Speaker 1: Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 2: It beats listening to nothing.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, being Frank, where the only way to
Speaker 1: be is Frank. Hello everyone, and welcome to being Frank.
Speaker 1: We're the only way to be is, of course, Frank.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Frank Lebono, and i'd like to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us on what we like to call
Speaker 1: the Intelligent Conversation Podcast, where no conversation is out of
Speaker 1: bounds and all points of view are welcome. You know,
Speaker 1: we record live to tape, so I give you the
Speaker 1: date and you have some relevance. It's Earth of July
Speaker 1: and it's blisteringly hot out. I hope everybody is listening
Speaker 1: in the safety and the security of a well air
Speaker 1: conditioned room as I am right now, because it's dangerously
Speaker 1: hot out. Be that as it may. In a recent
Speaker 1: article I wrote for the online publication Niak News and Views,
Speaker 1: I was very critical of what I saw as a
Speaker 1: capitulation of a major media corporation that is Paramount, the
Speaker 1: parent company of CBS, to complete a multi billion dollar
Speaker 1: merger with Trump supporter Larry Ellison's Skydance Media. Let's cut
Speaker 1: to the chase. In my opinion, Paramount sold not only
Speaker 1: its integrity, but it's very sole to make this happen.
Speaker 1: In addition to settling a bogus charge the administration made
Speaker 1: against CBS's news flagship program sixteen Minutes to the tune
Speaker 1: of sixteen million dollars, the News division made other embarrassing
Speaker 1: concessions that will shake the very foundations of journalistic integrity.
Speaker 1: The network canceled the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, citing
Speaker 1: financial concerns despite its number one late night ratings. They
Speaker 1: also agreed to review the company's DEI policies to bring
Speaker 1: them more in line with the President's agenda. And it's
Speaker 1: been made very clear by the President and this administration
Speaker 1: and that he will continue to purge any media outlet
Speaker 1: that challenges him or his agenda. The effect this is
Speaker 1: already having on the First Amendment, not only with major
Speaker 1: media outlets, but on individual freedom of speech as well,
Speaker 1: is chilling. Perhaps one day even this show will be targeted.
Speaker 1: Unless we do something, it will only get worse, and
Speaker 1: once we lose the freedom of the press, freedom of speech,
Speaker 1: democracy will surely fail as well. Joining us now for
Speaker 1: some intelligent conversation on how we got here and how
Speaker 1: we be able to resist these draconian measures. Is one
Speaker 1: of our favorite guests here on Being Frank. He's an author, composer, musician,
Speaker 1: full professor of Mass Media and Communication at Fordham University.
Speaker 1: My colleague and friend. Welcome back, doctor Paul Levinson.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm delighted to be here, Frank, and let me say,
Speaker 3: I hope that the show is very soon attacked by
Speaker 3: this fascist Trump situation that our whole country and world
Speaker 3: is now and because that will bring this show some
Speaker 3: more publicity, which is always a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's very true, Paul's it's kind of saying,
Speaker 1: but true. And you know, we found out and it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I just saw a Fordham University graduate students presentation about podcasts,
Speaker 1: and there's no question that the more controversial you can
Speaker 1: be in the podcast, the more ears. I'm gonna say eyeballs,
Speaker 1: but that's quite work, the more ears you have. So
Speaker 1: it's not that we avoid controversy. We just prefer to
Speaker 1: have it in the form of intelligent conversation. And I
Speaker 1: do mean all points of view are welcome, but we
Speaker 1: we take a particularly strong one. Paul, You and I
Speaker 1: both as as journalists, teachers of journalism ET cetera, and
Speaker 1: and mass media of the power of free speech. So
Speaker 1: let's let's put this in a broader context, if you will.
Speaker 1: You know, now he's attacking the big guys. Okay, the CBS,
Speaker 1: this rumor. Now he's gone after George Stepanopolis of ABC,
Speaker 1: so they're all being lined up. Jimmy Fallon has been
Speaker 1: rumored next after Colbert. Put this in some kind of
Speaker 1: context for us, Paul, if you would, has this ever
Speaker 1: happened before in this country?
Speaker 3: Even Well, that's an excellent question, because I was going
Speaker 3: to say, and this is a good beginning of an
Speaker 3: answer to the question that back in the Watergate era,
Speaker 3: when Nixon was doing his best to squelch the press,
Speaker 3: and it was everything from not wanting to see the
Speaker 3: Pentagon papers published all across the board CBS in particular,
Speaker 3: with Walter Crokid as the anchor, that in the early
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, in a poll, a gallop Pole was found
Speaker 3: to be the most trusted person in America. CBS in
Speaker 3: particular was cited by scholars and then by historians as
Speaker 3: indicating how powerful the communications media were in this country
Speaker 3: that in a battle between a corrupt president of the
Speaker 3: United States in those days, Richard Nixon, but still having
Speaker 3: all the awesome power of the presidency and many of
Speaker 3: his Republican flunkies in Congress behind him. All that power,
Speaker 3: couldn't stand up to the media, couldn't stand up to CBS,
Speaker 3: couldn't stand up to the New York Times, couldn't stand
Speaker 3: up to the Washington Post. And now that's right changed
Speaker 3: horrendously the Washington Post. And we've talked about this before. Yes,
Speaker 3: we have democracy dies in darkness. That was their motto
Speaker 3: that Jeff Bezos put out there when he purchased the
Speaker 3: Washington Post. And what happened even before Trump took office
Speaker 3: just months ago. You know, Bezos was right up there
Speaker 3: with all the other captains of media industry, Zuckerberg, you know,
Speaker 3: you can just go down the list. They were all
Speaker 3: there at the inauguration and donated god knows how much
Speaker 3: money did Trump And why did they do that, because
Speaker 3: each and every one of them are cowards, because they
Speaker 3: were afraid that Trump would come after them. Now, CBS,
Speaker 3: you know wasn't there, but CBS you could have predicted this.
