Boston Public Radio Podcast

BPR Full Show 9/19: Get Out Of My Seat

The GOP keeps throwing insults at Kamala Harris. Will this do anything to do the polls? Listeners weighed in. Shirley Leung on a new nonprofit started by local businesspeople looking for a tax break, and new reporting on the demographics of people leaving Mass. Andrea Cabral on the controversy around Gov. Healey’s pick for head of state policeJimmy Tingle & Eric Aronson are two filmmakers set to release new projects. They’ll talk about their movies, and what it takes to be a small-scale filmmaker in today’s day and age. Michael Kirk joined to talk about his latest film for FRONTLINE, “The Choice.” Profiling presidential candidates in the leadup to the election.AITA for not giving up my seat on the plane? Listeners weighed in

Broadcast on:: 19 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

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After almost 80 years, Tupperware, Jim, has filed for bankruptcy. Of time. Could this be for the best or the worst? Are we better off not storing our leftovers in those cheap spaghetti sauce-tinted plastic? And either way, where are all your Tupperware lids? It's pretty delicious. I'm pretty cool. Morning. Hey there, Margry. A little bit of time. The GOP is, once again, returning to that same old tire BS, still attacking Kamala Harris for the crime of having no biological children. Her latest critic is former Trump press secretary. She now is the governor of Arkansas. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said this yesterday at a Trump rally in Flint, Michigan. So my kids keep me humble, unfortunately Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble. By the way, her name is Kamala Harris, Governor Sanders. The numbers, that also drives me out of my mind. It's intentional mispronunciation, they're so clever. 877-301-8970 is the number to weigh in, call or text. At this point, GOP attacks on Harris' family situation are clearly intentional. It wouldn't happen so many times. Can't seem to understand why they believe it's a winning strategy to attack the vice president of a fact that she doesn't have biological kids. She has step-kids. If you're the voter in America in our audience who is going to be persuaded to vote for Trump because Harris' kids came from a different marriage, we really want to hear from you at 877-301-8970. If you're not swayed by Sanders or JD Vance attacking childless women, regardless whether you're voting for Trump or Harris, what do you make of the role that childlessness has played in this election? How do you think the rest of the country, not just you, is going to respond when it comes time to head to the voting booth? Our numbers 877-301-8970, beyond the fact that it is totally without merit and they have no idea what they're talking about and is purely, here's a quote from, I'm sure you all heard this from Doug Emhoff. That's obviously Kamala Harris' husband, his first wife. She is the biological mother of Harris' step-kids. For over 10 years since Colin Ella, that's her name, were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I, it's Doug and me, but Kirsten, but whatever, she, I shouldn't have said that. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and have grateful to have her in it. By the way, I had a step. I had a mother, a biological mother and a stepmother. My father married another woman after he divorced my mother. She was fabulous and critical, I was going to say to who I am, that may not persuade many people. It was critical to my upbringing. She came in too late, yeah. She was fabulous and this is total, it's insulting, it is baseless. Can you answer my question? Who is the person out there saying, "Oh, I wasn't sure it was going to vote for Trump." And now that they've pointed out that Kamala Harris, she can't be humble. She can't really plan our future because she doesn't have any biological children. Who is that voter? Well, the only thing I can think of is the young men who aren't big voters who really can't stand women like the insult, or people who just don't like these words that rhymes with which is that they might call women that they don't like. And then there's also the racist angle, you know, you know, you're not humble, you're ugly, we heard that all the time, Deva Patrick talked about that, Barack Obama talked about that. Uppity, black guy, you know, and so she's the Uppity, a black woman. But generally speaking, it doesn't seem, since women vote more than men do, and since we all know women who have no children because they just didn't want children, they wanted to pursue careers or whatever else they wanted to do, or they were, you know, the good nuns if they're any left at the Sacred Heart Academy, or they were people that wanted to have children and couldn't have children. I mean, I don't get it, I just don't get what the whole point is. And by the way, it would seem to me, I don't have any stepchildren, but it would seem to me that the people that were really be keeping you humble would be the stepchildren. It might be much more tough to handle than your own biological children, but that's just my guess. You know, I often don't say unkind things about the dead, and this isn't that unkind. One of the first people who was a high profile person who thought it was funny to mispronounce people's names, and show how clever you were was our former colleague, Jay Severn, who did that with people he was critical of, whether it was, yeah, he did, he did a lot. And, but he was a talk show host, I mean, so, you know, it's part of his repertoire. This thing, I don't know why it upsets me as much. We discussed this with, who do we discuss this with, I don't know who we discuss this with recently, but this intentional, because these Sanders is not a total moron, this cute thing to call it, uh, call her Kamala when everybody is totally an attempt to show how clever you are and, and, you know, look down your nose at this woman who you couldn't shine the shoes of Governor Sanders. By the way, if you forgot what fans had to say, let's remember this. This is the comment he made back in August of 2021, speaking with the legend early, wonderful Tucker Carlson. We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too. And it's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. You know, he said Kamala, right? Well, he did. Yeah. Kamala. It's like a comma with a law. Yeah. I mean, I've missed, no, no, no, you and I mispronounced it early on. We've mispronounced a lot of names unintentionally early on. But even that's disrespectful. You should go out anyway. It is. We should. But once you know what it is, and I would argue that, that Trump who calls her comrade, either Kamala or comrade Kamala, depending on the, the mom, really clever too, that comrade thing is really clever on the part of Trump. It's just, it's unbelievable. 877-301-8970. You know, and as DJ from way with points out, well, Trump's children certainly haven't kept him humble. And that's one of the other. Why weren't you here? She's talking about the guy that she wants to win. You know, we're not supposed to, we're supposed to be more humble. And needless to say, as DJ from way with a pointed out, and in many other counties, it pointed out, you wouldn't call Donald Trump a humble guy. He just said he was more popular than Elvis or something like that, because there's some rally. And he said, you know, and he's really more popular because Elvis had a guitar. And he didn't. Elvis. Did you say this? I didn't know this. Yeah. Elvis had a lot of things that you would say that Donald Trump didn't have. By the way, you see that movie, the new movie about Elvis was not so new. I mean, last year? A couple of years old now, two or three years old was really good. No. But can I say one more thing to get out of my system so I'll feel better because I got over the Kamala Kamala thing? Yesterday Vance, his latest, this is a guy, you either want to say it yesterday, how smart he was. And I say, why do you say that? I think he's smart. Okay. So is he smart enough to know that the Haitian people in Ohio are not there illegally? He knows. And he called people who are legally here because of a TPS system, because they're fleeing violence in their home country, which I'm guessing a lot of you would too, call them illegal aliens. They are not illegal. They're not. And the term illegal alien is intended. The mean people, he's either smart enough, as you suggest, he is to know that he is lying about these humans and making life even more difficult than it is for them or he's a dope. No, I think he is smart, I think he's a guy that is extremely rigid and extremely black and white, right and wrong ideas. He's got something wrong with him and you can understand it because of his screwed up life. Did you see this anonymous text there? You know, who has plenty of time to vote? People without kids, that's a very good point. Yeah, there are times maybe in duress, you know, like when your kids are little in the house, there's a mess and everybody's screaming and they're sick and you think to yourself, oh my God, what did I do? But I think, generally speaking, that's not the exception. It's just so condescending and in meridless and demeaning and not true and not true. Let's go to Dan and Dorchester, your first on Boston Public Radio. Hey there. Hey, so I'm actually I'm agreeing with you guys, I'm so sick of this. My wife and I have been married 17 years. I have no children, never going to have children, never wanted them, but it doesn't mean that I don't know what's going on in this country. I'm willing to bet you because I don't have children, I'm able to listen to the news, read more newspapers, pay better attention because I don't have to pay attention to children. So I know what's going on and I also take a sense of saying that it's a childless cat women. I am a childless cat father, so, you know, there's a lot of people who are the Democrats. So, you know, another part that he's got things correct. Dan, that was an excellent first call. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Robert and Trus Priest, as I can't believe they think that insulting millions of American women is the way to go. Childless women like, say, Dolly Parton, the epitome of humbleness, that's a great point. I wish she would speak out more. Dolly Parton is great. As somebody said, her husband is a health issues. That's why we don't see her much about him. I told you that yesterday, I looked it up while we were talking about it. Carl Dean, I didn't know that's who he was, they read, what's it called when you redo your vows? Thank you, Zoe. They renewed their vows, Zoe says to me. By the way, in 2016, my text messaging thing is not working. Oh, that's very sad. Don't let people know so I can get rescued here. Jan in Charleston, South Carolina, welcome to the show. Hi. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I just want to one, thank you for calling this out. I'm from the School of Name at Catement. I think we do do a little of that. Yeah. This is absurd. It is the most base level bowling tactics that's going on. It is a bowling tactic. Call it out or just what it is, hate, ignorance, lack of education or humanity. I just retired as a psychotherapist and a former registered play therapist and blended families can be really difficult to manage all the needs and they deserve a lot more credit than they get. They certainly don't need to be, be little, laugh at, mocked, it's wrong and we need to get back to just common sense. Jan, that was another excellent phone call and thank you for making. You only just realized I'm embarrassed to even say this. As you know, well, the first part, I know people know if they listen, I don't have biological children. I have two adopted kids, both born in China. Am I in that category, is that, I assume that I don't have a stake in the future either because I don't have biological children, right? Well, I don't think so because I think the stake in the future means you have children in the next generation. That's my interpretation. Why is that different from having step kids who live in your house like Harris's and Emma Hofs did? Because I think, well, this is just my opinion, I think it. No, I don't mean you're opinion. What is Vance's opinion? I would think that if you have adopted children, you're okay. You're okay. You're okay, Jim. By the way, anonymous Texas says another thing about one of my obsessions. It's also sexist that we refer to Kamala by her first name. This is totally true. It drives me nuts. We don't call Trump Donald or Vance JD. Women are referred to by the first names as you refer to a child. That is totally true. And by the way, a lot of journalists whom I respect a lot on television due to this, Kamala and Trump. Trump and Kamala. That's not how you refer to people like that. If you refer to them in exactly the same way, if you're going to call him Donald, then call her Kamala. I like calling him the Donald. I kind of like that. They used to. That is totally going out in fashion. Yeah, we're going to talk about the Donald a little bit later, little of the Donald. We're Michael Kirk with the greatest of frontline edition of the choice. Let's go to Gail in Providence. Thank you for calling. Oh, no, actually Gail, hold, we're going to get to you in a second. We went out order. We did this myself. John and Salem. Gail, we'll take you in a minute. John. Hi. Actually, Jim, you've already covered this in your comments. What I said. I'm very moving. But I'm a birth mother and I gave my child up when he was three weeks old and it just stuns me that according to the metric, although you talked about it yourself, that I would count and the mother that took him in and raised him and cried over him and did the work of mothering would not. I mean, I'm just completely and profoundly shocked by that. I think you're right. I believe that your interpretation of advances say is true. Marty doesn't agree with you. I do agree with you. But I'm sure there are students of this in the audience who should text this or call us. John, that was a really honest and important call too and thank you. Thank you very much for making it. I appreciate it. I don't think that's what he means is because he's a big Catholic, big Catholic to convert everything. What are nuns? Nuns are obviously a virginal women that never had sex or children. Michael from Boston said speaking of, if I'm not mistaken, Jesus Christ didn't have any children. Yeah, that's a good point. But I mean, he would be big on adoption. That's why. Do you think so? Yeah, because you're not supposed to have any abortions. Well, but there are a lot of people who are anti-choice, by the way, who never talk about adoption, except when they're cornered and then all of a sudden say how important it is and that sort of thing, 877-301-8970. We were prompted by the governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Michigan yesterday with Trump. When Trump thought that Bagram Air Force Base was in Alaska, not in Afghanistan, but I'll tell you, if Joe Biden had done that, we have 42 columns about how he was senile or incognative decline. Also, do you know what Trump also did yesterday? There's more popular than Elvis. So beyond another one you mentioned, the teamsters don't endorse in the race. And frankly, it's disgraceful. And the reason it's disgraceful, and I say this, I wouldn't say this about a candidate, but I'll say it about the guy who's not a candidate, I would argue the most pro-union president in not our lifetime. Maybe in American history is Joe Biden, and it was a Biden-Harris administration. The fact that Sean O'Brien, the president, didn't work hard to convince the majority of his members who say they're voting for Trump, and by the way, encouraged it by going to the anti-union, anti-worker Trump convention, Sean O'Brien. It's disgraceful. And he's a local guy, by the way. He's done a lot of great things with the same one. I mean, we've talked about, ever since we've talked about what's the matter with Kansas, where people vote against their own self-interest. If you are a middle class or a working class person, clearly Trump has not got your best interest at heart, whether it comes to healthcare, whether it comes to unions, whether it comes to, you know, the prescription drug things, which is healthcare, all the taxes, climate change, all these things. So people are really, for whatever reason, I guess they say, inflation and immigration. Well, inflation, the president doesn't have much to do with inflation, either. You could argue that Biden was too generous during COVID, but I think we were in the middle of that disaster. You might have gone overboard because we're not necessarily that