Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the unhearked radio app.
Speaker 2: This is Michael Monks Reports on Michael Monks from KFI
Speaker 2: News and we've got the next couple of hours together.
Speaker 2: Happy Mother's Day, the all of you moms out there.
Speaker 2: Looks like we might be saying goodbye to a Hollywood landmark,
Speaker 2: the RBS sign on Sunset Boulevard. This is something that
Speaker 2: if you've listened to my news coverage, you've maybe caught
Speaker 2: some reports on this because it's one of those old
Speaker 2: school Arby's Roast Beef sandwich signs, you know, like the
Speaker 2: old hats. You don't see those a lot anymore. But
Speaker 2: this thing on Sunset has apparently been very important to
Speaker 2: a lot of people for a long time. And the
Speaker 2: thing is is that the actual Rby's restaurant is gone,
Speaker 2: but the sign it's still there. And this sign is
Speaker 2: apparently so important that I reported last summer that it's
Speaker 2: possible that this thing could be declared a city cultural landmark.
Speaker 2: That that's serious. The LA Cultural Heritage Commission voted last
Speaker 2: July to have the City Planning Department prepare a report
Speaker 2: on this side to see if it's worthy of consideration
Speaker 2: for placement on the you know, the city Landmark Register.
Speaker 2: And the chairperson of the LA Cultural Heritage Commission last
Speaker 2: July said quote, I think it's an iconic example of
Speaker 2: roadside signage architecture, probably as important in terms of icon
Speaker 2: of roadside designation as the Golden Arches are of McDonald's.
Speaker 2: There's just one thing. The Arby's no longer operates, but
Speaker 2: the space is still viable. You're talking Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Something could go there and that Arby's closed after fifty
Speaker 2: five years. I guess people ate a lot of roast
Speaker 2: beef there and have some attachment to this sign, but
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to learn how to eat chicken because
Speaker 2: Raising Canes has announced plans to become the new tenant
Speaker 2: of this location, and that means the Arby's sign is
Speaker 2: probably gonna have to go. According to KTLA, Raising Canes
Speaker 2: has said this location is a strategic fit for the
Speaker 2: company as it grows here in Los Angeles, and they're
Speaker 2: gonna renovate the building and they're going to keep the
Speaker 2: drive through there and they're going to respect the iconic
Speaker 2: character of Sunset Boulevard, but KTLA reports that don't worry
Speaker 2: about that cowboy hat sign. You will be able to
Speaker 2: see it, possibly at another nearby arby's location. No details
Speaker 2: on what that means, but that sign is in the
Speaker 2: process of being reviewed as a cultural landmark, and now
Speaker 2: it's going to have to find a new home. You know,
Speaker 2: I did a stupid thing while driving one day this
Speaker 2: week on my way into Burbank from downtown. This is
Speaker 2: a drive I do every day, but you know that
Speaker 2: thing that happens when you're cruising down the freeway and
Speaker 2: suddenly your exit is coming and you sort of snap
Speaker 2: back to reality and you wonder, where have I been
Speaker 2: for the last fifteen minutes? How did I get here?
Speaker 2: It's weird, right, and we all do it. I know
Speaker 2: we all do it. I think it's normal. Our minds
Speaker 2: kind of wander off and somehow we drive perfectly fine. Well,
Speaker 2: this wasn't exactly that, but my mind went somewhere else
Speaker 2: and I wasn't even two blocks from my apartment. I'm
Speaker 2: at a stoplight, waiting for traffic to ease so I
Speaker 2: could turn left, and there's a car facing me looking
Speaker 2: to make a left turn. The other way, and that
Speaker 2: driver is just gesturing at me wildly, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: what is your problem? I can see you want to
Speaker 2: turn left. What are you pointing at me? Calm down?
Speaker 2: So the traffic coming towards me sort of eased and
Speaker 2: I went ahead and I made my left turn on
Speaker 2: a one way street the wrong way. So now I
Speaker 2: understand what those gestures were. She was warning me. And
Speaker 2: now there are more cars coming at me. They're freaking out.
Speaker 2: I have to turn around in the middle of the street,
Speaker 2: and I end up driving several blocks away in the
Speaker 2: right direction, but not the right way to work. And
Speaker 2: that's just because I'm embarrassed. At this point, I had
Speaker 2: to get myself together. I'm so humility. Two blocks from
Speaker 2: my apartment. I drive this route every day. I just
Speaker 2: I guess I got ahead of myself and I tried
Speaker 2: to make this turn too soon. But all I could
Speaker 2: think about as I was trying to collect myself was
Speaker 2: what horrible things are those drivers saying about me right now?