Speaker 3: If Trump and his MAGA base are able to pressure
Speaker 3: made your newspapers and major social media to tow the line,
Speaker 3: it's just going to be an amount of time, weeks
Speaker 3: months before that same fascist juggernaut begins to attack other
Speaker 3: major media. So no one was surprised that this pressure
Speaker 3: would be put on CBS and all of the major
Speaker 3: media and universities as well, by the way, like Harvard
Speaker 3: and Columbia, et cetera. I mean, this is a major,
Speaker 3: major crackdown on freedom. But what is surprising and what
Speaker 3: I am profoundly disappointed in, and what Eric Severid and
Speaker 3: Walter Krackheit, everyone who basically stood up to fascism in
Speaker 3: the McCarthy era. We're talking about Edward R. Murrow, if
Speaker 3: you go back to the nineteen fifties, but through the
Speaker 3: decades where the ballwork of American democracy, each and every
Speaker 3: one of them now is slowly beginning to crumble to
Speaker 3: the pressure that Trump is giving them. And so I
Speaker 3: was horrified when I I mean, you mentioned some of
Speaker 3: them already. You know they basically cover it up. Well,
Speaker 3: you know, the Lake Show wasn't doing that well. You know,
Speaker 3: ratings aren't that good. Yeah, that's been true for like
Speaker 3: five six years, that's been true for ten years as well.
Speaker 1: Viewership has changed. I mean the market has changed, so
Speaker 1: the way late night TV is going to be viewed
Speaker 1: is being viewed has changed. I think it's the timing, Paul,
Speaker 1: that's particularly egregious. You know, you would connect dots here
Speaker 1: and it's not so hard to go from one dot
Speaker 1: to the other to realize what's happening here.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, that's one hundred percent right, and so that's
Speaker 3: why I was saying, Yeah, we know that viewership has declined.
Speaker 3: That's been happening to broadcast television ever since streaming and
Speaker 3: social media became so important. That's media evolution in action.
Speaker 3: You know. Not as many newspapers are in existence today
Speaker 3: as were one hundred years ago, and that was because
Speaker 3: of the rise of radio. So new media always crowded
Speaker 3: out older media. All media compete for our human patronage.
Speaker 3: But that has been happening for a while, and to
Speaker 3: use that as an excuse to end the Late Show
Speaker 3: is really just a thinly veiled attempt to disguise what
Speaker 3: really happened, which you correctly pointed out. There was a
Speaker 3: merger underway between Paramount, which is the parent company of
Speaker 3: CBS and Skydance, owned by a vehement Trump supporter and
Speaker 3: much wanted to make sure that somehow the Trump jargonaut
Speaker 3: couldn't get in the way of that. The FCC, by
Speaker 3: the way, was the federal agency that finally okayed the merger.
Speaker 3: It is run by just a simple vote of all
Speaker 3: the members on the FCC, and unfortunately it now has
Speaker 3: a majority of commissioners who are Trump favorable. And this
Speaker 3: gets to another thing that I've been talking to you
Speaker 3: and everybody about for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 3: The FCC was unconstitutional from the day that it was
Speaker 3: created back in the nineteen thirties. It was a blatant,
Speaker 3: obvious violation of the First Amendment, Congress Shall make no law.
Speaker 3: A bridge and freedom of speech or the press. Those
Speaker 3: are the two things that typify radio, just as they
Speaker 3: do this podcast. And you would think that would have
Speaker 3: been an easy thing for people to understand back in
Speaker 3: the nineteen thirties. And although I'm a great fan of FDR,
Speaker 3: that's one of the few things that he did that
Speaker 3: was very, very wrong, and it's still damaging the country
Speaker 3: to this very day, as indicated by their approval now
Speaker 3: of the Paramount Skuydance merger.
Speaker 1: How is it justified?
Speaker 3: Paul?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, as you mentioned a brilliant man
Speaker 1: and president overall, but none of us being perfect, of course,
Speaker 1: But how is it justified then, and how has it
Speaker 1: continued to be justified?
Speaker 3: The way fascism is always justified is people need protection.
Speaker 3: People want someone to take care of them. People want safety, security,
Speaker 3: and they prefer a government that could give that to them,
Speaker 3: even if it means curtis telling their freedoms. There was
Speaker 3: a great book written shortly after World War Two by
Speaker 3: Eric From. He was a Freudian psychologist, the titles Escape
Speaker 3: from Freedom. From was trying to understand how fascism could
Speaker 3: have arisen and taken such a hold on Germany, which
Speaker 3: previously had been a democracy.
Speaker 1: An educated popularists, overall high standard of living, although they
Speaker 1: were struggling through the depression in the history of it, Yes.
Speaker 3: That's right, and From's conclusion was very chilling, but very true,
Speaker 3: and it was that many adults want to be children.
Speaker 3: They don't want the responsibility. Ironically, they want people to
Speaker 3: tell them what to do. And if you asked them,
Speaker 3: they would say, no, I want freedom, I want to
Speaker 3: do whatever I want. But that's actually not what in
Speaker 3: their deepest heart, and so they really want they crave
Speaker 3: the security and protection that little children have from their parents.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's understandable in a Freudian sense, and
Speaker 3: there's nothing even wrong with that. But the problem is
Speaker 3: it spills over into politics, and when it does that,
Speaker 3: it elects people who they're not present. They're the few,
Speaker 3: they're the leader, they're the father of the country, and
Speaker 3: you're supposed to get the same kind of feeling of
Speaker 3: security and confidence and safety that you had as a
Speaker 3: five or six year old with your own parents. That
Speaker 3: was Eric Frum's analysis. I think he was right on.
Speaker 1: You know, Paul, and you know, I see a lot
Speaker 1: of perils here China, and I was in China in
Speaker 1: the nineties and that it really struck me of the overall,
Speaker 1: particularly in the cities, the high quality of life. But
Speaker 1: there's a trade off there. It says if the government
Speaker 1: says to them, look, part of the history of China
Speaker 1: has been starvation billions of through the years through poor government,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So they kind of made a deal said, look,
Speaker 1: we can prevent that from happening and giving and give
Speaker 1: you an overall very high quality of life. The cities
Speaker 1: are beautiful, Tira glass towers, et cetera. But in exchange,
Speaker 1: don't ask us how we're doing it. Okay, you want
Speaker 1: you don't want to know, so don't ask.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, in China, it's almost a question of which
Speaker 3: do you prefer food or freedom? And you know, I
Speaker 3: can even understand that. You know, you know, you can
Speaker 3: live as a person whose freedom is eclipsed. You can
Speaker 3: even live with very little freedom. You can't live too
Speaker 3: long if you don't have enough change. But that's that's
Speaker 3: why fascism, and this is why I get what's happening
Speaker 3: in this country, the United States right now is so tragic.
Speaker 3: But that's why fascism arose so quickly in China, in Russia,
Speaker 3: you know, communism is a form of fascism. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a dictatorial, totalitarian country because the people there were
Speaker 3: just concerned with one thing. I want to live. I
Speaker 3: want to eat. Please, someone take care of me, make
Speaker 3: sure I can do that. But we here in the
Speaker 3: United States, thank God, have never been like that. We
Speaker 3: have enough food to eat. Yes, we have problems, like
Speaker 3: you know, every human being, every country has problems.