generous from our government, so that's kind of a basic misunderstanding here of the way things work. Anyway, 877-301-8970 is the number we're talking once again about the childless cat ladies of America under fire. This time from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who says, you know, she's humble because she has children, and I guess that's her only route to humility, we're going to keep the conversation going after quick break, 877-301-8970, you're listening to Boston, public radio, 897-GBH. Welcome back to Boston, public radio, Jim Brody and Marjorie. We're live at the library of our saxophone player extraordinaire James Carter's and our live music Friday guest, the head of his first solo Boston show in 12 years, and we're going to speak to the director and one of the performers in the Huntington's production of the Tony winning, Tom Stoppard's Leah Polchtut, which I saw last night, which is just mind-blowingly good. Reminder about our text question of the day, after almost 80 years, Tupperware is filed for bankruptcy. Are we all better off with Pyrex anyway? And Marjorie wants to know, regardless of your position, where all the leads? I mean, and I have to say that's an important question. Which time do you spend trying to find the right lid for the right container? In any case. I mean, it's my whole life. Okay. 877-301-8970, to text them will read your text a little before 1 o'clock. So yesterday, yet another prominent Republican in the presence of Donald Trump, O'Reilly and Michigan, the governor of Arkansas used to be his press secretary, did the same thing, again, saying that if you don't have kids, you're not in the game here, Kamala Harris. You don't learn humility, and we want to know what your reaction to this serie. How many kids does Elon Musk have? 11? He has a double digit. He wouldn't say he was very humble, and as many people are saying, Trump has multiple children. He's got five kids, right? And he's not very... He has five? Yeah. Four. Five? If we're kids from the first marriage... Oh, Barron, I forgot about Barron. I'm missing. Tiffany, Barron and... Yeah, Tiffany. And the other three from the first marriage. Okay. Okay. All right. And the last of childless women who just haven't met the right partner yet, and they can't afford to go it alone, I'm appalled at my beautiful, smart, funny, 39-year-old daughters being insulted by these losers. Thank God she's never brought home a JD Vance. You know what the other thing is? You shouldn't... That's a nice defense. We shouldn't have to defend it. It's absurd in solving. It's so demeaning and in solving to pick a whole class of people and say they're less than, which is what... Well, you know what the other thing... Not to mention that immigrants, of course, are less than... Let me just throw in one other thing. When he says, "You know, we have this big childcare crisis, nobody can afford a childcare crisis." What we maybe could do is have the post-menopausal grandparents come in and take care of the kids. As if that hadn't occurred to the millions of people who are struggling with childcare to have the grandparents come and help, but they just can't always do that, right? I mean, what does he think we're all a bunch of idiots that it hadn't occurred to people? That would be a good idea? No, I think he thinks we're basement dwellers. Who said that last week? I don't know. One of his people said that he refers to his supporters as basement dwellers. He does? Oh, you didn't know this? Trump or yes? Trump. Trump. I don't know who it was. In any case, let's go to Bill and Chumpster. Hey. Hey, good morning, guys. How are we doing? Fine, thank you. Thank you for asking. So, two things. First of all, have you heard of the guy to President Trump, the children's guy to President Trump? No. That Huckabee father wrote a couple of years ago? No. He's got anything children. How could be the former governor himself, by the way? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Here's my point about today in this whole thing. I've three daughters in college. I am fascinated, angry, whatever. When I see videos of Trump speaking at rallies with all the young women behind him, I don't understand it. All I can figure is, it's kind of like when you're born a Christian, you're born a Catholic, you're born a Jew, you're almost, you're locked in. Please tell me. Why are they there? If it's nothing, this guy offers of events, they're both just, so you've said all the words that describe these two guys. Not one woman should be there, not one man who was a daughter or a sister or a mother should vote for this guy, and yet it's still 50-50. I don't get it. Well, Bill, I have absolutely no answer for your question because I have the exact same question every single day. Thank you for calling yet again. By the way, the person who said he refers them as basement dwellers is Stephanie Grisham who used to work for him. So Trump said that. He said Trump said it about his supporters, their basement, their basement dwellers. She spoke, remember a Republican, obviously, it was his press person or a communications director who spoke at the Democratic National Convention. And by the way, related to the last call we just had, I mean, we talked about this the other day that many Republicans, sometimes most Republicans believe all these lies Trump says. So he's going to have the best inflation ever. He's going to have the best healthcare program ever. He's going to have, he's going to solve all the immigration problems. Well, those aren't lies. Those are not credible promises. They believe all the lies. They believe from the, the pets out there in Ohio and every other, for example, I'm assuming if they polled today, did he get the Teamsters endorsement yesterday, which he did not. I assume they'll believe that too because he said it. And he would, he also says that these women are all lying and making up these stories exactly exactly. Right. Look, so I think predicting he's going to have the best healthcare plan is a lie because he's not going to, he knows he's not going to do it. He's got a concept. He's got a concept. That's what he said. Actually, by the way, he does not even have a concept. He just was squirming when you make these promises to, I think he knows their lies. I mean, maybe I'm, I'm not in his head, but I suspect he does. That's like being in his head. Like a dead worm or no, that's the other one. Yeah. From Providence. Thank you for calling. There you go. My first time caller, longtime listener, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you. So what I want to understand is which one of these presidents have actually given birth themselves? That's an excellent point. Of one person we have, neither of them are humble because none of them have given birth. So as an example to the rest of us, I'd love to see that as an example, but we don't have that. So I don't get it what they're talking about. As far as I know, none of them have given birth. None of them have given birth. I believe that is correct. The founding father of our country, George Washington, has no body. I didn't know that's over day. Did you know that? I knew that. I love him. Gail, excellent first call. Thank you. George Washington, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and James Buchanan Warren Harding, slide dog apparently had a child out of wedlock, publicly denied paternity, but he was in fact the father. What did James Polk do, by the way? What is the highlight of his presidency? I don't know. I don't know what he did. I have no idea. I missed that in American history. Why don't you have a history major? I was. American history. That's right. It was one of those loosey goosey majors you kind of float around. It was like geography. What was that? You know, a little art, a little poetry, a little sociology, kind of floating around. This is Stanford, not Smith. I was the first one. I was the first one. No, is that true? I was. Wait, the first in the major? All alone. Because it was an East Coast thing. It started at Amherst College. Yeah. And then it kind of moved west. Wow. So, yeah. It was all along the program. Oh, James Polk, thank you, who ever told us one of our co-workers, declared war against Mexico. There you go. That's something. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for calling. Hello. Hello. Hello again. Hello. I think you can't hear us. Okay. Hello. Sorry about that, Nancy. Nancy, we'll put you on hold and see if we can do better the next time. Rose in New Hampshire. Thank you for calling. Hi, Rose. Good morning. Hi. Oh, where do we start? Anywhere you want. So these three idiots and I use the term loosely because there could be other terms used for them. One, crazy cat people, crazy cat ladies. No. Women that can't have children or don't want children. No. Who are the immature people that are making these accusations? Let's see. The three day or speaking. And the other thing is, all this is, is it's a big diversionary. We don't want to talk about the real issues because we're too stupid to talk about the real issues. We don't have a clue about the reality of the world. Humble. Oh, we're humble because we have children since when did that come into play? You know, there are people that are humble that have children. There are people that are not humble that have children. Not everybody has to have children. These people, I don't know what rock they're coming from. But they need to get out of it because, you know, it's really so disrespectful to the American people. It's so disrespectful to the people that cannot do not. Are you able to have children? Again, it's all a diversionary. Hey, Rose. Rose, if I had just said what you said as well as you said, I'd feel so much better than I did before. I said, do you feel better than when you're cold? I would feel better if the three of them would just drop off the face of the earth. Nicely put. Rose, thank you very much for your insight. We appreciate it. Thank you, Rose. Thank you. Thank you, Rose. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. Thank you, Rose. The list is very long, even in your own show. I don't know that Biden is pro union. What's he done for union? Mark, we're talking, but Mark, let me ask you a question. Did JD Vance make the Child Us Cat Lady comment and did at a rally yesterday in Michigan with Trump? Did the governor of Arkansas talk about how childless people don't learn humility? Is that factually accurate or did I make that up? I did not hear those comments. Well, you should maybe before you make an allegation about it. You should listen. In fact, here it is just so you in case you did miss it. Here, wait a minute. We're going to do you a favor. Here's JD Vance. Here's JD. Well, obviously you're not because you said we're making stuff up. Here's JD Vance. We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable. Okay, go ahead now. Yeah. So, I mean, they're democratic voters. The childless cat ladies overwhelmingly democratic and radical because they're not busy raising kids. Yeah. They have the time. What's your source for that, Mark? I'm curious. They're radical. Yeah. And they're mostly Democrats. How do you know that, Mark? It's obvious. Say it's obvious. That's my personal experience in countering cat ladies and Democrats. Okay. So, any more? I've been asking everything else. Okay. Just before you go, anything else you'd like to say that we're erroneously attributing to Trump? Well, I'd like to hear fair and unbiased recording. Well, give me an example, though. What's incorrect? It's like all this projection of negative things. Oh, he's going to, I don't know, become a dictator. He said it. He said it. Mark, in all seriousness, you have to pay attention to the news before you call it. And you're welcome any time. We didn't say it. He said it. He said he'd be a dictator on day one. Donald Trump said it. And I assume that's a decent amount of evidence. Unless you're going to tell us, you shouldn't believe what Donald Trump says. Mark, thanks for the call. We got to go. Call us again soon. Call us tomorrow if you want. We can continue this, but we're way over time. Thank you for the call. But one of the things you do find, though, when you ask someone, for an example, you know, the fake media, they can't really give you one. Go to our TikTok page. You know, you've been accusing us of not having any TikTok stuff in the cold post thing like crazy. No, we have a new one saying, you saying repeatedly, we don't have a TikTok thing. But the one right before that, which has gotten a lot of hits, is a caller like Mark saying something. And one of us said, give us examples. And you know how many examples she came up with? None. None. Yeah. I think that's one of the problems. But anyway. We're joined now on Zoom by Boston Globe Business columnist Shirley Leung. Also host the great podcast. Say more with Shirley Leung. New episodes every Thursday. Hey, Shirley. Hi, Jim. Hi, Marjorie. Hey, Shirley. So you've been doing some great stuff lately in this, in this column about, uh, where DEI went to die talking about Harvard University has been talked about all over town. Jim's been talking about it for days. What'd you say? Um, so I was talking about what has happened to Harvard's leadership since Claudine Gay, the first black president, was pushed out in January. And when you look at the leadership ranks of Harvard right now, I think six of the seven major appointments made this year have gone to white people. And in three of those incidents, they replaced black, black leaders. And so it's incredible how much, um, you know, the, the diversity has really changed or the priority of diversity has changed at Harvard. Because one professor told me, um, Harvard is where DEI went to die. Well, you know, a couple of it, you may also, one of the things you, uh, that one of, I think the only person crying from wrong, who's a tenured faculty member who spoke to you as a guy who's on our show, quite regularly, Khalil, Jabra Muhammad. And he was singled out, as we mentioned the other day, by the chair of the education committee in the house, is his course being the root of all evil in America. So we asked him if the leadership that you were describing came to his support after he was attacked publicly by Congresswoman Fox. Here's what Khalil Jabra Muhammad said, uh, an effort to take the oldest university. Nope. Almost 400. This is a private note one private. Yeah. Certainly no support from, uh, Garber or any senior leaders of the university that Dean of the Kennedy School, who's now a former dean, Doug Almondor did, it, uh, send me some notes of encouragement. Um, so I, I will have to give him credit, private notes of encouragement or public support. I can send you a private note if you want a private note, fair enough, fair enough, but you didn't let that one slip off. Okay. So there's that. And you also talk about the fact that a number of the recent appointments happen to be, uh, Jewish and I, I am guessing and you're, you suggest that some with whom you spoke said that maybe to mollify some of the major donors. I am guessing, uh, having followed this Harvard thing pretty closely, that you got a little blowback. Did you on that one? I did. I've been hearing from a Jewish readers and Jewish leaders, um, a bit upset that I, you know, really bring their Jewish identity into the conversation and, you know, I just wanted to point out that four of the seven new leaders are Jewish, um, and, um, and that, you know, one could read it that, you know, there were some concerns from alumni and donors that there wasn't enough, the Harvard wasn't doing enough to address camp campus, growing campus anti-semitism in the wake of, you know, there's Israel, Hamas war. And so some people think, well, maybe this was in response to that, you know, and I, I know it's a, it could be the third rail, right? Talking about, um, bringing up religion, uh, Jewish religion in this context, but I thought it was important. I thought it was a relevant detail. Well, I should say I'm sort of Jewish, uh, and I thought it was spot on as somebody who's observed this and has some connections to the, uh, place there. And by the way, I hope that the same people that are criticizing you for that are criticizing the president of Wesleyan college for calling Harvard, uh, cowards for, and giving into Donald Trump of what his words were, uh, by declaring this absurd position of neutrality on issues that are not core issues. And I thought the whole point of a university was to have debates, you have to figure out how to do it in a peaceful way about all things that matter to your student body. So I am only one person surely, but what Marjorie said is true everywhere I am going, people are talking about this column and