Speaker 2: Because you know, something happens when we're driving and somebody
Speaker 2: is stupid, the vile, heinous one. This cash I'm Briginia
Speaker 2: de Gastino in the case you're driving. We would never
Speaker 2: say these things to someone in passing at the mall
Speaker 2: or the grocery. If somebody cuts in front of you
Speaker 2: at the grocery, you might gently say, hey, the line
Speaker 2: is actually back here, and that person would probably say, oh,
Speaker 2: it's my bad, and then they would go to the back.
Speaker 2: But if they cut in front of you on the freeway,
Speaker 2: you want them dead and you tell them. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I think it's weird, but there is some science apparently
Speaker 2: to back up why swearing makes us feel good in
Speaker 2: certain situations, why it's the only type of language that
Speaker 2: can bring us relief in that moment. So I called
Speaker 2: up an expert on language and profanity because I'm curious.
Speaker 2: So if you want to know more about why we
Speaker 2: cuss and why we feel the way we do about it,
Speaker 2: stick around because he is with us next. Now, specifically,
Speaker 2: I called him up in the context of the attempt
Speaker 2: to ban swear words at la City Hall. I should
Speaker 2: be clearer. There's a lot of swearing at city Hall
Speaker 2: during city council meetings, and the council just has to
Speaker 2: endure it. But they are looking to ban a couple
Speaker 2: of very derogatory words, including the N word and the
Speaker 2: C word, and there was some developments on that this week,
Speaker 2: and so I reached out to him to talk about that.
Speaker 2: And I know, if you like a dirty word or two,
Speaker 2: you might be curious about why, Like, what's so special
Speaker 2: about those awful, awful words?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Why can we say them in some places not in others?
Speaker 2: Why is it that only that word will do in
Speaker 2: the moment? That's coming up next? And then the spirit
Speaker 2: of Mother's Day? Did your mom let you cuss as
Speaker 2: a child or as a teenager? Mine didn't. My parents
Speaker 2: have foul, filthy mouths, by the way, but my brother
Speaker 2: and I we would not have dared. We would not
Speaker 2: have been allowed. I had friends, though, whose parents did
Speaker 2: let them cuss, and I was always so jealous of that.
Speaker 2: And I mean the big cusswords, not a little cussword,
Speaker 2: the big ones, the mother of all cuss words. I
Speaker 2: felt like something that was blocked off from me, so
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted it even more. So That's probably
Speaker 2: why I enjoy swearing a lot.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a shame we can't do it on radio,
Speaker 2: feel like it sometimes, but I can do it in
Speaker 2: front of my mom. Now I'm a grown man, and
Speaker 2: I just want to shout out my mother, Pammunks Jones
Speaker 2: back in Kentucky. Even though she didn't let me cuss
Speaker 2: as a kid, she certainly taught me how to do
Speaker 2: it as a grown up. So Happy Mother's Day, Mom,
Speaker 2: Looking forward to your visit in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: We got a big couple of hours ahead. Zoo elephants
Speaker 2: create an awkward, tense exchange at La City Hall that's
Speaker 2: coming up this hour, and then in our next hour,
Speaker 2: the local man who has had enough of those teen
Speaker 2: bicycle gangs terrorizing shops and people. He's got a new
Speaker 2: website looking to bring some justice. It's Michael Monk's reports
Speaker 2: on Michael Monks from KFI News.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI Am six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. This
Speaker 2: is Michael Monk's reports on Michael Monks from KFI News
Speaker 2: with you for the next couple of hours. The La
Speaker 2: City Council has punted on its plan to ban the
Speaker 2: N word and the C word from city council meetings.
Speaker 2: The only reason they're considering it in the first place
Speaker 2: is because people use them all the time at these meetings.
Speaker 2: It seems like the council wants to start with these words,
Speaker 2: despite the litany of profanity spewed at every meeting on
Speaker 2: Spring Street. They were supposed to vote on this ban
Speaker 2: last week, but decided to stall after talking with the
Speaker 2: city attorney. They're worried about free speech lawsuits. But in
Speaker 2: the meantime, let's talk about cussing.
Speaker 1: Why do we do it? Why does it feel good?