Speaker 1: Poverty, hunger of food. So yes, that's right.
Speaker 3: But the problem is, you know, the the Trump position
Speaker 3: was able to connect with the grievances and dissatisfaction that
Speaker 3: not a majority of Americans have, but a majority of
Speaker 3: people who can their vote in the last election had,
Speaker 3: And that's why, by the way, to look at the
Speaker 3: political side of this, it doesn't matter what Trump does.
Speaker 3: And this is again Eric Frump. If what you want
Speaker 3: is a father to take care of you, and that's
Speaker 3: such a primary thing, and that's literally what we want
Speaker 3: in our government, it doesn't matter just about anything else
Speaker 3: that he says and does. You're still going to love him.
Speaker 3: He's still you're a parent. You're still going to rely
Speaker 3: on him or could be her. And that's why this
Speaker 3: is such a very dangerous thing, because it's not as
Speaker 3: if Trump a chief power in a coup deta. You know,
Speaker 3: we are a democracy. And as much as it pains
Speaker 3: me to say this, Trump won the election in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, Yeah, he won not only the electoral vote,
Speaker 3: he won the popular vote. So Americans voted to him.
Speaker 3: And the only way we can break out of this
Speaker 3: is that if enough of those Americans realize this father
Speaker 3: that I want is a monster and I don't want
Speaker 3: to be in this totalitarian family anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, Paull you know, there has been some resistance, and
Speaker 1: you know, we gave CBS a good bashing, and I
Speaker 1: worked for them for twenty years. They saved my life
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. It was one of the
Speaker 1: great privileges of my life to work for the news
Speaker 1: department because of the integrity that I found there. I've
Speaker 1: always stated that, and I always found that on that level,
Speaker 1: the newsroom level, that was a great deal of integrity.
Speaker 1: And so there has been pushedback, like, for example, we
Speaker 1: mentioned sixty Minutes. Bill Owens, a legendary executive producer for
Speaker 1: sixty incredibly well respected journalist, man, producer, etc. At the
Speaker 1: end of April called it quits in protest. So there
Speaker 1: are movement, but can that be effective? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you understand it and frustration, and it certainly makes a statement.
Speaker 1: It makes a statement, but where does it really leave us.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, I don't actually endorse resigning as a way to
Speaker 3: counter a fascist enemy, because all that does is it
Speaker 3: leaves the playing field more open to that enemy to do,
Speaker 3: in this case, his damage to the country. So I'm
Speaker 3: sorry that he resigned. Had I been in his place,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have resigned. If they want to fire me,
Speaker 3: fire me, but I would have spoken out. I would
Speaker 3: have tried to get sixty minutes to even talk more
Speaker 3: about the dangers of Trump and his policy to this country,
Speaker 3: and then let CBS fire me if they have to.
Speaker 3: But that's just my opinion. And you know, I can
Speaker 3: understand why a person feels in the case he can't
Speaker 3: work any more for this organization. But I think that
Speaker 3: what everyone does need to do, and I think it's
Speaker 3: great therefore, for a variety of reasons that you have
Speaker 3: this podcast, But what we're talking about today is an
Speaker 3: especially crucial and important reason. The best thing that any
Speaker 3: of us can do is to use whatever media we
Speaker 3: have access to, whatever groups of people will listen to
Speaker 3: our voices, to make these points that you and I
Speaker 3: are now talking about. So I'm glad that I'm a
Speaker 3: professor at Fordham University. I've never been more happier in
Speaker 3: my life than I've been these last couple of years
Speaker 3: that my day job is going into a university talking
Speaker 3: to students, discussing their opinions, my opinions, giving them some
Speaker 3: of the history. And by the way, like you, in
Speaker 3: my clas all opinions are welcome. It's not that some
Speaker 3: opinions are right and some opinions are wrong. It's that
Speaker 3: your opinions need to be thought through, supported by evidence
Speaker 3: rationally developed, and that I think the more people that
Speaker 3: do that, that think through what they're doing, and the
Speaker 3: more people who are talking about that, I think that
Speaker 3: that is the best response to these kinds of attacks.
Speaker 3: And that's why it is so disturbing that Columbia University
Speaker 3: gives in to Trump. I saw some news just yesterday.
Speaker 3: I mean, so many things are happening, it's really tough
Speaker 3: to keep up that Harvard was saying something like maybe
Speaker 3: they can work some kind of deal out with Trump
Speaker 3: for some kind of payment. And Harvard was one of
Speaker 3: the leaders in the resistance of universities. So I don't
Speaker 3: know enough about that to really comment on it. I
Speaker 3: don't know why Harvard's said that, but I'll certainly say
Speaker 3: I hope it's not that Harvard in any way is
Speaker 3: going to cooperate with the government. The Trump government doesn't
Speaker 3: like DEEI to damn bet, you know, that's what Harvard
Speaker 3: University wants to do. It doesn't matter whether the government
Speaker 3: wants it or not. And you know, if you don't
Speaker 3: like the DEI then go to court and basically, you know,
Speaker 3: say that Harvard University is discriminating against, you know, one
Speaker 3: group of people to give an advantage to other underprivileged,
Speaker 3: underserved groups of people. That's the way you do it.
Speaker 3: You don't give into a totalitarian dictate by the government.
Speaker 3: The last thing we need in this country is a
Speaker 3: federal government that controls what universities teach, what broadcasters talk about,
Speaker 3: what newspapers publish. You know, that is basically a checklist
Speaker 3: of moving from democracy to fascist.
Speaker 1: You know, Paul Is, there was something in there that
Speaker 1: I want to develop a little bit because and we've
Speaker 1: talked about it before, and you brought Tom Cooper on
Speaker 1: whose book you published, and then Quentin Langley also came
Speaker 1: on with this book about business ethics. And I think
Speaker 1: a recurring theme that's important that you mentioned again here
Speaker 1: is personal responsibility. That every person has a responsibility for
Speaker 1: finding the truth, respecting the truth, sharing the truth, and
Speaker 1: not everybody does. As you mentioned it, people what they
Speaker 1: call it pablem fed. I think it's the term people
Speaker 1: like to be, as you mentioned, taking care of Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's harder, and I want to get into it a
Speaker 1: little bit after the break I want to get to now.