overwhelmingly people are saying, thank goodness somebody is exposing the truth. Surely can I ask you one last very quick question? Uh, I asked this to Khalil when we had him on, Harvard has got more money than God, multi-billion dollar endowment, probably if you name the most prestigious university in America, they might say Harvard, why are they so quick to knuckle under that? That's what I don't get. That's why they have a 50 billion dollar endowment by the way. That's right. That's how the, that's how, um, rich universities stay rich, right? Yeah, they, they could afford to go down to 40 billion. I mean, maybe 35 billion, you know what I mean? They look foolish. I mean, that's, that's one of the, I guess criticisms about Harvard leadership right now is that of all institutions, they could stand up. They could, they could stand up to everybody, you know, and it'll be messy. It'll be controversial. They could withstand that, but I don't think they like to be in the news this way. They, they, they want to be left alone. And as I write in my piece that, um, if you think about who got the new leaders, um, at Harvard, I mean, they were, why did they pick white leaders? They were the safe choices, you know, um, and, and, and so, I mean, also, I mean, some of those leader, new leaders are interim, so hopefully a year from now, um, uh, Harvard will come to its senses and, um, prioritize diversity again. Um, think about diversity, uh, make diversity a factor again. Um, and one of the things that really struck me when I was reporting this story was that, um, I, I was surprised how, um, you know, that, that, that how, you know, Harvard is only a third, the student population, it's only a third white. So their leadership that doesn't reflect, um, you know, uh, the student body. Okay. So surely I want to be quiet here. There is a no secret group of business people who are forming. They won't say who's giving money. They won't say who the national PR firm is. They hired you and John Chesto told the story quietly. Can you tell us what's going on, please? All right, so this is what's happening. What's happening? So, um, uh, you remember the millionaires tax? Yes. We do. Yes. Uh, that's from a couple of years ago and, um, a lot of the major business groups, uh, were staunchly opposed to, uh, an, as an extra surtax, uh, for a percent extra tax on incomes over a million dollars. Um, and, uh, the, the, the business groups were defeated. Um, uh, they were, if they were outspent, outmanned by, uh, the teacher unions, um, that supported, um, raising, um, this new, you know, creating a new tax and the money from the new tax, the new taxes raised about $2.2 billion, uh, over the last fiscal year. And that goes to education and transportation only. And so, um, so the business groups don't want to be beat again. And they're looking to the future and thinking that this is not going to be the only, um, ballad initiative that they'll be on the losing end of, uh, as the state gets more progressive. Um, there is, and also there's no kind of Republican candidate in sight, uh, to kind of, um, you know, promote a fiscal conservative. Were they out of state when Maura Healy ran her single most important issue was a billion dollar tax cut and one of the first things she signed into law was a billion dollar. They missed that, by the way. I think apparently and so, um, anyway, so, so this, this business groups, um, in town have come together and they're launching this week, a new, um, group called the mass, mass, massachusetts opportunity alliance, uh, they're raising millions of dollars, uh, they're going to hire an executive director, um, to, to kind of, you know, fight high tax, um, high spend, high government spending policies. Well, by the way, I wasn't being facetious in, in Shirley and John Chester's piece. They organized under IRS law so they don't have to divulge their donors. They won't say who the, uh, PR firm, which is really embarrassing, by the way, I mean, grow up. If you're upset about something, but there are a few people. There's John Fish had a Suffolk construction who, by the way, I got to know pretty well during his effort to get the Olympics here and I thought he was a really decent, straightforward case. I think he's wrong here. The high tech council, which has been fighting irrelevancy for years since Barbara Anderson died, Barbara Anderson and the high tech council were the, the anti-tax crusaders and then she died. By the way, do you know what the high tech council's newspaper called Jim Brody on its front page in three inch letters? Did you know about this, Shirley? I, I see, no, I, I think he called him an evil genius. They did. As well as proudest moments of, I was back in 1990, but in all seriousness, he framed it. The only thought was also noteworthy and I was curious to know whether or not it was your choice in reporting you and John or they, well, they talked about taxation. They failed to mention the fact that you and we have discussed ad nauseam, the millionaire's tax, which was supposed to lead to the great exodus and we don't know the data yet. We do know it's raised more tax money than was expected, which suggests not a lot of rich people leaving. And secondly, did they, well, that's what the mass budget, a center on budget and policy is suggesting. But secondly, did any of them mention to you, of course, as Shirley, you just said, it is important that we added a billion dollars to the sink, two most important things to keeping workers in the state, good transportation and good education. Any of them mention that? They did not, but they were very concerned about this tax, it's labeled as this comeback to haunt Massachusetts, you know, before the millionaire's tax, you know, when you look at surveys, Massachusetts comes in kind of middle of the pack in terms of taxes. And now we've kind of, we've moved up quite a bit in terms of a state that is not business friendly and as it can be and the taxes are a bit too high. You know who the primary person spreading the tax, it's line is? Who? Bill Belichick. Because here is former coach Bill Belichick, another column that Shirley had something to do with, on the Pat McAfee show talking about the new state, the millionaire's tax, essentially here. Here he is. Taxitudes that's virtually every player, even a practice squad, well, not, but even the minimum players are pretty close to a million dollars. And so once you hit that million dollar threshold, then you pay more state tax in Massachusetts. So, yeah, just another thing you got to contend with in negotiations up there. It's not like Tennessee or, you know, Florida or Nevada or some East East East. Okay. And so you actually look. I want to be like Tennessee. I really do. Memphis is the poorest city in the whole country. So you did a little research on how NFL players are affected by taxation in their states. What do you conclude? Well, I took issue. I weighed in because Belichick was seem to be blaming the millionaire's tax for the reason why the Patriots aren't doing well and doing well the last few years. And as I wrote, you don't need to be a sports columnist to realize it's because we no longer have Tom Brady. That's why the Patriots are terrible. No, it is true that during negotiations, players and their agents will bring up taxes. That is that they look at that when they when they negotiate contracts. And I think what was interesting was that when you look at, I thought that when he complained about the millionaire's tax, I thought we were at the top of the list. Like we were the worst, you know, the worst, you know, state for NFL players, but we weren't. We aren't. I mean, there are many more teams that are in high tax, higher tax situations like all the Californian teams like San Francisco 49ers. I think even the Minnesota teams, yeah, the Vikings Baltimore Ravens, the New York teams, like Green Bay Packers, yeah, Green Bay Packers, the Jets. Yeah. So, so when you look at the list, Massachusetts, you know, is about number 10, number 11, we're just out of the top 10. Now the millionaire's tax did move us up. We used to be kind of in the middle of the pack. And now we're in the, we're in the top 10. And in doing this story, I was thinking like, does it really matter? You know, we're talking about players that make $5 million, $10 million, $20 million. What does it matter? They can save a few hundred thousand dollars on taxes or maybe a million dollars. And you know, I talked to, there's tax accounts that specialize working with pro sports athletes and pro sports teams and saying, and they told me, listen, the average pro athlete, their career only spans about four years. And so whatever money they make, it has to last a lifetime, like 30 years, 40 years, you know, it has to last a long, long time. So it's like, okay, I get it. I appreciate though, Bill Belichick, who was only making $10 million a year as a coach as their spokesperson. That's really great. Yeah. Let me just say one last. The wonderful layout of his complex down there and then tuck it to on the ocean. I love those pictures. I hardly afford it. Kind of say one last thing. I believe this from the bottom of my heart. My belief is that any organization from any political stripe that does not believe you are entitled to know who is funding that organization deserves not one minute of your time. I don't care if they're progressive, reactionary, whatever they are. And these guys have got to decide if it's such an important issue, are they going to belly up to the bar and let the people know who they are in any case? You know, Shirley Leung, last question from me. I listened to your podcast, Same More Podcast, where you had a wonderful story about busting and the impact of busting in East Boston. And by the way, it's the 50th anniversary of busting, it started in 1974. What'd you say? What'd you learn in that story? So I had two guests on recently, and they're very well known in Boston. One is Robert Lewis, Jr., a long time non-profit leader, he ran the bass, and now he runs, he's the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club in Boston, and many of you probably also remember Salah Matina. I do. Used to call me all the time when I was at the Herald. Yeah. And so I didn't realize this, but the two of them were, I've known each other since we're like six years old in East Boston, and I think Robert, who's black, was telling me that he was perhaps the first family that lived at the Maverick Street. Yeah, Maverick Square, I think. First black family there. And so, and they painted this picture of how growing up in East Boston, you know, black families, white families, they lived together happily and collegially, but then ever since Judge Garrity's ruling, it really tore apart East Boston. I mean, a lot of the stores are out of South Boston, but East Boston, too, is affected. And so, Robert tells his story of his home was firebombed, and so they moved. And they moved to the South End, and then he ended up getting bust, or he actually rode the tee to, he got, he had to go back to, he went to East Boston High School for, for high school. So he lived in the South End, went back to East Boston, and, and, but it was, it really changed the course of their lives. And, and we, and I said, well, what do you, do you think busting, do you think it was a success or failure, and they, and both of them agreed, it was a, a failure. Yeah, it's a really poignant rendition of two men's experiences growing up in Boston, facing busting. Let me tell you, Robert is a treasure of the city, too. He is an incredible character. And by the way, saying that busting was the wrong thing, we had three people on with us yesterday, two were busts, two were busts, former Mayor Janie, Michael Curry from the NAACP, and obviously Ted Landsmark in that iconic photograph, and three for three joined your two guests saying this was, how they did it, right intention, horrible way to get there. I mean, if there is one silver lining in all of this, is that it produced a generation of leaders like Robert and, and Salah Mateen, they said that, that experience made them go into, you know, public service. And so they dedicate their lives to addressing them in equities in Boston. Yes, speaking of investment equities, I want to say, and where we began, your DEI thing at Harvard is just, is brilliant and important. I'm sorry, my regard. That's okay. And her say more podcasts are really great, too. The one with Kristin Winsky about playing football at the young age was great, too, doing great stuff over there. Good to see you, Shirley. We've been speaking with, we've been speaking with Boston Globe Business Commons, Shirley Young, who will also host the podcast, say more with Shirley Young, new episodes every Thursday. Okay. Up after the new news is Suffolk County Sheriff Andrew Cabral, new hotshot lawyer is going to prosecute the Karen Reed case and more travails for our scandal, plague state police. You're listening to Boston Public Radio 89, seven GBH. Hello again, Jim. Hello again, Jim. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm Andrew Cabral, former Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety, Andrew Cabral, she joins us weekly. Hello, Andrew Cabral. Hello, Jim. Hello, Margie. Hello, Andrew Cabral. Well, I saw this story and I'm so glad I'm talking to you about this. This is about John Roberts and whom I had, at least for a while, some faith. I knew he was a conservative, I knew he was a Republican, but I thought he was just kind of a stand-up guy. Joe DeCantrick reported Adam Liptack had this piece in The New York Times looking at his court-winning streak and kind of decimated what I thought of John Roberts. Tell us what they said. Well, I've kind of felt for a while that certainly since Shelby vs. Holder, I felt like Roberts was really sort of the undercover driver of the direction that the Supreme Court was going in. Now, Alito and Thomas are no slouches and neither is Gorsuch, but I started to feel, particularly after Shelby vs. Holder, that Roberts was really taking a much greater hand in shaping the court. In this piece- Can I just stop you for one second so people know Shelby, which we discussed with Carl Rosie yesterday, is the case that gutted the pre-clearance critical provisions in the Voting Rights Act. I'm sorry, yeah. Which enabled to make it much more difficult for African Americans to vote. Yeah. Lots of people to vote, actually. And one of the ways that actually that feeling was confirmed by this story, which is Jodi Cantor and Adam Liptack in The Times, is, and I'll talk about this more in a second, but when the presidential immunity decision came out and Justice Sotomayor took the unprecedented, well unprecedented, but extraordinarily rare choice to read her dissent from the bash and characterize Skodis's, you know, incredibly broad, basically unfettered presidential immunity decision in terms of her fear for democracy. He shot back at her something along the lines that she was being, you know, overly, he didn't use the words overly dramatic, but he basically accused her of being overly dramatic. And what you'll remember from Shelby versus Holder is that he characterized the continuing need for the Voting Rights Act as a problem, as a solution in search of a problem. And immediately after Shelby versus Holder, every single one of the states that had previously been under consent decree to curtail their voter suppression behavior went full bore back into suppressing votes. And the same thing is going to happen with the presidential immunity decision. So this story by Cantor and Liptack really goes chapter and verse into how Roberts insinuated himself and the court into these cases and tried to steer the direction of these cases, and there were several of them. It wasn't just the presidential immunity decision. It was the decision about whether or not he could be kept off the ballot in Colorado, because states, some states have laws that say that if someone's engaged in an insurrection, you can keep them off the ballot in those states. It was virtually every single lower court decision that could potentially come before the court that was critical to keeping Trump out of trouble before the election. He made sure that he alerted his colleagues very early on where he thought the presidential immunity decision should go. He steered the decisions around keeping Trump off the ballot, and they made that decision very, very quickly versus the enormous delay that they took part in or they created. And I think this was Roberts at the helm on the presidential immunity decision. He really has been steering the ship and people should find this article. It's called how Robert shaped Trump's Supreme Court winning streak, because it is so sort of almost