Speaker 2: Sometimes? Professor Michael Adams at Indiana University is an expert
Speaker 2: on language and words, and he's the author of the
Speaker 2: book in Praise of Profanity. He joins us now Professor
Speaker 2: Michael Adams thinks, so much for taking time with us.
Speaker 3: It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Speaker 2: Indeed, you know, there are times where only certain words
Speaker 2: will do. And I'm curious, you know, instead of all,
Speaker 2: dang it, why does something like MFF or this seem
Speaker 2: to work so much better for us?
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of reasons for that, and we don't know,
Speaker 3: we don't know exactly what that cognitive mechanism is. But
Speaker 3: there was this great experiment done at the University of
Speaker 3: Bristol and England a decade ago, maybe a little bit
Speaker 3: more where they put people's hands into these buckets of
Speaker 3: ice water, and they had to have a fist in there,
Speaker 3: and they had to keep it in as long as
Speaker 3: they possibly could. And what they discovered was that the
Speaker 3: people who swore while they were doing that task were
Speaker 3: able to keep their their fists in the free in
Speaker 3: cold water longer. So that gives you a sense that
Speaker 3: something in the brain recognizes profanity as a release of tension.
Speaker 3: And so that's just one of the many advantages of it,
Speaker 3: I guess, is to get you through those tough times.
Speaker 3: It's certainly true that ordinary language sometimes fails, and when
Speaker 3: it fails, you've got profanity to back you up. And
Speaker 3: it's really really good at expressing, say, utter frustration, But
Speaker 3: it's also good at expressing anger, which is I think,
Speaker 3: you know, what are the places you want to go.
Speaker 2: That that's exactly right. And since you note that there
Speaker 2: is apparently some physiological connection to this vocabulary, why is
Speaker 2: it that we tend to frown on some words if
Speaker 2: there is some sort of physical benefit to using it.
Speaker 3: You know, some of it is just rooted in history
Speaker 3: and we can't get past it. I mean, sixteenth century
Speaker 3: Protestantism rises. People are very big into public decorum and
Speaker 3: nobody wants to talk about sex or farting or things
Speaker 3: that you know you find often in medieval literature. But
Speaker 3: they're clamping down in some instances, at least in England,
Speaker 3: which is the place I know the best, on what
Speaker 3: they considered bad language. Bad language for its content, not
Speaker 3: necessarily for its expressiveness. And you know, the theaters in
Speaker 3: London were filled with this language and we're shut down
Speaker 3: in sixteen hundred for a number of reasons, but one
Speaker 3: of them was that they were just they were just
Speaker 3: not the moral guide that the aldermen of London wanted
Speaker 3: for the people of London because of the language they
Speaker 3: were using. So this isn't a new problem. We've had
Speaker 3: a profanity on the stage, so to speak, for a
Speaker 3: long time, and people have been trying to erase it.
Speaker 3: But things have changed, I think after the Second World War.
Speaker 3: Just to use that as a watershed, it's a little bit,
Speaker 3: it's a little bit imprecise, but we get to a
Speaker 3: point where we start to use profanity more like slang
Speaker 3: than we do like old fashioned profanity, and so the
Speaker 3: taboo around it loosens and you can tell that with
Speaker 3: words like the F word, right, because people can use
Speaker 3: that in all kinds of situations, because they can express
Speaker 3: themselves in other ways, and so it's extremely useful and
Speaker 3: it's not about sex at all when they're using it.
Speaker 3: So the thing that was originally taboo about it, that's
Speaker 3: just disappeared. And it's still something that's frowned upon in
Speaker 3: some settings, but you'll notice it's not frowned upon now
Speaker 3: the way it was, say a couple hundred years ago
Speaker 3: in public discourse.
Speaker 2: You're an expert on language. Is there a more versatile
Speaker 2: word than the F word? I mean, you can use
Speaker 2: it in all kinds of different context. No.
Speaker 3: No, I'll give a little shout out here to Jesse
Speaker 3: Sheidlower's wonderful book The F Word, which will show you
Speaker 3: not just how the F word itself is used, but
Speaker 3: all the words that we've developed from the F word,
Speaker 3: like f wad and you mentioned the MF word a
Speaker 3: little while ago, and all kinds of we have, all
Speaker 3: kinds of opportunity needs to use it. And when we
Speaker 3: when we don't see exactly the right F word for
Speaker 3: us to use it in a particular case, we will
Speaker 3: sometimes come up with a new one. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 3: amazing that you can do so much with just one word.