Speaker 1: But you know, part of it, of the AI thing
Speaker 1: is that one of the things that can often make
Speaker 1: it so seductive is people want to believe it. Okay,
Speaker 1: it satisfies their narrative, so you know they but they
Speaker 1: have to take more responsibility. So talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about how important it is, especially in the age
Speaker 1: of immediacly you press a button and if we don't
Speaker 1: get an answer in five seconds, we're pissed off. Too slow?
Speaker 1: What's about it with my computer? How do we balance
Speaker 1: that massive amount of information with the amount of personal
Speaker 1: responsibility that we should have towards it.
Speaker 3: Well, everyone has feelings, obviously, and I think there are
Speaker 3: many Americans who are not happy with what they're seeing.
Speaker 3: On some level. They know it's not good that universities
Speaker 3: are being pressured to follow what the federal government is
Speaker 3: telling them to do, that that newspapers are caving into Trump,
Speaker 3: all the things that we've been talking about, broadcasters and
Speaker 3: so on. And I think the way to being a
Speaker 3: more responsible citizen starts is pay attention to those feelings
Speaker 3: that you have that something is not right, and rather
Speaker 3: than suppressing that and putting it out of your mind,
Speaker 3: I don't really have time to deal with that. I
Speaker 3: have to do this that my business, my family, whatever.
Speaker 3: Don't bury them and push them aside, give them a voice,
Speaker 3: and I think once that begins happening, then you can
Speaker 3: begin to see more clearly how you can, with whatever
Speaker 3: resources you possess, to fight this battle. And you know
Speaker 3: you mentioned Tom Cooper and my company, Communicated Editions to
Speaker 3: publishing company that my wife and I actually started back
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties and we're rekindling it now. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons why I decided to publish Tom's book
Speaker 3: is it's not a political book really at all. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's some political implications in there. It's about Harold Innis
Speaker 3: and Marshall mclullan. Wisdom Weavers is the name of it.
Speaker 3: But one of the reasons why is there is a
Speaker 3: political lesson in there. And I'm not saying that Connected
Speaker 3: Editions is only going to publish books with political lessons,
Speaker 3: where we're going to be publishing a science fiction novel,
Speaker 3: Song of the Unsung Mushroom in January and currently preparing
Speaker 3: that now, so you know, some things won't have anything
Speaker 3: much to do with politics. But as a publisher I
Speaker 3: realized I was getting yet another voice in addition to
Speaker 3: being an author, in addition to being someone who has
Speaker 3: a podcast, an addition to being on your podcast and
Speaker 3: any podcast that he'll have me. Of course, I realize
Speaker 3: I can also publish other people's works, and that helps
Speaker 3: get ideas out as well. And for everyone it's a
Speaker 3: different combination of things. But we've seen the brendous results
Speaker 3: of fascism in Nazi Germany and Communist Russia and with Putin.
Speaker 3: Even though the Soviet Union still doesn't exist, it's certainly
Speaker 3: a resurgence of fascism. And you know, Frank, if you've
Speaker 3: interviewed some people who are actually in Ukraine and have
Speaker 3: been witnessed to the depredations that the Russians have been
Speaker 3: raining down on those democratic people. So the thing to
Speaker 3: do is realize that in this country we're not there
Speaker 3: yet at all. We're still a long way from that.
Speaker 3: We're on the way to getting there. But if every
Speaker 3: person who has some way of countering that acts upon that,
Speaker 3: I think that that will help them. And let me
Speaker 3: just know any of something about AI. I don't think
Speaker 3: we need to cringe and be afraid of AI and
Speaker 3: run away from it. All media are knives or they
Speaker 3: are two edged swords. What is a knife? It can
Speaker 3: be used to cut food, is something that a surgeon
Speaker 3: can use to save someone's life, to make someone healthier.
Speaker 3: But in the hands of a murderer or you know,
Speaker 3: a lunatic, a knife can be a very dangerous weapon.
Speaker 3: So we sometimes expect like new inventions to be nothing
Speaker 3: but good, and that's never the case. You know, are
Speaker 3: being can figure out a way to use a pillow
Speaker 3: to commit murder. You you basically you put a pillow
Speaker 3: over someone's head and you suffocate them. So the key
Speaker 3: is figuring out how to use these media to do
Speaker 3: what I just said, to get your voice out there,
Speaker 3: to meet people who are are more in accord with
Speaker 3: your concerns about the rise of fascism. Then maybe people
Speaker 3: you already know. AI does all kinds of things. It's
Speaker 3: not a panacea. It's not something that will ever replace
Speaker 3: human beings. In my opinion, a better term for artificial
Speaker 3: intelligence AI would be as artificial stupidity. And if you
Speaker 3: want to be sarcastic, you maybe make say ass it's
Speaker 3: basically an as you know, it's not a brain. So
Speaker 3: the fact of the matter is. It's just another tool,
Speaker 3: and since we're talking about tools, that's the best way
Speaker 3: I think that people should think.
Speaker 1: I want to develop that a little bit more after
Speaker 1: the break, but before we go to the break too,
Speaker 1: you know, and we mentioned the capitulation of some of
Speaker 1: the major new players media players. Well one who did not,
Speaker 1: in quite the contrary, actually stuck their middle finger clearly
Speaker 1: in the face of the president was South Park. Okay,
Speaker 1: who have been my heroes for a long time. They're
Speaker 1: not always right, they're sometimes mean spirited, but there's always
Speaker 1: a message, there's always an edge, there's always a message,
Speaker 1: and it's done within satire. Well, if you could to
Speaker 1: talk about the importance of satire and particularly political cartooning
Speaker 1: within the realm of satire, there's been a history of that,
Speaker 1: and of course now Trump is wants to crush them
Speaker 1: and we've got no sense of humor whatsoever. But this
Speaker 1: is not a new thing. Political satirical cartooning has been
Speaker 1: around as long as there's been politics in this country.
