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