Speaker 3: But that's one of the advantages of this vocabulary. It's
Speaker 3: very narrow, but it's very expressive, and so people can
Speaker 3: use it expressively, you know, again, sometimes in anger, sometimes
Speaker 3: in frustration. I mean, my favorite example is that, you know,
Speaker 3: if you walk out of the grocery store with your
Speaker 3: your groceries and paper bags and it's raining and you
Speaker 3: get to the curb and the bottom falls out of
Speaker 3: the bags and all the groceries fall to the ground
Speaker 3: and a car drives by and splashes water all over you.
Speaker 3: You know, sugar is not going to work in that instance, Right,
Speaker 3: You're going to need something that goes beyond everyday language
Speaker 3: to vent your frustration in that case. And I think
Speaker 3: that most of us when profanity is used in that way,
Speaker 3: but we don't object to it strenuously. But some of
Speaker 3: the things that have been happening in the La City
Speaker 3: Council meeting sounds much more dire than just those frustrated
Speaker 3: moments of using the word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they certainly do. And thank you for helping me
Speaker 2: with that transition. I appreciated because obviously the vulgarities that
Speaker 2: are spewed at La City Hall at every single regular
Speaker 2: council meeting, at committee meetings. It's like nothing I've ever
Speaker 2: seen before in all my years of covering local governments.
Speaker 2: And the city councils of course put forth this motion
Speaker 2: where they're thinking about trying to ban certain words. Now,
Speaker 2: this is not the F word, they can't get rid
Speaker 2: of that yet, these our more profane words that are insulting,
Speaker 2: an offense of the N word and the C word,
Speaker 2: and they haven't moved forward on that because they are
Speaker 2: concerned about being sued that this may be a First
Speaker 2: Amendment issue. But I was hoping the reason I wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to you was why do you think folks
Speaker 2: use those words as a tool to antagonize politicians rather
Speaker 2: than relying on just the facts of a case.
Speaker 3: Well, they may be doing that. Although the N word,
Speaker 3: for instance, is just it's just an awful word, and
Speaker 3: it's meant to be hurtful. There's there's rarely an instance
Speaker 3: in which somebody is using it where it's not a
Speaker 3: slur against someone. And I would make a distinction myself
Speaker 3: between slurs and what we usually consider profanity because slurs
Speaker 3: are they're necessarily weaponized. I mean, that's what they're for
Speaker 3: is to put people down, dismiss them, put them in
Speaker 3: a corner. And that's not the way. We use a
Speaker 3: lot of profanity, at least not all the time. But
Speaker 3: the sea word is an interesting case because the sea
Speaker 3: word is much more accepted in other parts of the
Speaker 3: anglophone world. I mean, if you were in Ireland or Australia,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure they would understand why there.
Speaker 1: Was how they use it all the time.
Speaker 3: The word at all. They use it all the time,
Speaker 3: but they use it they use it in a slang
Speaker 3: year way where it doesn't have to be used as
Speaker 3: a weapon against a woman or be a diminishing term.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, you've got some evidence this
Speaker 3: is I think not determined yet. It's not you know,
Speaker 3: sort of come to full full fruition. But it may
Speaker 3: be that women are beginning to use the sea word
Speaker 3: among themselves the way maybe they were using the B
Speaker 3: word a couple of decades ago, in order to build solidarity,
Speaker 3: in order to reclaim it for women and their use.
Speaker 3: And so I would not as a man, walk into
Speaker 3: a room filled with women and use the sea word
Speaker 3: with abandon as though somehow it were all right to
Speaker 3: do so now, because I don't think that that's the case.
Speaker 3: But it's actually a little socially more complicated than at
Speaker 3: first it seems. But it does sound like what's going
Speaker 3: on in those city council meetings is that they're being
Speaker 3: used to characterize people really negatively, and so the sea
Speaker 3: words being used more as a slur than it's being
Speaker 3: used as a slang word.
Speaker 2: But what about those First Amendment concerns. We'll talk about
Speaker 2: that in the context of l Hall.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand I AM.
Speaker 2: Six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. This is
Speaker 2: Michael Monks Reports on Michael Monks from KFI News with
Speaker 2: you for the next ninety minutes. We're joined by language
Speaker 2: expert and Indiana University professor Michael Adams. The battle over
Speaker 2: bad words at La City Hall. City council seems ready
Speaker 2: to move on a ban of certain derogatory words, not
Speaker 2: yet on general profanity. What's at stake here?