Speaker 3: Correct, absolutely in other countries as well. In this country.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you remember her Block. I used to love
Speaker 3: his cartoons. I mean, one of my favorite all time
Speaker 3: political cartoons is a picture of Yogi Bearra and Krish
Speaker 3: Jeff like walking away like you know, from the crowd,
Speaker 3: you know, each of them walking on their own paths
Speaker 3: at the same time. And that, of course was the
Speaker 3: time that Yogi Bearrow was fired from the Yankees and
Speaker 3: the time that Christieff was thrown out of office. So
Speaker 3: I mean, that wasn't a controversial political cartoon. Her Black
Speaker 3: had plenty of those, but it was a wonderful, memorable cartoon,
Speaker 3: a great political cartoon. As long as I'm mentioning her Block.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if he's still alive, Probably not, but
Speaker 3: I mean, just a genius. During again, getting back to Nixon,
Speaker 3: the Watergate, you know, hearings, he had a great cartoon
Speaker 3: of Nixon like behind a desk. He's like like he's
Speaker 3: thrown the desk over and he's hiding behind it and
Speaker 3: he's holding up a gun and he's screaming at come
Speaker 3: and get me coppers, and you know, like like the
Speaker 3: Senate was like walking into the room, and that really
Speaker 3: depicted Nick and beautifully. South Park has been brand for
Speaker 3: a long time. And by the way, South Park, getting
Speaker 3: back to another thing that I mentioned was a victim
Speaker 3: of an FCC fine, way way back, like in the
Speaker 3: early two thousand and all its two two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: Do you know what they did wrong? In one of
Speaker 3: their episodes they had a naked baby's backside, a cartoon
Speaker 3: of a naked baby's backside, And this is what the
Speaker 3: geniuses are on the FCC thought it was unacceptable on
Speaker 3: television even back then. That is what you know the
Speaker 3: FCC was then. So you know, I know I say
Speaker 3: this constantly. When we get back democracy completely in this country,
Speaker 3: I'm going to keep urging again abolish the FCC. It
Speaker 3: is inconsistent with democracy. We don't need their findes, we
Speaker 3: don't need their opinions, we don't need them threatening stations
Speaker 3: that they're not going to renew their licenses now if
Speaker 3: they don't tell the Trump line.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Another topic that we touched upon, Paul, but I think
Speaker 1: we need to talk about a little bit more detail,
Speaker 1: is the reduction, if not the total elimination of funding
Speaker 1: to PBS and NPR. Again, I think some people will
Speaker 1: shrug and say, well, you know, I'll see one less
Speaker 1: dance recital or something like that on PBS and don't
Speaker 1: really realize the enormous contribution these local stations make to
Speaker 1: all of us put that in some perspective for us, please.
Speaker 3: Well, this is very upsetting and this is again part
Speaker 3: of the fascist drug anaut. So it is true that
Speaker 3: both PBS and NPR, PBS being the televi vision part
Speaker 3: of this, NPR being the radio part of it, both
Speaker 3: of them are very progressive by law. And you know,
Speaker 3: as far as PBS this concerned, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 3: it's the Lehr Report originally, the mcmilllere Report, or Sesame Street.
Speaker 3: You find progressive opinions and shades of opinions in many
Speaker 3: ways on those shots. So that's the first thing that's true.
Speaker 3: It's also true that the federal government is funding it,
Speaker 3: and therefore I agree. It's also true that I don't
Speaker 3: blame Republicans for being annoyed that there are more conservative
Speaker 3: views that are presented on those shows. So what I
Speaker 3: would do if I were president is I would say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know what, maybe i'd mentioned this in a speech.
Speaker 3: I would like to see PBS and NPR have more
Speaker 3: diversity of opinions on their programming. And if they didn't
Speaker 3: do that, I wouldn't even think it would be so
Speaker 3: ontoward for someone to take either of those two organizations
Speaker 3: to courts and have a judge who ordered them to
Speaker 3: be more equitably presenting different political points of view. So
Speaker 3: what I'm saying is, in that case, I understand the
Speaker 3: Republican grievows. And if it was the other way around,
Speaker 3: if all we had on NPR or PBS was what
Speaker 3: we get on Fox News, I would be shouting every day.
Speaker 3: So we have to be done about this. But once again,
Speaker 3: Trump is not interested in democracy. He's not interested in
Speaker 3: the way that democracy works. We have this very carefully
Speaker 3: balanced system, checks and balances. People take cases to the courts,
Speaker 3: they percolate through them. Sometimes it can take years. A
Speaker 3: lot of people always cry of the time that that takes.
Speaker 3: It's actually a good thing because it gives people time
Speaker 3: to understand fully what's going on, collect all the evidence.
Speaker 3: So once again, Trump actually started by saying he was
Speaker 3: just by executive FIAT, going to eliminate the funding for
Speaker 3: MPR and PBS and a couple of slightly more democratically
Speaker 3: leaning Republicans or maybe better, slightly less fascistic Republican senators
Speaker 3: and maybe people in the House and his advisors talked
Speaker 3: to him said no, no, we can do that here.
Speaker 3: You don't need to do that by executive fear. So
Speaker 3: now this is what in fact what the Senate in
Speaker 3: the House are doing. But the good news about that
Speaker 3: is we're having an election that's coming up in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, all of the House of Representatives.
Speaker 1: Twenty six, just twenty six, Yeah right, you said six.
Speaker 1: We're a little bit beyond that, a little bit, please continue.
Speaker 3: So the upshot is there is a chance that we
Speaker 3: can turn both the House and the Senate back into
Speaker 3: Democratic control. Once that happens, they can reverse what the
Speaker 3: current Republicans are doing in the House and the Senate
Speaker 3: regarding PBS and NPR. So that so all the things
Speaker 3: we've talked about, that is intrinsically a less permanent, less
Speaker 3: irreversible thing than you know, getting Columbia University to just
Speaker 3: change his policy and count out to them fire, getting
Speaker 3: somebody fired, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Paul, gonna take a break, we come back, but I
Speaker 1: want to discuss some of it on the upside. Certainly,
Speaker 1: as you've seen, there was a recent appeals court ruling
Speaker 1: for Google in the case of that terrible crime in
Speaker 1: Buffalo where the families of some of the victims were
Speaker 1: kind of blaming Google because it seems the perpetrator was
Speaker 1: groomed by watching certain videos on Google and searches etaid.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk that a little bit more detailed, and
Speaker 1: I do want to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: A and R AAR with some practical examples and how
Speaker 1: people might be able to deal with that and how
Speaker 1: it's some of it is is slowly slipping in in
Speaker 1: a way that's not being noticed and should be okay,
Speaker 1: So I'll explain that a little bit more fully when
Speaker 1: we come back. We're going to take a brief break here.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Franklebono O. A very special guest is
Speaker 1: Professor Paul Levinson. We're back with more right after these
Speaker 1: brief commercial messages. Don't go anywhere yet.