apocalyptic in terms of anybody having continuing faith that the Supreme Court is merely calling balls and strikes and not doing what is very clear that they are doing, which is, you know, having felt their power under Bush B. Gore to determine who will win a presidential election. They are now doing it in a far more brazen terms and going at it full bore. And Roberts is driving the bus on it. Yeah, there's one more piece about this, which brings me some joy because the content is surely not. Obviously, the leaking of the Dobbs decision, repealing Roe v. Wade, caused a lot of the consternation among the, is it among the justices between, among the judges, among the judges, I just want to make sure Marjorie wasn't going to criticize my grammar or English or whatever it is. And I got it right. Because, you know, who leaked it was the conservatives, the liberals, the staff person, this brilliant reporting, and you guys have both correctly given a lot of credit to the reporters at the times, is based on... She's the one that got Harvey Weinstein to the Jodie Cantor. She was on greater Boston with her colleague, by the way, when that happened after the book came out. It was fabulous. What do you mean? With me. They're leak memos, they're conversations with insiders. Essentially, the Supreme Court is in such disarray, other than the fact that it's united in screwing the American people, that there's going to be more crap internally, because some people are deciding we want the world to know what's really going on here, which as I say, I take some limited joy in. And I think part of the reason that that's happening is actually, you know, possibly in the story itself, where it talks about, you know, when he writes the decision on presidential immunity, which he takes from Alito, by the way, I think not coincidentally, four days after the times wrote about Alito's flying the insurrectionist flag at his house, you know, Roberts takes that decision from Alito and writes it himself, but he writes it in these lofty terms and he talks about it as though this is a decision, he genuinely thinks everyone is going to appreciate everybody's going to see how, you know, how brilliant this decision is. And he's genuinely shocked that the reaction to this decision is so unbelievably negative. And it just shows you how out of touch, they all are. And I think that maybe some of this leak is a response to how out of touch all of these justices are where people feel like they simply have no alternative. The other thing is when they overturn Roe vs. Wade and Dobbs, they, you know, Alito was sort of trumpeting. There is no right to an abortion in the Constitution. There is no right to presidential immunity of any kind in the Constitution. And he literally took this and just made it up out of folklore. And I think, yeah, I think the reaction to that is leaks more if this is going to come out because they literally are just creating law and manufacturing law to get the result that they want and ignoring ages of precedent and establish law when it goes against what they want. And that is not what the Supreme Court of the United States should be doing. Yeah. And I should have to think what could happen with the fights over this election and which is what's going to happen if Trump doesn't win and what they could be doing in that regard. In any case, people may know about this tragic situation where this young state police recruit Enrique Delgado Garcia died in what they're calling a training exercise and a boxing ring which left him with missing teeth, a broken neck, a brain injury, and a body covered with bruises. We talked to the Attorney General Andrea Campbell about this on Tuesday. And here's what she said, what she found out about the death of this recruit and how the investigation will move forward. I actually was coming back from a conference when I got the news from some of my fellow troopers and all of us were heartbroken. And I cried that night and we'll have a decision point very soon to figure out who was best to lead this investigation. And I want to say that not just to the family and the community. I get the sense of urgency here. They have a lot of questions. They need a point of contact to go to to get those questions answered and someone to navigate that investigation on their behalf. They will do that. I kind of freaked out the early reporting on this and the globe didn't really mention any investigation. Just kind of said everybody's hearts were broken and that they, you know, the state police were going to get him full coverage and full burial and all that kind of stuff. But now I think it's a risk and investigation. But this sounds very-- Well, they also swarm in on Friday, which the day after the injury, right? Yes. There was no mention of an investigation, which I thought was so odd, because this does seem very odd. A broken neck, missing teeth, body bruises and a boxing training ring? Yes, it does. And I do think that we do have to wait for the autopsy to confirm that. It's not that I doubt that the family, either the injuries of which they were told or that they witnessed when he was still in the hospital. I don't, you know, I'm not doubting that. But I think certainly in terms of the investigation, that's one of the things that they're going to be looking at. I just want to start here. This show man was only 25 years old. He was a former victim witness advocate in Joseph Early's office. I forget what county early is. I'm working with advocate my entire time in two DA's offices. This is exactly the kind of person you want to be a state trooper or a local cop, someone who has dealt with victims who is going to think about, who's going to have an empathetic view toward dealing with them when they are victims and cases that he's working with. From everything he said, it's been said about him that he seemed like he was a wonderful young man, but he also was going to bring a particular level of experience that many police officers don't have to this job. So it's an additional tragedy that he died. But I, you know, it is a conflict. There are state troopers in every, pretty much every DA's office and they work in the AG's office so I think AG Campbell is right, that they really have to be very, very careful about this and sort of, you know, really chart this course about making sure that there's no conflict. There's a suggestion in the story from someone who's quoted about using a judicial inquest, which we don't do those very often. What is that? It's a, it's a, it's a proceeding that is overseen by a judge and it's really an open hearing. An inquest is a pretty open hearing into a death. Really? Yes. And, you know, that, that may actually be what's appropriate here because it may satisfy the public's need to know a judge can be making decisions about, you know, you know, what can be released or shouldn't be released, whether or not anything should be impounded for any reason. But by and large, it's a fairly public proceeding, but you have a judge doing it so you don't have the issue of anyone connected with the state police being involved in it, which he even if they, if they do everything the right way, if the result is not what someone wants, there are going to be, you know, questions raised about that. You know, speaking of the public's right to know and staying within the state police, there was a story on the 16th in the globe, Danny McDonald, Shelley Murphy, Sean Carter. I'll read the opening paragraph. The veteran policeman, his name is Jeffrey Noble, tapped to helm the scandal plague masters to stay police as the subject of at least four discrimination complaints that alleged you bypass qualified candidates were gay, female and people of color for promotions while fostering a culture of cronyism during his time as a leader at the New Jersey State Police. According to Globe review, and then I jumped down in the story, Governor Healy's administration defended noble selection, a spokesperson called noble respected leader widely plays praise for his integrity, compassion, ability to bring people together, noble decline to speak with the globe ahead of the story. It seems to me, the public has the right to know before he formally ascends to the position whether or not this is true. And if it's true, it seems to me he wasn't the best pick, Andrew Carell. Well, let me say this, and I say this from a wealth of experience in this. As someone whose name has been listed as a defendant, and, you know, untold numbers of civil complaints brought by staff when I was sheriff, what you'd have to know, not necessarily is the outcome of the trial. But I assume by the board that vetted these, that they had, they were given some information about what was in these complaints, and they had some sense of whether or not a noble's name was added as a supervisor or added, I mean, my name is to get added as a supervisor, and it would be an allegation and a complaint that I said something, that I did something, that I knew about something, that was simply not accurate or was flat out a lie. So I do want to say, I just want to take some caution because we often comment on civil complaints based on the allegations and a complaint, but I will tell you that as a supervisor in any organization or agency, particularly a governmental one, it is a standard thing to put in the name of a supervisor, no matter what the lower interaction was at the rank and file level, is to say that the supervisor was somehow involved or somehow knew or did something wrong, because that's how you get to the deeper pocket. You can sue an individual staff member, but if you sue them, they're not going to have the money to pay a judgment. It's the institution that is going to pay the judgment and putting the supervisor's name in it. So I just want to caution people. I just want to comment as to whether or not that was done or how accurate that might be in this case. I'm just cautioning people that when you see a person's name to simply say, Andrea Cabral is a Suffolk County sheriff, was named as a defendant in four lawsuits, doesn't mean what it would mean if it was just a regular person. Yeah, but my response, and that all may be true, and I'm glad you said it, then instead of saying noble is a respected leader, widely praised for his integrity, compassion, ability to bring people together, I think what the governor who picked him should have said is exactly what you said and gone further. In terms of the allegations that you discriminated against gays, here's what actually happened. Here was his involvement or non-involvement females, people of color saying he's a person of integrity, compassion, and ability and ignoring these allegations. Even if they weren't fairly directed at him in New Jersey, don't you think the public is entitled to know particularly considering the history of the thing he's about to head, the mass state police about a rough couple of years, don't you think we're entitled to know whether they knew, whether they vetted, and what their conclusions were? Well, first of all, the governor shouldn't ever say, here's what happened and here's what didn't. Those cases are pending. I don't know what stage of discovery those cases are in, and she's not in a position to do that nor should she do that. I think the story does say, I think Abigail Forrester is quoted, and he was a member of the group, I think, that vetted him. He's quoted in the story. I think that that group is quoted, and I think the point that the story makes is that they are standing by their recommendation to recommend him to the governor, and that indicates to me, having been part of panels like that, that they must feel comfortable that they had sufficient information and talked to him about that information, and others about what was out there, that they still went ahead and made the recommendation, and let me also say, it'd be hard pressed to find a police department in this country. Certainly a state police department in this country that does not have a long history of good old boys promoting good old boys, and keeping police departments insular, primarily white and primarily male, that is simply a fact of life in the United States of America. And you have had leaders intermittently throughout that time who have tried to make inroads in that sometimes it's two steps forward, three steps back, sometimes people make a lot more progress. So I say that to say, it is an institutional, a nationwide problem. That does not mean that, you know, noble hasn't made mistakes, and that means that you maybe at some point be held accountable for them, but the notion that it all gets tied up into one thing. Police departments have this institutional problem. He was a leader in that police department, therefore there's probably something to these specific allegations, that's a leap that many will take, but it's not always the right leap to take. By the way, two things if I may, I completely disagree with you about what the governor should say. I'm not suggesting she goes into great detail, I'm suggesting she has a minimum obligation to say, if true, we were totally aware of these, we vetted these, we find them without merit. And number two, Abrogale Forester, according to the Globe, was not involved in the search for this guy. Abrogale Forester was involved in the search for the Boston Police Commissioner from two years ago and made general comments about, you know, how you build confidence in the state police, and that sort of thing. So I just think the person who picked them, if she knew it, and I'm assuming she did and decided they were not meritorious, should say it. That's at least my, I disagree, I don't think she can say, she could say we were aware of it, or someone from the panel should say we were aware of it, but I don't think she can say we found them to be without merit, because that's up to a judge or jury. Well, if they didn't find them to be without merit, and they didn't conclude that, they wouldn't have picked them. Is that not obvious? It's a really difficult line to walk when there is a pending case for a governor of a state to say that she thinks that a plaintiff's allegations have no merit when, what happens Andrea, what happens when he's found libel, if he's found libel, six months from now on these things. We don't know what the outcome is going to be. If she's concluded, then she will, I mean, I'm not suggesting that there isn't going to be a point in time where she's not going to have to talk about this again. I'm saying that right now where the case is pending, you really shouldn't do that. I got you. I got it. Okay. I guess we're out of time here. What do you mean you guess we're out of time? No. We don't have a minute left. Well, I guess we are out of time. Yeah, we are out of time here. Andrea's nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you very much, I'm sorry I'm out of time, Andrea, because I can't get enough of you, you know, in studio here as a co-host or guest, thank you very much. Sorry. It's a little insolventing for, I know what you mean, I think I know what you mean. Okay. That's not what I meant. Take it back. Okay, forget that. We've been speaking with former Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral, she's former secretary of public safety as well, and she joins us every week. What do you think in 60 seconds? What? Andrea, who has obviously spent a life in law enforcement, I have a huge respect for Andrea, feels the governor can't and shouldn't speak to the merits of this thing. Well, and the thing that stuck out to me was four case allegations, and I didn't think four was that many over a spate of a creep, but I'm out of my element here, doesn't she have to, or her spokesperson at least have to say, of course we knew about these things, and we concluded they were not obstacles or whatever the hell it is, because they obviously did, unless they didn't know about it. I mean, that would be fine. That would be fine. Okay. But as we all know, we've perfected and Democrats are getting worse than Republicans, and not answering questions about anything. I mean, that's one of the new things that we... Well, the spokesperson, I mean, Chris Ande, you shouldn't say what I would wish she'd say, but she at least made a statement. She made a statement. At least they called you back. Lots of them didn't even call you back. They do not. It's outrageous. It's outrageous. Anyway, after a quick break, two new films from two new filmmakers, comedian Jimmy Tingle, guys probably know him, he's a great comedian for years, and Cambridge, right down the street from Jim, he makes his case for the radical middle, in Hollywood's screenwriter Eric Aronson returns home from his debut film as director, and it's kind of sort of about the Isabella Gardner Museum heist. They both join us next to listening to Boston Public Radio 89.7 GBH. [Music] Welcome back to Boston Public Radio. I'm Jim Brody. She is Mardregan. We are live at the Boston Public Library. Tomorrow we're joined by two locally based filmmakers with two new films that have Boston as a backdrop. One is comedian Jimmy Tingle, his new film is first and over a decade, is the radical middle. Why would a comedian run for office? All about his 2018 run for Lieutenant Governor. Marjorie and I will not mention in this discussion that we appeared in his first film and we do not appear in this film. That's right. We're done. We're toast. He's entitled. He's the director. He's this Sunday Night at the Great Region Theatre in Arlington and Jimmy will stick around for a Q&A after the screening. Also, as a stand up show, this Saturday 8 p.m. and another great place and made a center for the arts. More info at his website, jimmytingle.com. Also with us is Eric Anderson, who's been doing a ton of writing through the years and worked with people like Sacha Baron Cohen, Johnny Depp, et cetera. But this time he is also the director of the new film. It's called Anyday. After a premiere at the Boston Film Festival, this Saturday, it is the festival. I don't even know what this means, but I know it's a good centerpiece spotlight film. It is based on the Isabelle Stewart Gardner host heist of 34 years ago, sort of. We should add there's also going to be a Q&A with Eric and some of the key players in the film after Saturday's screening. More information on that at bostonfilmfestival.org. Jimmy, Eric, great to have you both. Congratulations. Thanks for being here. Thanks, Jim. Thanks for being here. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And don't call it. Great to meet Eric. Great to meet Eric. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. You did a great job. But we'll get to you in a second. Yeah. You may be the only two people on the planet. I just realized we've seen both of these films. Maybe the only two people in the world. We probably aren't. We probably are, but go ahead. Okay. So let's start with you, jimmytingle. Jim will not hold it against you that you didn't even make the cut for this year. Oh, yes. But of a production. But tell us what you did. Well, we made a film. I recorded. First of all, I ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2018, and the whole time I was running, people go, you know, you're a comedian, you've been in the business 30 years. Why are you getting into politics? And so when the movie, when the election was over, we came in second place, first time running, came in second place. That's the good news. The bad news. Two-person race. So we got the silver medal, I was trying to say. But I wanted to answer that question. So I did a one-person show, why would a comedian run for office? We filmed it at the Sanders Theater in 2020 in February, not thinking about making anything, making a film or anything, just filmed it for our own purposes, and then we went into the pandemic. I said, maybe we can make this into a film. Maybe we can do something more than just have a record of the show. And so that's what we did. And we tried to put together a little documentary and answer the question, why would a comedian run for office? And you do. So, Eric, markdown Diaz, one of your producers is a family friend in front of me and my wife. She says, "I got this film I'm working on. You really got to see it." And so, as a courtesy to Mark, I decided to see it. First screen comes up on the screen. It says something like, "In March 1990, a museum in Boston, you know, had millions of dollars of art stolen." And I say, "Not again. I cannot deal with another film." And then the next screen comes up and it says, "This is not what happened. And it is not what happened. And it is thrilling. It is wildly funny. Tell us about the film." Yeah. It's been about probably 25 years coming. I've been a screenwriter for a long time. I've seen a lot of my stuff come out, not exactly the way I intended, or at least not in the spirit with which I intended. So I saved up money for all these years. Way to true? Yeah. I waited for the right story and I'm from Boston. And I think the two great myths of our era, maybe three, one would be the Whitey Bulger story, one's the Gardner Heist and now it might be Jimmy Tingle running for Lieutenant Governor. But so I picked one of the three and I thought that was the right story to tell and I could tell it my way and I could show the Boston that I see every day driving around, not the tax haven that it's used as the backdrop for most movies. So the next film is Whitey Bulger working in a donut shop? Is that what they is? Is that what it's? You know what? I think it is what happened. This has given me a whole new idea. It makes a lot of sense just to a little bit right, that you want to just give a little bit of the plot because it makes total sense to me. This is really hard to do I should say. The God. There's only one fact that we all know for sure about the Gardner robbery and that fact is there were very interesting people surrounding this heist. That is correct. So that we can all agree on. Okay. Okay. Well anyway I think you've got it nailed. So I took two of the most interesting kind of characters. And I matched them together and I put in a big what if. You know what else? You know what else? I was going to say the tension, the nervousness and the comedy and the nervousness of the comedy. It's like you really, it's brilliant the way you've done that worked it up and gone back and forth. Okay. So you know what the other great thing I was trying to think of common alley between your two, between it's your first director thing, well it's sort of your second. So whatever. We're not supposed to mention Woody Allen anymore, he used to be my favorite filmmaker. The key to a good film is if you can't say it in under an hour and 20 minutes, don't say it. That's my view. And it's for Tingle, an hour and 17 for you there, Eric. So Jimmy, in addition to being at Wildly Fun, well actually let's play a little snippet. Here's a little piece of the radical middle. He's talking us through his campaign for Lieutenant Governor as it was said a minute ago. And the context for this is he's just filed the paperwork to run, inspired or urged on by Barney Frank I should say and gets a call while shopping for his legendary aging mother while he's in the adult diaper section of Walgreens. Here it is. I'm in the depends aisle. I got three big packages of depends. My wife, Catherine, calls Jimmy, the man from the Boston Globe, he put it on Boston.com. It's gone viral. It's in the New York Times, the LA Times, Boston comedian Jimmy Tingle declares candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. I have no campaign manager, no staff, no headquarters, no website, no bank account, no treasurer and no money. For the first time in my life, I'm thinking I need depends. So Jimmy Tingle, in addition to being wildly funny like you are and like it is, there is a theme to this. As you say, and as you said in your incredible campaign when you ran, which takes a lot of time, you know what, government matters and you talk about a personal experience you have where you're suffering in a way and you're very open about it and you get, you call a place and the guy on the other end of the phone says you call the right place, speaking to that being what the message we should all get from our governments around this country. So there is a serious theme here too. Oh, definitely because that was a life-changing experience. It was in the late '80s, lost three friends to alcoholism and drug addiction. I was personally going downhill and I saw calm places for help and I don't know if anybody listening has ever tried to get anybody in to a place but it can be a nightmare. And you're getting the run around. There's no beds, there's long lines, you know, you don't have insurance. I called the Cambridge City Hospital a week before Christmas 1987. I said to the man who went to the phone, "I really need help." Without missing a beat, this man says you called the right place and you never hear that. And I went in that hospital and there was a life-changing experience and got out moved to New York City and the comedy career sort of took off from there and the sobriety took off. And that's the answer I think people need in a looking for when they're calling for help in this country, in this state, whether it's immigration, education, transportation, whatever the issue is, health care, you call it the right place. And that's my overall message and that's the fact that my whole premise is government matters and government can change people's lives and at times government can save people's lives. We're talking, that was the voice of Jimmy Tingle, a lot of you know him already. He's a Cambridge guy, the new film is called The Radical Middle and we're also talking to Eric Erickson. Long time, Eric, Aaron's son, excuse me, Aaron's son, writer and director behind any day now, such a preparer at the Boston Film Festival this Saturday. You've been in Hollywood for a long time, as you said before, working with a lot of great stars. Where does the Boston Film Festival fit in? I mean, it's the kind of launching for your film you're going to tell us soon where we can see it ourselves. Does that work? Well, for me, it's just the right stop, right, the right first step. It's a long, long road, as Jimmy noticed, to any kind of endeavor, but getting a movie out in this world today, it's an uphill for everyone. It's an uphill for Warner Brothers. They don't know how to release a movie. So this is a long road, but this is the right first step because this is a movie entirely shot in Boston, our lead actor Paul Guilfoyle is a Bostonian, a beloved actor here. And it's about Boston. So this is where we want to begin our journey. When you said Warner Brothers doesn't know how to do it anymore, is that because of the post-pandemic, people look at it in the movies, or everything has changed, or what? When we shot our movie, there were eight other movies getting shot in Boston at the same time, all because of the tax incentive here. So we had, there was a $100 million movie, there was a $20 million Liam Neeson movie, and we were one of the smallest of eight. Right now there are zero movies getting shot in Boston. It's a real dry spell, and the reason why movies aren't getting shot anymore is because the studios have no idea how to distribute them anymore. They're lost at sea. And like Jimmy said, the good news and the bad news, that to me is the good news. That means I have a shot. I have them. I have just as good a shot. I might have a better shot than Warner Brothers. It releases a movie if I do this right. So it's a long road, but I want to make the right steps, and this is the right step. The Boston Film Festival is the first place this movie should be seen. Let's hear a little sound from your film any day now. The protagonist, Steve, he's the gard at the gardener, is in a bar hiding out from a drug dealer. He owes $5,000 when he's approached by this mysterious older guy, played beyond brilliantly by Paul Guilfoyle. You were talking about, we're the proposition. Here they are. How? On a night guard salary, right? You're going to pay for all that product. You put up your nose and give it to your friends. We're going to get the cash, Steve. I will. I will get it to you, I promise. Do I look like a piece of shit drug dealer, do you? Well, here's the thing, that piece of shit drug dealer that you do owe all the money to. He doesn't know where you work or live, but I do. All it takes is one phone call, and he does. But today's your lucky day. You do me a favor. I'll take care of your debt. In addition to it was at CSI, he was in forever, which I never saw, but I know it's huge. But he was in spotlight. Wasn't he one of the bad guys in spotlight? He was in spotlight. He was in Don't Look Up. He was in Air Force. One. He's incredible. He's been in every movie you've ever seen. He's incredible. I don't want to get distracted. I'm one who's crazy about the film tax credit, and I'm not against it, but I have questions about favoring one industry. Could you have made your film without the masters of the film tax credit? Could I have made it? Yes. I would have had to make it on less of a budget, so it did give me a big bonus, and I can use that credit now towards the selling of the movie. That's really the most useful. So I'm keeping all those funds in Massachusetts. I'm one of the only people who's doing that. Everybody else takes it away. So I didn't even thought about this. So you're an independent filmmaker, even though you've got a long history of successful history and film with some really big players, so there are multitude of tasks. I mean, as you just say, not just making it, what's the next step for you? I mean, you're out there. People know you here, which is a big, I'm looking at Jimmy Dingle. Everybody knows you personally in Massachusetts or your market this, you're going to be appearing all over the state. So you have a leg up. I'm not saying it's easy. What do you do next to make sure that post Saturday night, where we hope this is a huge success, that this catches on? Yeah, right. That's the choice I made very early on was not to chase stars, because if you chase a star, yes, that helps today. But what I wanted was the best person I could find and people that really wanted to do this and make the best version of this movie I wanted. But the day, once I finished editing, a friend of mine from LA came and watched the edit, and he said, "That's great. You're about a third of the way through." So what does that mean? What does that mean? What do you have? I mean, what do you do post Saturday night to make sure this is not a one and done kind of experience? That's exactly what I asked myself last night before going to bed. And how did it go? I just went to sleep? Is that anything? Look, Robert Tusson was coding. [LAUGHTER] So tonight, by the way, I don't even have a film that's incredible. I'm talking to Eric Harris and his film is Anyday Now. It's first showing. It's going to be at the Boston Film Festival Saturday night. We're going to give you the website to get tickets and just this. Well, I'll give it to you right now, bostonfilmfestive.org and Jimmy Tingles film that stars Jimmy Tingle, I should say. When do we first see this baby again at the region? The region Sunday night, 22nd of September, and I'm going to go around the country theater to theater. So I'll be on the roll for the next 50 years with this film. I don't need a distributor, okay? I am my own distributor. I am the distributor. But that's what Eric's trying to do. That's right. At the festival, get a distributor, right? And get it out there. He's doing a nice text about you, Jimmy. Jimmy Tingle is an incredible Boston talent, great favorite of my father, Bill Coughlin. He inspired him in his sobriety journey and always made us laugh. Thank you, Jimmy. That's from Jessica in Devon. Oh, thank you, Jessica. Very nice. Can we-- this is probably an impossible cry. This thing is weird. This plot is an odd. Is that okay to say it's an odd sort of-- Say whatever you like. Okay, it's an odd. Would you agree with that? It's odd. Yeah, it's odd. Okay. So where were-- what was happening? What was the moment, the sort of epiphany moment, when you said, "This is how I believe or want people to see how this whole thing materialized," because everybody knows it's still a mystery. We have no idea where the paintings are, who took them, who hasn't, et cetera. So what was the thought process, the creative process that led to this odd thing coming out of your head, Eric? Well, I spoke to my lawyer. That was the first thing. The good news is that nobody knows what happened, or the bad news is that nobody knows what happened, or where the paintings went. The good news is that means you can say whatever you want. And that allowed me to create a world where I could say whatever I wanted. But I knew that I didn't have the kind of funds to make an "Ocean's Eleven" movie out there isn't "Ocean's Eleven" Hollywood movie version of this that they are more than welcome to make. What I wanted to do was put all of that in the background and focus on the characters, because like I said in the beginning, that's what interested me. I'm interested in people, I'm interested in characters. As a director, I'm interested in actors, I'm amazed that people can get up and perform and be funny. I mean, that's just beyond me, and I just like being around those people. So it was about putting the events in the background and putting the people in the characters in the foreground. So I want to ask you, I don't know anything about the way Hollywood works, but you've been there for 25 years. Screenwriting, as you mentioned, Johnny Depp, Sacha Baron Cohen. I remember going out for one of those little tours, you know, those cheap bus tours you get, and it went around, they would point out different screenwriters houses, and they were these beautiful mansions on the top of the Hollywood Hills, and somebody made a joke with the screenwriter and never had a movie actually made. He just was writing screenplays that people, I guess, liked. So what is that like? I mean, how do you make it in Hollywood as a screenwriter? What does that mean? I think I know whose house that is, and I think there's only about two or three people that can get out of that book, and I've met them, and I know what compromises they had to make. But I mean, there's a million ways to become a screenwriter. Most of my work has been stuff that I've come up with on my own. And I found a book in a bookshop in London that I fell in love with, and I tried to get the rights. They wouldn't give it to me. I wrote the movie anyway, and somehow sold it. So I mean, there's just a million ways to slice the banana. And did you study this and could you go to college, or should people bother doing that to become screenwriters? I mean, how do you become a screenwriter? I guess that's what I'm asking you. I'm not going to discourage anyone from going to college. I think that's probably a good idea. However, however, I did not study this. I was an English major. I went to graduate school for political science. I was a speechwriter for a British prime minister. I did all kinds of meetings. Really? Which one? Which one? Which one? He was long, long ago. Not Boris? No, no, no, no. No. But I knew Boris when I was young. Where does that go? Where does that go? He was living in his car at the time. Why were you not saying who I was? What? I'm about to say who it was, because he's so long ago, people might not remember. But John Major, very nice guy. Oh, yes, yes. Very nice guy. He was living in his car? Yes. Boris, what's living in his car at the time? By the way, there's a guy living in a car in your film, too. That's one of the funniest scenes in the film ever. Jimmy, what's Barney Frank? I mentioned Barney Frank in passing. It didn't expand. What do Barney Frank have to do with his candidacy years? Well, I was young. Where he got 214,000 votes, by the way, which ain't nothing. Go ahead. 