Speaker 3: The First Amendment issue, though, is worth talking about. Now.
Speaker 3: I'm not a lawyer and can't speak as one, but
Speaker 3: there was a very important case a few years ago
Speaker 3: Mattal v. Tam that was decided by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: A group called the Slants. They're a musical group. I
Speaker 3: should have specified that a musical group called the Slants
Speaker 3: wanted to trademark that name for their band, and they
Speaker 3: were told by the Trademark Trial and a Field Boys
Speaker 3: that they couldn't do so because the law says, or said,
Speaker 3: that you can't use disparaging terms as trademark terms. You
Speaker 3: can use them, but you can't trademark them and claim
Speaker 3: that they're your property, so to speak, in commerce. And
Speaker 3: what the Supreme Court decided was that the Trademark Trial
Speaker 3: and Appeal Board was wrong, that the Slants, while a slur,
Speaker 3: was expressive of an identity that the band was trying
Speaker 3: to get across, and as expressive speech, it was protected
Speaker 3: by the First Amendment. So the Supreme Court overruled the
Speaker 3: Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and that opened the door
Speaker 3: then for slurs to be used as trademark terms. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen a whole lot of them being used that way,
Speaker 3: but I can imagine the city council thinking, well, if
Speaker 3: it's okay to use a slur as a trademark, How
Speaker 3: can I keep it out of our meeting? Right? And
Speaker 3: it would have to be because the court supported some
Speaker 3: notion of civil decorum within that space. And I don't
Speaker 3: know how. I don't know how council rooms work, but
Speaker 3: I could speak to that in my class am I think,
Speaker 3: and I think the university and courts with support that
Speaker 3: I can set the I can set the tone for
Speaker 3: speech in my classroom, you know, just as an isolated space.
Speaker 3: And maybe maybe meetings can do that too. I don't know.
Speaker 3: But as I said, I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 2: Well you nailed it. You nailed it because to be
Speaker 2: worried about it, yeah, and for sure. I mean they've
Speaker 2: been sued before over attempts to stop this. But the
Speaker 2: line of questioning that you just raised there about what
Speaker 2: type of tone can you set in certain environments? That
Speaker 2: seems to be the avenue that they're pursuing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: This issue was to come to a vote last week.
Speaker 2: They decided to put it off after going into a
Speaker 2: closed executive session. So they might have gotten some advice
Speaker 2: from their attorneys that this is not ripe yet, but
Speaker 2: that's still lingering in the meantime. You know, City Hall
Speaker 2: municipal space is no matter where you are, La or Bloomington, Indiana.
Speaker 2: You've got sort of an idea that this is a
Speaker 2: place where, of course legislation takes place, legislating takes place,
Speaker 2: and proclamations of all that, but also where kids and
Speaker 2: your neighbors can go not just to watch how government works,
Speaker 2: but maybe to be honored. And that happens even in
Speaker 2: big cities like La. You might see the random high
Speaker 2: school that won the softball championship come down all and
Speaker 2: be honored. But before they are they are subjected to
Speaker 2: this type of language. And as we know at the
Speaker 2: beginning of our conversation, it's kind of frowned upon. But
Speaker 2: you're an author also, you wrote a book in praise
Speaker 2: of profanity. There is a place for it, right, I
Speaker 2: mean this, this is a type of language that is worthwhile.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think it absolutely is. It's not it's
Speaker 3: not accidental that the first instances of the F word
Speaker 3: we have appear in poems in the fifteenth century. It's
Speaker 3: esthetic speech in some in some contexts, and and it's
Speaker 3: in the poetry of everyday life if you want to
Speaker 3: look at it that way too, because it's a way
Speaker 3: that we can emphasize things. It's a way that we
Speaker 3: can amplify things. It's a way that we can deflect
Speaker 3: things that so many uses. As we were talking about
Speaker 3: it before, it's good for building bonds with people, because
Speaker 3: you know, doing something that's a little bit wrong with
Speaker 3: your friends binds you to your friends much in the
Speaker 3: same way that young girls tend not to shoplift on
Speaker 3: their own, they tend to shoplift in groups, and they
Speaker 3: do it because then after that they have to keep
Speaker 3: their mouths shut about it because they broke the law
Speaker 3: and you're bound forever. Right in locker room speech is
Speaker 3: kind of the same dynamic. So I mean that's a
Speaker 3: good thing about profanity. We need ways of proving to
Speaker 3: one another that we're, you know, so to speak, the
Speaker 3: right kind of person, the sort of person that you
Speaker 3: can have a secret with or have some level of
Speaker 3: intimacy with. And that doesn't mean that you're swearing all
Speaker 3: the time. That it can be a litmus test I
Speaker 3: think sometimes for belonging to a group. Have you ever
Speaker 3: seen that episode of The Wire in the first season.