Speaker 5: Hudson Riverradio dot com. This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
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Speaker 4: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to being Frank the Intelligent Conversation Podcast. Thanks
Speaker 1: for sticking with us. Of course, I'm your host, Frank
Speaker 1: Lebono and our engineer as always as the mailman, mister
Speaker 1: Neil Richter. You know, we bring our audience to fresh
Speaker 1: topic just about every week stream from Hudson River Radio
Speaker 1: located in beautiful and historic Stony Point, New York. But
Speaker 1: you can catch Being Frank anywhere you get your favorite
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Speaker 1: because every Being Frank is archived, you can listen to
Speaker 1: any of our programs anytime you like. Final to Being
Speaker 1: Frank on the Hudson River Radio Facebook page or at
Speaker 1: our website Hudson Riverradio dot com. Just click and you're there. Okay,
Speaker 1: back to our discussion with Professor Paul Levinson. Hey, all
Speaker 1: things media and first amendments, et cetera. The assaults so
Speaker 1: far on the media, and we have to continue because
Speaker 1: it's not all bad news, Paul. Before the break, it
Speaker 1: teased there was an appeals decision just recently where of
Speaker 1: some of the families of the terrible tragedy in Buffalo
Speaker 1: that they were targeted in a horrible racial attack, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the families were saying that Google and
Speaker 1: some of the other platforms should be held responsible because
Speaker 1: the perpetrator learned and developed a lot of his hateful rhetoric, etc.
Speaker 1: By searching using the Google search engine to get his information.
Speaker 1: So they thought that Google should have some responsibility of
Speaker 1: what content is available on its platform.
Speaker 3: Your thought, well, first of all, let me just say,
Speaker 3: as I often have to say, it's the guns that
Speaker 3: need to be stopped. And this seems to be happening
Speaker 3: over and over again, including what just happened in New
Speaker 3: York City the other day. And everyone always maybe not everyone,
Speaker 3: but many people always try to look for some other reason.
Speaker 3: You know, it used to be kids watch these violent
Speaker 3: videos that that's why they go out and do these things.
Speaker 3: It's not the violent videos. It's not the videos on
Speaker 3: YouTube that this monster who killed those people in Buffalo
Speaker 3: resulted in. It wasn't the videos that made that happen.
Speaker 3: It's the easy access to these insane weapons. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: can certainly hurt someone with a knife and kill someone
Speaker 3: with a knife, but all too often, and it's of
Speaker 3: course always a tragedy when anyone dies, and it's certainly
Speaker 3: not too good when anyone gets hurt. But all talk
Speaker 3: from what does the worst damage are these insane weapons
Speaker 3: that only here in the United States you can buy
Speaker 3: pretty much as easy as you can go in and
Speaker 3: buy a candy bar, you know, if they even still
Speaker 3: sell candy bars and candy stores anymore. So I just
Speaker 3: want to say that. But as far as Google is concerned,
Speaker 3: and it's YouTube that's where the videos are seen. This
Speaker 3: gets back to a fundamental issue which you and I
Speaker 3: have batted around a lot. I am of the opinion,
Speaker 3: and with Trump being in office, I'm even more firmly
Speaker 3: of that opinion than I used to be that the
Speaker 3: single worst thing you can do in a democracy is
Speaker 3: have the government have any control over any media of
Speaker 3: communication period. Because let's say you say, well, the FCC
Speaker 3: should be able to screen videos on YouTube, and if
Speaker 3: they see something that might induce someone to do something violent,
Speaker 3: they're going to instruct YouTube to take that video offline. Well,
Speaker 3: it's a relatively short distance between that and the same
Speaker 3: SCC saying, you know, I see Frank Lebono talking about
Speaker 3: how dangerous Trump is, take that video off YouTube. We
Speaker 3: can't give the government that kind of censoring power and
Speaker 3: maintain a full democracy. The countries in which the government
Speaker 3: does have those powers are invariably some kind of system
Speaker 3: that's not a democracy, less than a democracy. In many cases,
Speaker 3: a full fledged fascistic for communist dictatorship, which is what
Speaker 3: China is, which is what Russia pretty much is now.
Speaker 3: So I applaud that decision that the courts, and again
Speaker 3: I think what we need to do as a country.
Speaker 3: I don't understand what the problem is why this hasn't
Speaker 3: happened already. You know why this didn't happen twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: thirty years ago when these you know, harrible events, these
Speaker 3: mass murders first started happening. And you know, the good
Speaker 3: thing also about the decision is it brings that back
Speaker 3: to everyone's attention, and I hope that that attention and
Speaker 3: that concern is focused on what truly needs to be controlled.
Speaker 3: After that matter stop. I read some place that basically
Speaker 3: there are I can't even believe this, but there are
Speaker 3: more guns in the hands of people in this country
Speaker 3: than there are people in this country. Just think about that.
Speaker 3: What kind of country is that to live in? All
Speaker 3: those people are just happy hunters. All they do is
Speaker 3: they go out a couple of times a year and
Speaker 3: shoot some deer, I mean, the poor deer. But okay,
Speaker 3: that's what you want to do. But I mean that
Speaker 3: has to be stopped. It has to be reversed. And
Speaker 3: you know, I've been saying that for decades and it
Speaker 3: still hasn't happened. And you know, I don't know what
Speaker 3: it's going to take to make it happen.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's very interesting because just before we
Speaker 1: came to a record, I was watching a little last
Speaker 1: minute news and a report came on that Australia now
Speaker 1: is banning YouTube, TikTok and some of the other platforms
Speaker 1: for young people under sixteen years of age, whether or
Speaker 1: not they'll have to get special permission or something, but
Speaker 1: they cannot. They will not be able to watch those
Speaker 1: videos on those platforms if they're under sixteen years Oh
Speaker 1: what is that about?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you one of the things. Jean, known
Speaker 3: as the father of child psychology, must be turning over
Speaker 3: in his grave if he has heard about that decision,
Speaker 3: because he decisively showed way way back in the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventies that human beings children by the time they get
Speaker 3: to be eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, they have an
Speaker 3: adult reasoning capabilities. And I know that other psychologists more
Speaker 3: recently have shown that people don't want to control their
Speaker 3: emotions until they're in their twenties. People can't think that
Speaker 3: clearly until they're in their twenties. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: know a lot of people who are much older, and
Speaker 3: as far as I can tell, they can't think too
Speaker 3: clearly or control their emotions too well either. And so,
Speaker 3: as I've been saying in general, if you ask me,
Speaker 3: I think voting age should be lowered to like thirteen fourteen, Yes,
Speaker 3: because it's their future. They should have a right to
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: What, they are they mature enough. I mean there's a
Speaker 6: whole other discussion too, I mean, with it gets involved
Speaker 6: with transgender, gender affirm and care. Are they old enough
Speaker 6: to make those decisions for themselves?