313. Yes, ma'am, sorry. No, no, Barney and I, we, I had known them for years. But when Hillary was wondering, we were doing fundraisers around the state for Hillary. And there was so much fun being in front of all these people and just doing comedy, but with commentary as well. And I just was so inspired by all these people on the same, on the same page, pulling for the same purpose. I said to Barney after the last one, I said, "Bonnie, you think it's too late to run for office in a serious way?" He goes, "No, not at all." He said, "After the election, let's get together. We'll have lunch. We'll talk about what you want to run for." And he said, "I'll be your honorary chairperson if you're serious." Yeah. And he was great. He was serious. And Jimmy Tingle will talk to Eric Aronson, they both have new films out. You know, can you address my thing about length of films for a second? I mean, I am really, I mean, I loved Woody Allen before everything, not only because he was a genius, but because I really do feel these three-hour things that I know the Scorsese are the geniuses of all time. But I don't know if it's a tension span or what it is. So why'd you decide to make this? Please don't say it's because you only have a limited amount of money. Why is it an hour and 17 minutes? Wasn't there a writer who said, "I'm sorry, I can't write a shorter letter. I don't have time." Yeah. Someone wrote that. Yeah. A lot of editing involved. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. Was that like an intentional deal, I hope? It's just my particular attention span. I agree. I think that things can be all different sizes. I think Jimmy's movie is great that it's shorter. 50. Yeah, it can find an audience. It's no longer like it used to be, that they're running every hour and a half so you've got to fill it. You know, it can fit in any space. You can make a movie that's like a minute and a half long, it could be really good. It could find a place in this world. That's what's exciting. It's like the Wild West out there. By the way, an anonymous textor said, "Comedians do run for office President Zelensky." Obviously. Right. It was a situation comedy actor before he participated in the perfect goal with Donald Trump. And Al Franken? Oh, that's another... He was in the movie, actually. Yeah. We're not in the movie. I don't know if I mentioned that. You're in the next one. It's not important, actually. It's not. It's not important, actually. You're in the next one. It's really... It's not. So, starting at the region, post-region, we go to JimmyTingle.com, we find other locations, we're going to be performing. Yeah, we'll go down to Chatham, going down to Chatham next week, and then out to Turner's Falls, and then to the Vineyard, and Nantucket, and Woods Hole, going up to New Hampshire, trying to get down to Pennsylvania for the month of October. Love to do that. Perfect place to be. Yeah. I want to inspire people to get involved with whatever side of the political aisle you want, get involved. By the way, everybody who saw you hosting the breakfast at the DNC for the Master's delegation said you were nothing short of brilliant. JimmyTingle is everywhere. So, if we don't make it Saturday night, I was lucky enough, Margie was enough to see it in our houses. Yeah. That's great. What's... When are we going to see this film there, Eric Aronson? Well, I'm not going to step on Jimmy's toes, but we're showing it again on Sunday night. Oh, you... Oh, I'm sorry. Well, I think we have enough people listening, they could probably... Is it Saturday and Sunday? Saturday and Sunday. Boston Film Festival. Dot. What is it? We're playing it at the Paramount Theatre, has a screening room on the fourth floor called The Bright Emerson Bright Theatre or something. Oh, okay. So it's up there. Both nights. Yeah, both nights. And how about after that, though? I mean, we don't know yet, right? After the... Not yet, but I'll let you know and I'll somehow let it out there. Well, we'll start showing you more screening slowly over the next few months, but our ramp up is until... We're going to not going to release the film until March, because that's the 35th anniversary of the robbery. Oh, really? So, we're going to... I have a question for Eric. Are you going to be like being there with the film Q&A after it? Yeah. That's hugely advantageous. I agree. According to all the theatres that I've talked to, they love when the directors are there, and the audience loves it as well. Yeah, I am. I'll do that. Yeah, that's cool. Two Cambridge guys. I love this. Cambridge guys. I want to repeat. Guys who live in Cambridge doing great things, two fabulous films, and we're thrilled to have you both here. Eric, Jimmy, thanks so much for your time. Good luck this weekend. Okay, so Eric's directorial debut any day now is going to screen Saturday and Sunday as a centerpiece, which is a big deal, spotlight film at the Boston Film Festival. For more information, you go to bostonfilmfestival.org, that's bostonfilmfestival.org, and Jimmy's The Radical Middle. Why would a community run for office? Primer's Sunday. The screenings at Arlington's Regent Theatre, and for information, go to regenttheatre.com. By the way, theatre is T-R-E instead of T-E-R, regenttheatre.com, or jimmytingle.com. Good luck, gentlemen. Great to see you. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. Great to see you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations, Eric. Yeah, are you going to run again, Jimmy? I don't know. I don't know. See what happens in November. Okay, after a quick break, we've been asking for your texts all morning about everything to do with Tupperware. Are we all finally free from the discoloured plastic, and wear, or wear, all the Tupperware? Let's go. Let's talk about that. In a second, you're listening to Boston Public Radio 897GBH. Welcome back to Boston Public Radio. We're live at the Boston Public Library today, tomorrow. All day long, we've been soliciting your texts as we do every day, today on the subject of Tupperware. The company found -- I didn't know this -- in our own backyard of Le Manster by somebody named Earl was -- last name was Tupper, by the way. Not Tupperware, but Tupper just filed for bankruptcy, not him. He's dead. After 78 years, are you mourning the end of the road for these cheap plastic things that warp in the dishwasher? Is this an opportunity, on the other hand, to fill our landfills with something other than plastic-tinted yellow from the last time you made meatballs? And Marjorie, of course, wants to know whether you're for or against Tupperware. Where the hell are the lids? What are the textures? Well, it's true. Anonymous texture. You want to know where all the Tupperware lids are? I'll tell you where they are. They're all in the bottom of my husband's work backpack. So filthy that they're afraid to come out. And then Stoney Nipsewich says, "I heard that Tupperware produced a full report explaining their demise, but they misplaced the cover." Oh, that's fabulous. By the way, let me just say in defense them, because I'm not a Tupperware fan. I am a Pyrex glass kind of person. In great part, not only because it leaves the stains on the plastic, Tupperware is not biodegradable, which means it just sits in a landfill forever, so it's not healthy as opposed to glass and that sort of thing. Do you know that this was a female empowerment thing? Oh, yes. The guy Earl Tupper is not famous, right? And the woman who started was this Bonnie Wise, who was W-I-S-E, first person ever on the cover of, woman ever on the cover of business week. And these Tupperware ladies at their parties became a huge, as I say, empowerment thing for women when women in business were not exactly an empowered class. Yeah, people had Tupperware parties all the time in the '50s and '60s. And then I think in the '70s, the Victoria Secret catalog came along, they had Victoria Secret parties instead, and that was the end of that. But the thing is that they do, they're not very environmentally correct as you would say. However, Dave and Concord says he has no lid issues. When you clear out the clutter, you include containers without lids and lids without containers. Then you ditch everything. You know why? Why? Because you're never going to find the other half. And he's right. I mean, you know, when you do have the Tupperware things, and I used to have them too, I used to have all these containers, you'd have like, you know, 15 bottoms and like 10 tops. Reed Lance and Lynn's text, this is right up your alley because you said something like this before. Dave, Lance, you are so right. Those missing lids are consorting with the single socks somewhere in Oshkosh by gosh. This is the same deal. By the way, of course, as always, there's either a Larry David or a Seinfeld episode. In season six, Kramer gives him leftover takeout food to some homeless guy. Here's what happens when he tries to get the Tupperware back. Here it is. Hey, man. Enjoy the food? Yes, I did. Listen, I'll take that Tupperware now. I don't think so. You gave it to me. No, no, no. Look, I didn't say you could keep it. See, I don't give away Tupperware. You should have said something. Well, I didn't think I had to. Look, with a piece of Tupperware, you're just as soon. Well, there you go on the-- are you your Pyrex person, I hope? Yeah, and I just bought-- they have-- because I've got fed up with all my mismatch cups and fun. Oh, it's sad that story. Look at the top, look at the top, look at the top, look at the top. Even if glass ones, I might have the same problem with the glass ones. But they had the sale on Amazon where they could get like 15-- Lids? No, the whole thing. Oh. The bottoms and the tops. Oh. And I felt-- it was like a re-condo experience where I threw out all the lids. Oh, how'd that feel? I did that. It felt great. But it was bad, though, because it was plastic. When you buy a whole set, though-- this is not really our topic, but since you brought it up, if they say it's an eight-piece set, normal people think it's eight containers. It is not eight containers. It is four containers and four lids. Don't you feel like you're-- and also, why don't they give you an extra lid or two? Why not four containers with six lids? You know what you need? You need the lids that kind of somehow attach, and they never come up with them. They have those, you know? I've never seen them. You know what they're called? Attachable lids. They do not-- that's the technical name. So Tupperware declaring bankruptcy, Go Pyrex is what we have to say. No, I don't think so. Anyway, we're done with this. And after the counterpart news, we're going to be joined by Frontline's Michael Kirk. Kirk, he's back with the latest iteration of his series called The Choice. It's this quadrennial series profile in the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. He had to put this one quickly together, of course, because Joe Biden dropped out, but he's going to tell us what he did with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. He's next. Michael Kirk, Frontline, you're listening to Boston Public Radio 897, GBH. I'm Jim Brady, head on Hour 3 of Boston Public Radio. Frontline launches their latest The Choice film next week, made every election cycle offering viewers an in-depth comparison of the candidates for president. And trust me, there is an "un" you do not know. We talked with filmmaker Michael Kirk about this year's production, delving into, of course, Trump and Harris' history. I'm Marjorie Egan, then a radio segue for the ages, Jim, is M-I-D-A whole day, a young couple of purchases together on a plane and refuse to give them up when an elderly couple asks to switch. You all know the airlines, really the A-hole here for Nickel and Donning, everybody, but who's the bigger jerk, the people who refuse to move or the elderly people who didn't buy the seats they wanted in advance? All that on Hour 3 of Boston Public Radio 897, GBH. Here's Jim Brady, I am Marjorie Egan, welcome to Hour 3 of Boston Public Radio 897, GBH. You're going to be back at the Boston Public Library tomorrow. If you can stop on by, we would love to see you. No tickets, no RSVPs, you're going to show up or stay for as little or as long as you like. Hello again, Jim. Hey there, Marjorie. So we're joined now by veteran frontline filmmaker Michael Kirk, behind this year's production of The Choice, a two-hour documentary that delves into the histories deeply of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The film starts out with their childhoods. Here's Trump's niece, Mary, and his art of the deal goes for her, Tony Schwartz, describing Trump's ruthless family life with Grandfather Fred, or Mary's grandfather, but his father Fred at the helm. Life is a zero-sum game. There's one winner, everybody else is a loser, if you're not winning, you're a loser. Unfortunately, he didn't just have that philosophy in the context of his business, he ran his family that way. The way the game got played in his household was, if you did not win, you lost. And losing was, you got crushed, losing was, you didn't matter, losing was, you were nothing. And Harris is Howard University classmate Jill Lewis, I hope I've pronounced their last name right in her closest childhood friend, Stacey Johnson Batiste, describing the challenges Kamala face, Kamala Harris face, as a biracial girl in America. She talked about having suffered racial slurs for both of her cultures. She had received racial slurs for being a black person and racial slurs for being someone of South Asian descent. It was very important for Kamala to make sure the girls grew up and knew about their black heritage and because they would be viewed as black girls. Kamala was the mother, of course. I hate the expression something is must see television, this is must see television. The choice airs Tuesday, September 24th at 9 on GBH2, PBS.org, Frontline and the Frontline YouTube channel. Michael, yet again, congratulations on a terrific piece of work. Oh, it's so great to see you two again. It's always the sign that I've crossed the finish line. And we're glad you did. And we're going to finish line. Ben, this year, we'll talk about that in a couple of seconds. But for people who don't know, tell us what you've been doing with the