Speaker 3: I think it's episode five where the two main detectives
Speaker 3: go to an old, old crime scene and they're walking
Speaker 3: around noticing all these things that they can't quite believe.
Speaker 3: And it lasts for about ten minutes, I think, and
Speaker 3: all they user versions of the F word. There's no
Speaker 3: other dialogue in there at all because they are astounded
Speaker 3: and confused. And then one time the guy hits a
Speaker 3: singer with a hammer or something. I forget exactly what
Speaker 3: the what the injury was, you know, So then you
Speaker 3: got that particular type of F word use you need,
Speaker 3: you need the F words sometimes because again ordinary words
Speaker 3: will fail. So there are definitely good things about it.
Speaker 3: But I will say to underscore an important distinction. There's
Speaker 3: a difference between swearing with people, as in, you know,
Speaker 3: consolidating or identity in a group or building group bonds
Speaker 3: or that sort of thing, and swearing at somebody, in
Speaker 3: which case it's got a different use and it's it's
Speaker 3: weaponized and you don't have to do that with profanity.
Speaker 3: You can do that with lots of words, you know,
Speaker 3: weaponized speech and work against somebody else's interests. If you
Speaker 3: come from South, you know what it means to have
Speaker 3: somebody say bless his heart or or bless her heart.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no there's no worse put down even
Speaker 3: though there's no swear word there.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm from Kentucky. I know that one.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but I mean so there's no So it's
Speaker 3: not just profanity that that we weaponize, but it certainly
Speaker 3: is identified quickly as a weapon when it's used that way.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't think that there's any you know,
Speaker 3: we're not out here to harm one another, surely with
Speaker 3: our language or anything else. I mean, that's not that's
Speaker 3: not the American way. And uh, and I think that
Speaker 3: there's reasons for people maybe to pull pull back from
Speaker 3: attacking people with language or you know, maybe in any
Speaker 3: other way too. But again, that's not inherently a problem
Speaker 3: of profanity. That's got to do with the way people
Speaker 3: use profanity. Back to the issue of the of the
Speaker 3: of the La City Council. You know, maybe they can
Speaker 3: protect their space because I know that judges can support
Speaker 3: their space in the courtroom. They can say in my
Speaker 3: court room, you will not use that sort of language, right, So,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe there's a way for the city council
Speaker 3: to regulate speech in that official setting where they wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to do it otherwise. I don't know. It's
Speaker 3: all in the future, it'll be in the news.
Speaker 2: Well, be careful. I don't want them to call you
Speaker 2: as an expert witness, because if there's anything that takes
Speaker 2: a long time, it's a Los Angeles City Council meeting,
Speaker 2: and you don't want to be caught.
Speaker 3: Up in that. Well, I'm grateful for your concern. I
Speaker 3: probably won't call me. We'll see and I'll endure what
Speaker 3: I have to endure, you know. But the thing is too,
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't see that happening very often in
Speaker 3: real time. I would, i admit, be kind of interested
Speaker 3: in seeing how people were behaving and who knows you
Speaker 3: live and you learn maybe I would revise some of
Speaker 3: my ideas about how we're using profanity effectively or not
Speaker 3: in the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: Professor Michael Adams, Indiana University. So grateful you took the
Speaker 2: effing time to talk to KFI about bad words. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Hope we can talk again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'd be very happy to do that. It
Speaker 3: was a pleasure today.
Speaker 2: Up next, LA is dealing with a tight budget. They're
Speaker 2: fighting over a lot of spending choices at city Hall.
Speaker 2: But imagine my surprise when the most tension erupted during
Speaker 2: questions about elephants at the La Zoo. That's next on
Speaker 2: Michael Monks Reports Here on KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: This is Michael Monks Reports. I'm Michael Monks from KFI News.