Speaker 1: That's a that's a big topic.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not saying that they are. Just to be clear,
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that a thirteen or fourteen year old
Speaker 3: should have full adult rights. I'm talking about voting in
Speaker 3: a democracy. They should have control over who is going
Speaker 3: to have such great influence over their future. And you know, so,
Speaker 3: for example, should a thirteen year old be able to
Speaker 3: drive a car? I don't know. I mean they would
Speaker 3: have to. I don't know if a thirteen year old
Speaker 3: has that level of coordination. So those aren't specific physical questions.
Speaker 3: You know, should a thirteen year old be able to drink?
Speaker 3: Probably not. It's you know, usually a smaller person, and
Speaker 3: you know, so much less alcohol has much a much
Speaker 3: greater effect. So there are all kinds of questions about that.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying politically, since you've had the people
Speaker 3: in Australia now anyone below the age of sixteen, no, sixteen,
Speaker 3: now below anyone below the age of seventeen. Basically they
Speaker 3: can't watch videos on YouTube, any videos on YouTube. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: but my opinion of Australia as a democracy, if we're
Speaker 3: rating democracies, they really took a turn down. Wow.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Well just and we mentioned in your feelings towards AI.
Speaker 1: My jury is still out. And there were two incidents
Speaker 1: that happened this week that I noticed involving photographs. One
Speaker 1: was a photograph of Bob Dylan playing a song next
Speaker 1: to the coffin of Ozzy Osbourne. It's a beautiful picture
Speaker 1: and you know, immediately my went up first of all,
Speaker 1: when I see something that's it was perfect, and very
Speaker 1: few people make a perfect photo. And then the connection
Speaker 1: between what connection could there possibly be between Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: and Ozzy Osborne, so to being a good citizen. I
Speaker 1: did my due diligence and I researched, and of course
Speaker 1: it was fake. There's one more, and then I want
Speaker 1: to give the reaction. There was another one with what's
Speaker 1: his name from led Zeppelin, the lead singer from led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin at celebrating Dick Van Dyke's one hundredth birthday with
Speaker 1: a birthday cake and same thing. It's a perfect big
Speaker 1: smile and you know smile is a birthday cake and
Speaker 1: same thing. I said, what the hell does not, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: whatever you I'm talking about have to do with Tick
Speaker 1: van Dyke doing his hundredth birthday? Okay, same thing. To
Speaker 1: do a little Google. On the upside, you go to Google,
Speaker 1: you find out, you get some more information. But the
Speaker 1: reaction in disappointing people by telling them that, guys, this
Speaker 1: is you know, they so wanted it to be real
Speaker 1: because they're a nice photo. I mean they were you know,
Speaker 1: they brought a smile to your face. Me comes more
Speaker 1: like a smirk because I just saw there was really
Speaker 1: no direct connection. But people were actually upset when I
Speaker 1: quote unquote corrected them and said, I'm sorry to inform
Speaker 1: you but that's an AI image. Your thoughts on something
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 3: All right, Well again, let's let's look at history, which
Speaker 3: can often be a good helpful guide to what's going
Speaker 3: on now. Once upon a time, let's just pick eighteen
Speaker 3: twenty five, two hundred years ago. There were no photographs,
Speaker 3: there were no videos. There were paintings, and the people
Speaker 3: back then knew that when they looked at a painting, yeah,
Speaker 3: even a painting that was a portrait painting or a
Speaker 3: lance painting, probably maybe, you know, somewhere in between those two,
Speaker 3: maybe was not exactly what that person looked like or
Speaker 3: what that scene looked like. You know, everybody is making
Speaker 3: a big deal these days that you can put a
Speaker 3: photograph into an AI system and remove a person from
Speaker 3: a photograph. Well, in eighteen twenty five, a talented portrait
Speaker 3: painter or a painter of a group of people could
Speaker 3: have easily been looking at that group of people and
Speaker 3: deliberately not painted that one of the five or six
Speaker 3: people in that painting, or they could have made any
Speaker 3: one of the people in the painting look older or
Speaker 3: younger than they were, et cetera, et cetera. They could
Speaker 3: have had them wearing a cross around their neck or
Speaker 3: a Jewish star around their neck just painted that in
Speaker 3: when they were of a completely different religion, and everyone
Speaker 3: understood that. When photographer was first invented, it was correctly
Speaker 3: heralded as wow, this is just a picture of the
Speaker 3: real world. There is no painter who was deciding what's
Speaker 3: in that photograph. And when video was first invented, the
Speaker 3: same thing was thought about that. It's been a while,
Speaker 3: twenty thirty years whatever, since apps like Photoshop have taught
Speaker 3: us that you can change what's in a photograph. You
Speaker 3: can't believe what's in a photograph anymore as absolute truth
Speaker 3: because people could change.
Speaker 1: Well, the great Ansel Adams was famous. He perfected the
Speaker 1: techniques of burning and shadowing to make those magnificent landscapes. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's mostly him, but he helped along the way too, that's.
Speaker 3: True, exactly right. And so now we're facing the same
Speaker 3: thing with videos. And my response to that is again,
Speaker 3: take it easy. All you need to do is accept
Speaker 3: the fact that a video is no longer, if so facto,
Speaker 3: a reflection of the real world what's actually happening. Once
Speaker 3: you accept the fact that any video that you look
Speaker 3: at might be the result of some AI manipulation and
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, let me I'll tell you something so here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this will give you a listener a little bit of
Speaker 3: an insight into, you know, the music that I love.
Speaker 3: For the last couple of days, Uh, what's been put
Speaker 3: up on YouTube are a series of videos of the
Speaker 3: performance that Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds band we're
Speaker 3: doing out in California just a couple of days ago.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you that great. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's Al Jardine, there's a son, Matt Jardine. There are
Speaker 3: a couple of other people who've been around for a while,
Speaker 3: but some new people in there. And wow, did it
Speaker 3: do my heart good to hear them saying heroes and
Speaker 3: villains and you know, all the other great great beach
Speaker 3: boy songs. And you know what occurred to me as
Speaker 3: I finished watching them, Hey, do I know if that's
Speaker 3: what they were really doing, you know, out there in California.
Speaker 3: And then I said, you know what, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I'm still enjoying it immensely. I think it was them
Speaker 3: really performing it. I pretty much know that as a fact,
Speaker 3: not about California, but I know it's a fact that
Speaker 3: my son Simon went up to Connecticut and saw that
Speaker 3: group about a month ago and was raving about how
Speaker 3: good they were, so he saw them in person. But
Speaker 3: that's what my point is. Everyone is so concerned. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, Now you can't tell the difference between reality,
Speaker 3: you know, and fiction in a video, right, grow up,
Speaker 3: that's right. That media evolved. Once upon a time you could.
