting Hispanic people. They even started a petition to get the teacher fired. It claims that the teacher's post, Go ICE, is inappropriate and unsuitable for an educator. It claims that ICE has actively harmed families in the area, although it doesn't provide any examples. Then it provides an email address to send an excuse for your child's absence from school on January 26th to make the biggest impact. What they're asking you to do is condemn a teacher who supports the law and sacrificing your child's education to prove how much you care for the Hispanic people in the school district. What they don't tell you is that simply being Hispanic doesn't make you a target of immigration enforcement. Neither does the color of your skin. What they don't tell you is that a large portion of ICE and Border Patrol are Hispanic. What the left does tell you is that the current administration are a bunch of Nazis and that ICE is the Gestapo, a word Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz tried twice to pronounce correctly and failed. The message is that all of the people enforcing our immigration laws are white guys with blonde hair and blue eyes. And all of the people who don't look like them are subject to removal from the country. The reality is that ICE agents have a choice of targets to capture and deport, and which ones they choose has nothing to do with the skin color or race or gender or ethnicity. So who's the racist here? It's clear that racism is not a factor in which illegal aliens are being sought and captured and deported. Not all of them have the same skin color or country of origin or other common denominator other than being here illegally. What's also clear is that those who don't want our laws to be enforced are using race as a way to justify their reasoning. Without any evidence to back up the claim. Those on the left are the ones telling Hispanics they need to be afraid, even if they're here legally. The left is using race as a tool to create fear among the Hispanic population. Fear of immigration and customs enforcement, even when the entity itself has many Hispanics among its ranks. Now you might be thinking, but Bob, just because I says they're not racist doesn't mean they aren't. And you would be correct. The same can be applied to the accusers. Just because the left claims the right is racist doesn't mean the left isn't. The difference here is that it's the left that's making race the issue, when the real issue is illegal immigration.

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So who's the racist here?

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The left wing of the American political scale is more racist than you might think. Sure, the right has racist organizations like the Proud Boys, if they're still around, I don't know. And they're obvious about their bigotry. They don't hide it from anyone like the left does. From the Democrats of the Ku Klux Klan to the people who today try to remove themselves from being identified as racist by hiding behind it, the left claims to be beholden to minority groups, but all they do is invoke them when needed while never actually doing anything to help them. The left uses racial identity as a crutch to drag along those who rely on their pity. The left will always judge you by the color of your skin, while the right would rather not. Here's the thing: the Democrats want to keep race as a major factor in how you're treated. From how you're graded in school to how much it requires of you to get a job as an adult. That's racism. The Republicans want to, and have made great strides in, removing race as a major factor in policy decisions, college admissions, and government contracts. All attempts to remove racism from government and business. Do specific minority groups need protections? Maybe. That's not the question here. The question is, who's the racist? The act of dividing ourselves by race is racist. Treating someone differently in a bad way is bigotry. The United States government has an official list of designated races. That's racism. You want equality? We can start by getting rid of that list.

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And you can hang your hat on that.

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The listening tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2026. Shout out to some new places checking in. Baltimore, Maryland, Golos, home of Podfest, Orlando, Florida, and Queens and the Bronx in New York City. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Follow the listening tube and comment at thelisteningtube.com. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou at Infinitum.