Speaker 2: Coming up in our next hour. Roving gangs of teenagers
Speaker 2: on bicycles terrorizing parts of Los Angeles, seemingly without consequences.
Speaker 2: They ransack convenience stores, beat up people, and in one instance,
Speaker 2: steal liquor from a Ralph's store in South LA and
Speaker 2: then attack a gay couple outside. One of those guys
Speaker 2: is with us because he's had it. He started a
Speaker 2: website and he wants to find these little punks and
Speaker 2: hold them account. That's coming up. But first, another depressing
Speaker 2: week at La City Hall when it comes to the
Speaker 2: money and where it's all gone and where it's not
Speaker 2: going to go. The city has a billion dollar budget shortfall.
Speaker 2: Mayor Bass has proposed around sixteen hundred layoffs, but there's
Speaker 2: been some hope even from the mayor that it won't happen.
Speaker 2: Maybe the state will bail us out, maybe President Trump
Speaker 2: comes to the rescue. Well, Councilwoman Katie Arslavsky, chair of
Speaker 2: the Budget Committee, poured ice cold water on those dreams.
Speaker 2: This week.
Speaker 4: We've reviewed the budget, We've heard from departments, from city employees,
Speaker 4: from the public. For many of you in the audience,
Speaker 4: the reality is there is not a way to restore
Speaker 4: every position proposed for layoff. There just isn't. This will
Speaker 4: not be a no layoff budget. When this budget was
Speaker 4: first proposed, there was hope that layoffs could be avoided
Speaker 4: with help from Sacramento, and while we continue to wait
Speaker 4: for an update as of today May eighth, that support
Speaker 4: has not materialized. The outlook for federal assistances, as we
Speaker 4: can all imagine, similarly leak. It's hard to acknowledge this,
Speaker 4: but it's the truth. What's also true, though, is that
Speaker 4: we will put together a balanced budget, one that restores
Speaker 4: key services to the extent possible and minimizes our structural
Speaker 4: deficit heading into next year, which will almost certainly be
Speaker 4: a tough one as well.
Speaker 2: There will be layoffs, but maybe not as many. More
Speaker 2: than four hundred of those layoffs are targeting the LAPD,
Speaker 2: not officers, but civilian workers. Chief Jim McDonald told the
Speaker 2: Budget Committee that's bad. These folks do important work and
Speaker 2: the pursuit of justice, evidence and DNA analysis, those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. The Budget Committee thinks it can save more
Speaker 2: than one hundred of those jobs. It would require the
Speaker 2: police department to slow down its hiring. It's been wanting
Speaker 2: ten thousand officers for years. It's been stuck in the
Speaker 2: eighty five eighty seven hundred range. Probably won't be hard
Speaker 2: to slow down hiring. Chief McDonald has been pretty open
Speaker 2: about how hard it's been to get people. The committee
Speaker 2: might also be able to save some jobs in other
Speaker 2: departments by slashing the Mayor's Inside Safe Homeless program. It
Speaker 2: suggested cutting funding for it by ten million dollars and
Speaker 2: also scrapping a new firefighter unit that would have responded
Speaker 2: to homeless issues. But it's going to be a bleak
Speaker 2: day when that budget is finalized. The Budget Committee also
Speaker 2: had a weird exchange when the La Zoo showed up
Speaker 2: to talk about its financial situation. There are two old
Speaker 2: elephants at the zoo, Billy and Tina, and they're supposed
Speaker 2: to be shipped off to Tulsa to spend their final years.
Speaker 2: Councilman Bob Blumenfield doesn't like that idea. He wants the
Speaker 2: council to have some time to review the eighty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars cost. Maybe it could be done more cheaply at
Speaker 2: another elephant sanctuary, maybe one in Tennessee or northern California,
Speaker 2: but Zoo Director Denise Verrett wouldn't commit to giving counsel
Speaker 2: that opportunity. Here's that awkward exchange.
Speaker 5: And that ultimately that would be vetted and would be
Speaker 5: a public process that we could go through. Not dictating
Speaker 5: the outcome of that, but I am a as the
Speaker 5: motion and this council dictating that we before those elephants
Speaker 5: are moved anywhere, that that come to the Council for
Speaker 5: the oversight.
Speaker 1: So can you promise.
Speaker 5: Me here that those elephants will not be moved until
Speaker 5: the council has that chance to review that report and
Speaker 5: vote on it.