Speaker 3: Now you can't get on to other things. You know,
Speaker 3: this has happened to every single you know, communications medium
Speaker 3: in the world. You know, there once was a time,
Speaker 3: even not to spend too much more time on this,
Speaker 3: when writing was much more scarce, you know, letters reading
Speaker 3: through written or printed letters, much more scarce than it
Speaker 3: became in the modern world. And you know, therefore it
Speaker 3: was thought that anyone who bothered to write down a description,
Speaker 3: of course they were telling the truth, because you know,
Speaker 3: why would someone and often it was a scribe who
Speaker 3: was literally a cleric or a clerk practically the same word,
Speaker 3: working for the church, trying to write down things so
Speaker 3: that people in the parish might, if any of them
Speaker 3: could read, could see it, or even more importantly, other
Speaker 3: people authorities in the church could see it and read it.
Speaker 3: So once upon a time it was thought that anything
Speaker 3: that was written was likely to be true, but the
Speaker 3: printing press changed all that. And this is what's happening
Speaker 3: visa the AI and.
Speaker 1: Videos Professor Paul Evinson. As always, thank you for being
Speaker 1: frank with us here in your intelligent conversation. As always,
Speaker 1: pauls is a pleasure. I enjoy the so much.
Speaker 3: Me too. And let me just say, I'm very glad
Speaker 3: that the world is slowly beginning to realize the profound
Speaker 3: truth that being frank is the only way to be.
Speaker 1: I hope for that one very good when you may
Speaker 1: wind up in an AI AI commercials. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I just I just tried some. I had
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine, we'll finish there, and and said,
Speaker 1: can you take a photograph and put some neat graphics
Speaker 1: on in your AI program? And it came out really cool.
Speaker 1: I have to say, so, yes, there are applications, and
Speaker 1: I do use the applications for AI in and of itself.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily an evil thing. It comes down to
Speaker 1: personal responsibility. That has been a recurring theme through our conversation.
Speaker 1: But again, Paul, I really appreciate you always here up
Speaker 1: being frank, not pleasure results of course, you offer special
Speaker 1: thanks to our listeners who take the time to give
Speaker 1: us a voice in their lives. We offer fresh topic
Speaker 1: just about every week. Catch us wherever and whenever you
Speaker 1: get your favorite podcast. Check us out on the Hudson
Speaker 1: River Radio Facebook page. Like us and leave us a
Speaker 1: comment too. Okay, Paul's going to announce some music in
Speaker 1: just a second. Of course, it's always one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I like having him on because he brings his
Speaker 1: own music with him and we enjoy it so much.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to give you my closing slogan. I
Speaker 1: always try to pick something that's appropriate. You've heard this
Speaker 1: one before many times, but you need to hear it again.
Speaker 1: It's from Martin Naimower and it says, first, they came
Speaker 1: for the Communists, and I did not speak out because
Speaker 1: I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists,
Speaker 1: and I did not speak out because I was not
Speaker 1: a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and
Speaker 1: I did not speak out because I was not a
Speaker 1: trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I
Speaker 1: did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Speaker 1: Then they came for me and there was no one
Speaker 1: left to speak out for me. Okay, it was wonderful
Speaker 1: when it's written, it's wonderful today. Please take it to heart.
Speaker 1: Paul introduced our final song before we close.
Speaker 3: Well, this was a song written about a messiah that
Speaker 3: people were waiting for someone to make the world better.
Speaker 3: I chose it because I thought it had some applicability
Speaker 3: to what we were just talking about here. The name
Speaker 3: of the song is the Llama will be Late this year.
Speaker 3: I wrote the lyrics. Ed Fox wrote the music. It's
Speaker 3: one of the few cuts on our nineteen seventy two
Speaker 3: Appum twice upon a rhyme that I let Ed sing
Speaker 3: lead to, so you can hear Ed's boys singing lead.
Speaker 3: I am doing harmony and playing what I think is
Speaker 3: one of my best piano parts through the record. So
Speaker 3: enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Oh you are the renaissance man. I call you that
Speaker 1: all the time, and I sure meet it. For our engineer,
Speaker 1: Neil Richtor, Yes, the mail man. I'm your host, Frank Lobono,
Speaker 1: and we hope to have you join us for the
Speaker 1: next being. Frank, We're the only way to be is Frank.
Speaker 7: Thanks everybody, It's not come.
Speaker 3: It's a personal It is a long time ago, distant
Speaker 3: country called to bet No he was. He was a
Speaker 3: man with a long white fear. And every year he
Speaker 3: used to come down from the snowy hills. He used
Speaker 3: to bring the kids presents and food and flowers and everything.
Speaker 1: Never really had a good time. And but one day
Speaker 1: he disappeared. We're just never nobody knows where he came again.
Speaker 3: But years ago I heard this old story from from
Speaker 3: a man man.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows what his name was.
Speaker 4: His name was Hawaiian her.
Speaker 3: Yes, who is visiting? Visit?
Speaker 4: Taken all taps in the studio, somebody, you'll put a
Speaker 4: take on the machine.
Speaker 5: I'll take the work of machine.
Speaker 3: And when he played the tape to hear the story.
Speaker 1: About the lam But how do the story going?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, I'll play it. Take for now, put it
Speaker 3: on now, we'll just play it on. Here we go.
Speaker 5: Here's a take. Children, Do you know what's time? You've
Speaker 5: been waiting on the tape for the cuts?
Speaker 2: Outside?
Speaker 5: He's people, I seen em all miles anymore.
Speaker 2: Love will relate this year, the lovel will be late.
Speaker 3: This year's.
Speaker 5: Flame he way stay wait.
Speaker 2: The love will betrayed. Tris love this year after the name.
Speaker 5: Us the snakes. They have wait this year, it's time
Speaker 5: to run against that right time. Maybe that's so sax week.
Speaker 5: Let's just keep on spending to let go wait for
Speaker 5: his way to the Lama will be late.
Speaker 2: The Lama will be late this year.
Speaker 5: Fam, And know when the stray you w wait, I said,
Speaker 5: said this gostet me may.
Speaker 4: Go nohere else, Oh.
Speaker 5: The love, We'll be right this, yes here.
Speaker 2: Will be right, yes, yes, loveless slave, exay.
Speaker 5: No right now, my essay wife as anything that was
Speaker 5: sent spirts, sweet sweet spirts, sweet super speak. St.
Speaker 3: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.