Speaker 6: What I can promise you is that I am always
Speaker 6: going to make decisions that are for the best interest
Speaker 6: of the animals at the zoo, including the elephants.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's not good enough, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: But that exact exchange repeated itself when Bloomenfield tried to
Speaker 2: rephrase the question to make it more budget oriented, since
Speaker 2: this was the budget committee. The Zoo is freezing its
Speaker 2: elephant exhibit indefinitely, but when Billy and Tina take off
Speaker 2: for Oklahoma, we'll have to wait and see. Either way,
Speaker 2: they'll get to enjoy the Olympics in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Softball and canoeing. They're not in LA. They're in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2: When the rest of the Olympics come to LA in
Speaker 2: twenty eight, some hotel and airport workers may be making
Speaker 2: a lot more money, and that might be bad news
Speaker 2: for hotels in the airport. A different committee, the Economic
Speaker 2: and Jobs Committee, approved an ordinance that would see minimum
Speaker 2: wages for these workers go all the way to thirty
Speaker 2: dollars an hour by twenty twenty eight. They call it
Speaker 2: an Olympic wage. They're going to be busy during this time.
Speaker 2: They want to be paid for it. Hotel owners and
Speaker 2: the folks who operate businesses at LAX have said this
Speaker 2: will kill us. The ordinance passed the committee anyway, with
Speaker 2: the backing of unions and activists. If the full Council
Speaker 2: approves the ordinance, wages would start going up immediately and
Speaker 2: then incrementally over the next few years. And right now
Speaker 2: tourism is not good. LA World Airport CEO John Ackerman,
Speaker 2: that's who oversees LAX. Basically, he spoke to the Budget Committee.
Speaker 6: Tourism numbers also paint a concerning picture right now. California
Speaker 6: tourism fell in February and March, particularly from Canada and Mexico,
Speaker 6: with Canadian air tourism tourism down over fifteen percent and
Speaker 6: Mexican tourism down twenty four percent. Even worse, flight bookings
Speaker 6: from Canada to the US fell by over seventy percent
Speaker 6: in early twenty twenty five, prompting airlines to cut more
Speaker 6: than three hundred thousand seats from LAX through October.
Speaker 2: So tourism is bad right now for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 2: and Ackerman told the committee it doesn't look like it's
Speaker 2: going to get better.
Speaker 6: The LA Tourism and Convention visitor The Convention Bureau is
Speaker 6: anticipating you over your reductions and total international visitors to
Speaker 6: LA by between twenty five and thirty percent. Well, these
Speaker 6: projections are sobering. Is when times are toughest that we
Speaker 6: must work together to see how we can help one
Speaker 6: another and find opportunities in our challenges.
Speaker 2: But the most difficult situation, he says, is for the
Speaker 2: businesses at the airport. He spelled it out for the committee.
Speaker 2: What's at stake at the minimum wage shoots up to
Speaker 2: thirty dollars.
Speaker 6: One hundred percent of the business partners who expressed an
Speaker 6: opinion on the effect of that ordinance to me have
Speaker 6: said it will hurt their business and they will do
Speaker 6: less business in Los Angeles over the long term if
Speaker 6: that passes because of the additional pressure will put on
Speaker 6: their cost. That is what our partners are telling me.
Speaker 6: We are very concerned because we already have partners that
Speaker 6: are in difficulty. You know, this Council approved a relief
Speaker 6: package last year for some of our concessionaires. They basically
Speaker 6: kept them afloat, and that was even before this ordinance,
Speaker 6: and we will be bringing a similar package for additional
Speaker 6: concessionaires in the not too distant future this summer because
Speaker 6: of pressure they.
Speaker 2: Are already under. When that ordinance goes to the full Council,
Speaker 2: we'll have it covered for you right here on KFI
Speaker 2: News and coming up in the next hour. Violent and
Speaker 2: disruptive criminals, teenagers on bicycles wreaking havoc all over the city.
Speaker 2: A victim who has had enough joins us to talk
Speaker 2: about what he's doing to stop them, and tariffs on
Speaker 2: more movies. President Trump has suggested it. Actor John Voight
Speaker 2: has encouraged it. What the local film industry has to
Speaker 2: say about that idea and whether it will help or
Speaker 2: hurt it when Michael Monks reports continues here on KFI
Speaker 2: AM six
Speaker 1: Forty, KFI AM six forty on demand