choice. I think since '88, is that when you said you started? '87, yes. I didn't make the first couple, I was still in grade school at the time. But I've made, this is the sixth one. And the theory of it is not to deal with policy in a kind of straightforward way or more issues, although they certainly work their way in. But to start with biography and measure the two candidates by the memories and observations of close friends, family and biographers, and in some cases, journalists who've followed them closely. The idea be, and then it's a weave. So you've got six minutes of Trump, six minutes of Harris as you go through. Just as you guys have done here, the idea of concentrating on his father at the beginning and her mother at the beginning, could there be two more different perspectives from the two parents than those two? We're going to delve into what you discovered and shared with us in a second. But this question is being asked of you not as a citizen of the United States, but as a filmmaker. You're in the middle of doing the choice for 2024. You wake up or maybe you're awake already and find out that this guy you've been profiling, Joe Biden is not running for president. And you're also not sure right away who the nominee is even going to be. What was it like for a filmmaker, Michael Kirk? We had on July 8th, I think it was July 8th, we had a four hour rough cut we showed of the Biden and Trump story. This is going to be ultimately a two hour film, but we had really, and it was a completely watchable thing. It's like, you know, you could sit and watch it, oh my God, this is amazing. I didn't know how we were going to cut it down. Well, Joe Biden helped us out there. He dropped out and the Biden stuff just evaporated proof. The good news is Rainey Aronson, the executive producer of Frontline, had been insisting on a one hour film that we also make for October about the vice presidents. So we had been researching at least, we didn't know who the Republican vice president was going to be, but we had been researching Kamala Harris under the assumption that Biden would keep her. And we immediately, Dovin usually takes four months to do each character and edit them. We shot in two, we edited, we researched for two weeks, edited, shot for two weeks at 27 interviews and edited in five weeks. So somehow we got it together and sometimes when there's a fire in the house, you discover what's really worth saving of the valuables and there are a lot of valuables in this film that we managed to save, I think. But it was the challenge of my career, a head spinning time because we figured we had all this Biden stuff and why waste it. So I talked to Rainey and she agreed that we put a two hour Biden piece up, all Biden's decision, which aired within nine days of his decision. So we were up plenty of late nights to get that together and then we rolled over into telling the Harris story and the Trump story, not knowing at all the details of the Harris story. There were no documentaries have ever been really made, there was a CNN thing that Abby Phillips made, there was no real definitive biographies made, there was very little archival footage that we'd ever seen and could find, but the team jumped in in a way we went. Well before we get to Kamala Harris, let's start with a baby, or not baby Don, but you start with baby Don moving up to adult Don. I love the details about how we used to throw birthday cakes at people and knock the blocks over if somebody was playing with some blocks. But you have a piece about talking about Roy Cohn, who was so influential in his life, that would be Trump's life, Ken Oleda, the New York Daily News is talking about the alignment of Donald Trump and attorney Cohn while the Trump family business was facing this federal discrimination lawsuit, here's the sound. When they met Roy said to him, "You might be guilty, it doesn't matter. Go after the Justice Department, don't ever admit guilt. Fight it, you'll kill them, just deny everything and fight." And Trump was totally taken by that, he hired Roy Cohn as his lawyer. And boy, talk about something that has characterized his life. Tell us a little bit more about their relationship. It was, he was an erzatz father to Trump, you know Trump's father had sort of put him on the back burner even though they were, he'd given him a lot of money, he wasn't acting like a father really. So Cohn delivered that, he was a friend, he was a constant companion and he was the creator of the Trump playbook, the thing we see every time Trump steps up, he saw it in the debate, push back, accuse the other person, never admit you're wrong, shake your fist at the establishment. It's a relatively ideology free, a set of arguments that Cohn gave him, it was just a way of operating that essentially said, do the most outrageous things there are, you never lose, you will never lose. Trump had dovetailed with his father's imperative that we are only winners in the Trump family. And it really was everything Donald Trump needed to go forward through the business world where he had plenty of mistakes and was a big loser many times, lots of casinos in Atlantic City and other places but never, ever, ever has admitted the failing or the mistakes or that he ever lost and that's all from Cohn. And we should say this first experience, this first litigation where they did never admit loss despite what happened was a lawsuit filed against Trump and the business for racial discrimination in housing against black people in particular denying them or discriminate against them and housing choices and obviously people know Roy Cohn from the House on American Activities Committee and Joe McCarthy's as a hell of a legend. Ursat's father is Roy Cohn. Can you talk a little bit about real father and son in the case of Donald and Fred Trump? When Donald was a boy, he had an older brother who really had the birthright of the father's birthright. He was his namesake, Fred Trump Jr. and his dad thought Freddie would be, they called him Freddie, Freddie would be the winner in the family and Donald was just sort of pushed off to the side where he was, eventually he acted up so much he was sent to military school. While Freddie moved along with his father in business but as Freddie's daughter, Donald's niece, tells us in the film, he was too nice a guy. He had friends. He had businesses. He had activities outside the family and the father just detested that and Freddie didn't really have the stomach for things like the federal litigation against the company. That wasn't Freddie's style. He was a go along and get along kind of a guy. Donald senses this while he's away at military school, rising as a cadet at the academy. And basically as one person in the film tells us, he's like a hot wind breathing behind his brother, getting closer and closer to his father who eventually throws the power, the love, the attention to Donald and Freddie is sent off to the side. He becomes an alcoholic, an airline pilot. They mock him for that, Donald and his father, they say, "All you are is a glorified bus driver," and Freddie dies of a heart attack at 42. Yeah. You know what I thought was incredible though. I think most people would think that if their son or daughter became an airline pilot, we're talking about great big airplanes flying across the country. They would view that as quite successful, but not in this family. No. It's -- Fred -- Fred's senior was all about business all the time. He'd take the kids with them on the weekend and they'd pick up nails at building sites to save some money. He was just a guy who said, "Work, work, work" all the time, and that kind of worked. And a very, very successful builder of apartments in Brooklyn, thousands of them as a matter of fact. And Freddie was not a killer, was what he was not, and he had to be a killer in this family. And then you have the contrast of an incredibly strong mother that brought up Kamala Harris, who came to the United States as an immigrant at 19 years old, I believe you reported all alone. Alone, she was born in a brahmin cast in India. The father was a diplomat. She wanted out of India. She didn't want the caste system. She was very bright, came to America, Ph.D., a work as a cancer researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, and really, incredibly, for the late '60s, strong woman, and strong independent woman, Mary's a black man from Jamaica, Donald, and they have two daughters, Kamala and Maya, and Shyamala, and then they get divorced and the father becomes less and less connected, Shyamala was determined to raise her daughter, Kamala, who she saw as black in America, living in Berkeley in the heart of the Panthers and all of that anti-war movement and everything else, the Martin Luther King movement. She said, "I'm going to raise my daughter because of her skin color as black and went about the business as an Indian woman of raising her daughter as a young black American woman and pushing her for the rest of her life for justice," which is what she firmly believed in. You know, I'm going to say something. Borderline ridiculous. It'll be nice to me because we're friends, Michael, but every time I watch these films of years, every four years, I am stunned by how much people of great power are formed when they're little kids. I mean, if you didn't know what happened to Donald Trump, maybe you wouldn't know in his great, uh, a gory detail, you watch just the part of your film, and by the way, for people to think they know everything about Donald Trump, you don't until you watch this film and surely not about Kamala Harris, you see him as a little boy, you see his tactics from the birthday cake throwing to, you got to be a killer to essentially stabbing his, his brother in the back, and you could see what he becomes, and you see this little justice fighter with a justice-fighting mother as a little girl in Berkeley or whatever, and you can really see the formed human as an adult. It's really rather incredible, do you think? I have a piece of paper hanging here next to my, a monitor where I, where we had it. I had it remotely, and here's what it says, a president can bring to the job no more than the lessons of their own life. And I, I try to really, I don't know who wrote it, I stole it obviously, I didn't, I didn't think of that, but I forgot to write down who said it, so if somebody out there is, is listening in it, and they said it, I'd love to know so that I can quote them, but a president can bring to the job no more than the lessons of their own life. That's, the corollary is something like, show me the person at seven, and I'll show you these dollars. Well, you know, speaking of showing someone at seven, I think it was after that, correct if I'm wrong, that Kamala Harris, her mother got a job in Canada. And they go to a very, basically lily white place, having left California behind, a freezing cold place too. So tell us about that. She's, she's, her mother's one tough person, and she gets kind of passed over. She's the only woman in the group at Berkeley, she's, she gets passed over, she fights to stay there, finally realizes it's not going to work out for her. And, and as the story goes, takes a very good job at McGill University in Quebec, and, and moves 12 year old Kamala away from Berkeley. Can you imagine to mostly white French speaking school, and, and, and drops it in there. And you talk about training for being a duck out of water. It's just your, you know, you're taken from one place to another, and you have this additional, I guess, burden from some people's perspective of being black and, and, and Southeast Asian. So you're biracial, and you don't speak the language. Good luck to you. You know, I was trying, I don't know if they can be perfectly equated. I'm curious to know what you think. If there was one moment in the film where you depict as formative of an experience in the future life after childhood for Kamala Harris, as compared to the relationship and teachings of Roy Cohn, it's this thing that I, I really didn't know about about the killing of this cop. Yeah. Espinosa. Here is journalist Joe Garafolo describing her early career moment for Harris when she was the DA in San Francisco. She goes against the establishment and refuses to seek the death penalty. She had pledged as a candidate not to support the death penalty for this guy, David Hill, who murdered a police officer, and then Senator Diane Feinstein, who at the time was the most powerful political figure in California, publicly chastises Harris at the funeral. Here it is. Just months into her new job. If you are a young person new into your job and someone who is at the top of their game comes in and basically calls you out in public, in front of all the people you have to work with police officers, you can't imagine how gut wrenching that would be. So Harris does not relent on the death penalty thing, but she does appear to change a bit in terms of risk and confidence. Well, explain how she grows out of that experience there, Michael Kirk. I think of this, Jim and Marjorie as the core struggle for Kamala Harris as I read everything. The first place her mother was appalled that she wanted to be a prosecutor. She wanted her to be shaking her fist from the outside, not going inside the system and certainly not going in as a prosecutor. That was a dirty word in the '80s in Alameda County and in San Francisco, but she does. And then she runs for office and then she gets the office. And now she's deeply inside as a prosecutor and playing the inside game and this happens to her. And what happens? She backs away from controversy. She learns, the lesson she learns is if I'm going to play the inside game, I'm going to do what it takes to get things moving in all the little ways you try to do things inside a structure. I'm not going to make grand pronouncements anymore. Yes, I stood up for my campaign promise that I wouldn't seek a death penalty, but I will try never to do that again. And that has actually turned out to be more or less true. She takes big stance, especially on things she believes in, but not controversial stance. She stays back. She thinks it through one of the unknowns about her as president will be, how will she react to what is inevitably a job where you're a hockey goalie that's coming every day? And you got to make big, big, big decisions on controversial things and statements. She, you know, she tucked it in. She held it closely and her friends, many of her friends, all of them that we talked to that were black women said, this is what a black woman has to do inside. She's not going to take controversial stance. A black woman to rise up in the '80s and '90s in America, it was hard enough for women, in general, a black woman rising up had to learn how to handle this kind of thing, these inside battles and that Connolly Harris, the way they talk about it, did what she had to do. But when you look at her experience, I mean, it's pretty long, right? She's a lawyer, she's an attorney general, she's a United States senator, she's a vice president, D.A., absolutely, and, you know, and she did, as you pointed out earlier, go to Howard University of Black College in Washington, which of course put her right at the seat of power, and I'm sure that was a big influence with her too, but she's certainly experienced and she certainly has been, more than I knew, credited throughout her career for her star power, I mean, we remember, I remember her best from the 2020 election when I thought, and I think she was that great, and then we've seen the star power emerging only more recently after she came out of the, to run for president and, of course, abortion, where she was very passionate about. Yeah, it's an astonishing thing about her, the way that she gets, there's something about her. This is, I've been, as you guys have, doing politics all my adult life, and you know when you're in the presence of star power, political star power, you just know it, you know who has it, and you know who doesn't have it. Ah, Mitt Romney, for all the things he was good at, was not, did not exactly exude star power. No. Barack Obama, star power. You know, Al Gore didn't exude star power. His father blew a room away every time he walked in the room, it's, and, and for whatever reason, this woman had it, and, and it began to just show up on a national scale as she became a district attorney. Oprah does a, we show a little bit of it, Oprah does a feature on, Oprah does a feature on her. She's a district attorney in San Francisco, but she's, she's got it, whatever it is. It may be a blessing or it may be a curse. We all know plenty of people who had facile star power, who didn't pan out, but she, she seemed to have it, and it, it moved her along much faster. She was only a senator for a year and a half when she runs for president. When she runs for president, you know, she'd been an attorney general in California before that in a district attorney, but, but it's the, it's the way Obama did it right, and right away, don't get, don't let your record catch up with you, your votes in the Senate, you know, go right away. That's what Tom Dachell told Obama within the first months of his senatorial, his time in the Senate. So she took, she took the chance and thought she was cooked forever because of the failure of that campaign. They thought the window would never open again because of Hillary, because of Obama, then Hillary, it was going to be a long time before Kamala Harris could ever, could ever run if she wanted to. So Michael Kug, I always feel bad when you're on, you've done so much for us, and we do nothing for you. We're about to do something for you. We are. A very good friend of Margry's and mine just texted me and said, the source of that quote is Mark Twain. Now, we hope it is true. We haven't independently verified it. But if it is true, you are welcome. That's all we got. Hey, Michael, as always, this thing. Somebody else said it was Red Smith. Well, whatever. It's one of those two. We learned a huge amount, and as I said at the top, nobody who cares about democracy -- small D -- should miss this quadrennial version of your terrific "The Choice" in front line. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Thanks to you, too. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. We've been speaking with filmmaker Michael Kirk, the latest iteration of his series, The Choice airs Tuesday, September 24th, and 9 o'clock on GPH2, as well as at PBS.org/Frontline, and the Frontline YouTube channel. You don't want to miss it. There's a great insight into the biographies of these two people who want to be the president of the United States. By the way, Tuesday on the show at the Boston Public Library, we're going to be joined by Camio George from American Experience and Rania Aronson Roth from Frontline ahead of two October programs. They're putting out focused on vice presidents. I'm not really excited about that, actually. Yeah. Because we don't know that much about Tim Walsh, too. We do not. That's true. Or some people don't know that much about J.D. Some people think we know too much about J.D. and that's the whole other thing. Anyway, it is Thursday, time for our weekly call and segment, M-I-V-A Hall. This week, a couple denies their cushy I-L-C to a disabled elderly couple who's in the wrong year. We'll get your thoughts after a quick break, listening to Boston Public Radio, 89-7 GV-H. Welcome back to Boston Public Radio, Jim Brody at Marjorie, and we're live at the Library tomorrow. I'm laughing because are we the masters of the segue, or are we not? Yeah. We go from who should be the next leader in the free world to who is the a-hole? Yeah. That's essentially who we are. For right, each end. For right. It is. It's time for another round of M-I-V-A Hall. Marjorie's favorite segment of the week. Every week, we pull one alleged, they say they're real life ethical conflicts from Reddit. We present them to you to debate via phone or text. This week's submission comes courtesy of a young husband and wife who declined to switch plane seats with an elderly disabled couple. This isn't Southwest, the couple where you don't select seats. Or maybe you do now, but you didn't used to. This couple selected their seats in advance, the young couple, which means they more than likely had to pay something extra to get the seats they wanted. They chose an aisle seat intentionally because the wife feels claustrophobic on planes. Okay. Keep that in mind. But by the time they boarded, there was another couple sitting in one of their seats. When they start explaining the situation to the elderly couple in their seats, a flight attendant pops in to explain that the couple is one of the members of the couple's disabled. If they'd be okay with switching, the younger couple, I think respectfully, but is defiant and they get the older couple to move. So the question is quite simple. Who is the a-hole? The younger couple who refused to move or the older couple, a half of which was a disabled person who insisted that they do move, 877-301-8970, is their argument to me for the young couple insisting that they keep the seats that they probably paid for in shows? Were they a couple of a-holes because they refused a budge for the elderly couple on some four hours flight? Where do you land? 877-301-8970 and wonderfully and conveniently, we have different opinions about who is the ale. Who is it? Okay. The ones you start, Jen. You start. Well, I'll tell you what the deal is. One, getting the appropriate seat on an airplane is no mean task. Right. Takes a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work on the computer, generally costs money, almost always cost money right now, and the young couple did it. So while I feel great sympathy for the elderly couple, particularly the disabled half of the elderly couple, all they had to do was go online, or if they don't do online, have their kid go online, pick the seats they wanted as the younger couple did, pay for them. And so while I don't mean, I want to be clear here, I'm not trashing the elderly couple, but I am saying they are the a-holes. To expect that the younger couple, that's not mean, is it? To expect that the younger couple. A little, a little disabled lady, she's an a-hole. Well, I mean, so what are the seats in advance? I mean, it's hard to get the right seats. You couldn't figure out how to do it. I bet because every, they couldn't figure out how to get the seats on. Go to the senior center. Do something like that, talk, call your, they have computers at the senior center. Okay. Whatever it is. Again, I feel bad for them, but they had an opportunity to reserve the seats they wanted, and that's the end of it. So obviously based on what you just said to me, you think the young couple should have given up the seats. They paid huge amounts of money for, and planned for in advance. Well, the young couple- Plus she's claustrophobic. She's claustrophobic, and she needs to take medication before getting on the plane. Exactly. I get that, that was terrible. Terrible. But I just can't imagine how if you saw some poor little disabled couple coming down the aisle, and they're elderly, and one of them is really in tough shape, and the stewardess, or the flight attendant, I should say, even comes over and says, you know, can you help out here, because these people are kind of in tough shape, saying no, I'm sorry, I'm not moving. Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly what they did. It's exactly what you're right there. I'm on the side of the elderly disabled couple, and not the, you know, the young couple are a-holes, even though she's claustrophobic. So let her be totally freaked out on the plane, even though they plan for her claustrophobia. It's too bad. It's too bad. I feel bad that she's claustrophobic, but she's, hopefully her medication will take care of her. But again, if you see some 85-year-old, you know, struggling down the aisle, I-I-I-I. Two words, as I said to you, "senior senator," by the Joan Connecticut text and says, "Neither are a-holes, since making requests to switch seats is okay," as is, this has really grown up position, as is turning the crest, or requests down. But the guy, Jim, I think, who yelled at a kid reclining their seat, now that's an A-hole. Yeah, why don't you talk about that? I'm not going to tell a story again. Like an eight-year-old kid that you terrorized. Eight-year-old kid who was 311, who had his seat fully, how tall am I? Two foot five. Six foot five. How tall was a little kid on the plane? Three foot two. Three eleven. And the kid had a full recline, and it was a little brat. And by the way, Aiden has another interesting thought before we get to the close. What's that? I said it was a bad transition. Who should be the next leader of the free world, and who's the bigger A-hole? They in 2024 are not dissimilar questions, but you agree? That is an excellent point, Aiden. A773018970. Who is the A-hole, the younger couple, which will not move, or who will not move, or the older couple, half of whom are disabled, half of the younger couple, have claustrophobia, who asked the younger couple to move. Go ahead, Margaret. Okay. We have people saying claustrophobia is a disability, too. And then older couple... Good point. ...are the A-holes. I always book the aisle seat when I am elderly, and I'm pretty close. I will continue to book the aisle, and another texture says, sit down, hold your hats, Jim is correct. Wow. There you go. There you go. Matt and a car are your first on Boston. Well, your first call, or anyway. Welcome to the show. Hi. Hello, and how are you both? I wasn't going to call this older couple and A-holes at first until I heard the detail that they were already sitting in the seats when the other couple arrived. That's right. Exactly. It's not like they had come up and made this request, and the fact that... So I would, again, I would side with the younger couple and ask them to move. But even though I know that I'm not in the wrong here, I'd spend the entire flight feeling like the A-hole, and probably some time afterward, because I would have no choice but to feel just a little bit guilty, and maybe feel bad for them that they didn't purchase those seats in advance. But I mean, you can't just go and sit inside. It's not like they clearly didn't make it either. It's all we got the wrong seat. We're sorry, but they just took it upon themselves to take these seats, and assume that whoever had purchased them prior to that, how did they know that the people who purchased them and were going to come up weren't also an olderly couple. Matt, you're a genius. This is like the most well-thought-out call. That was brilliant reasoning, Matt. Thank you. They're both A-holes. Who is the A-hole? I don't know who's the A-hole. No, he says he basically made the argument for both sides, which I think is a grown-up thing to do. Matt, thank you for the call. Just a little while ago, we were talking about the demise of Tupperware. It's going bankrupt. Yeah, that was an hour ago. I don't know if we can find any lids. Yeah, yeah. Well, Brian from Paxman had a great solution. Whenever I want someone to move seats on the plane, I just offer them a few Tupperware covers. That would get Marjorie to move. Yeah. He also says the A-hole is a flight attendant and the airline. He or she could have put either party in better seats, but I think they couldn't really though. No, he can't. They fought the seats in advance. Okay. Sound Marjorie. Yeah. In a similar situation before we go back to the Coles. The difference here, let's be clear. These are assigned seats. Assigned seats. In this era, you have to pay for, which is outrageous, but you do. You ever have an experience? I think you might have had one on a subway, for example, where a particular person was in need of a seat and didn't get one. Do you know any of those? Oh, oh, oh. Well, when I used to take the TL, it's time to work and I was really, really pregnant. Really pregnant. I was always surprised that more people than women would usually stand up for you when your belly is just enormous, your palate is a liver, but oftentimes young men would not. So I used to just go up and turn the enormous belly about four or five inches. How'd that go? They would just sit there and pretend they didn't notice my big enormous belly. So a lot of people are not as ready to give up their seat as you would think. By the way, would you give up your seat if you were with a claustrophobic partner? You're at a claustrophobic, claustrophobia on a plane is about as bad as it can get. It's bad. You have a claustrophobic partner, you plan for the seats, you spent the money. Would you give the seat up or would you just say respectfully, I'm sorry, go find somebody else who doesn't have a claustrophobic partner and take their damn seat? I think I might at the least say to the flight attendant, you know, my partner is really in bad shape. Exactly. I find somebody else. But if you can't find anybody else, I'd give them my seat because you're talking about some little old lady who's got some terrible disability. We don't know what this is. Maybe she's on crutches, maybe they had to carry her down the aisle, maybe she wanted to be close to the bathroom. It's hard when somebody is in bad shape to say, drop dead. I think we would all agree if they had simply taken a trip to the senior center, they could have done that. And they would have had help getting the tickets to the senior center. Well, a lot of people said that's why you have children, so they can figure out how to pick your flag. Exactly. Or go to the senior center. Wendy and Rhode Island, you're next on Boston Public Radio. We're talking about who is the A-hole. Oh, MJ. Okay. Hi. Don't give up your seat. It's Wendy. I'm not the second time caller, actually, but it's the same or this exact thing happened to me, a young woman came on the plane with a little one, and they were looking to two seats together. There was a seat next to me. I gave up my seat so that the mom could sit there. And they said, "Should I give the airline, because when we tell you, I'd never fly there again." But anyway, I said, "I'll move." They moved me to each, each to peepee, and the last seat in the back by the bathroom. Oh, the seats don't even move for six hours. I had to sit there. And I said to the flight attendant, when she put me back, I said, "I can't stay here for six hours." She said, "It's impossible. I have a backache. I was flying from California." So meanwhile, they wound up, long story short, but you would have thought I was a hijacker. People are looking around me, like, "Why is she causing the servants?" I said, "I can't see this if you're sorry. I just can't. I gave up my seat. I wanted to go back or closer or somewhere." Anyway, long story short, but they brought in, it was like, "We're going to have to call the air marshal if you can't settle down." Oh, I've had that experience. Oh, I get there. It was terrible. It was just, and I wound up feeling like such a hero was trying to be nice, giving my seat up to this younger woman with her, with her baby, and then they treated me like crap as all that. No, good deed goes unpunished. Did they at least offer you a freak bag of pretzels? Many pretzels? They offered you nothing, and literally, when I was standing around, they would give me dirty lips. They would give me dirty lips like I had, because nobody up in the back knew what happened. They just knew the hear comes this lady, and all of a sudden, she's calling everybody over to say, "I can't sit here." You know, and that's a painful story. Wendy, we're glad to share. And by the way, I don't know if you know this. When you are seated next to the toilet in the back, do you know what else, besides being near the toilet, is horrible? Your seat does not recline. Well, that's what the call... Oh, we said that. I didn't hear that part. I'm sorry. Oh, that part. Okay, fine. Now, if someone is asking, Paul, from Hingham, was asking an existential question here, Marjorie, would it make a difference that the disabled old lady had a MAGA hat on? I don't know, Paul. Well, I do know, Paul. Mine made a difference. I do know with the answer that question. I would have had to get a pledge that they would not devote for that person in November before I give him the seat. Think he'd give up his seat? The Donald? Yeah. I don't... He doesn't even... I don't think he's... You know, I saw it last night, by the way, but you've seen it thousands of... Was it at the NATO meeting where he pushed by the other world leader, like Elbow's the guy out of the way? To get to the front. Yeah, you've got to watch the choice. It's really... And it talks about how much he loved the military academy, how he was a real... It was a rising star. A rising star there. Yep, that's right. Zack and Providence, welcome to the show. Hi. Good afternoon, guys. How are you doing? First of all, the image of a little old lady in a MAGA hat is one that I can't really shake. Anyway, there are a lot. There are a lot of them. Yeah. Two kind of phrases come to mind. One is what age comes with them, and the second is your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part, which is what my mom said to me all the time growing up. Oh! Say that again. I want to write that down. Say that, Zack, please. Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part. I had that said to me many... Oh, I love that. ...Sunday nights when I had a project do the next Monday morning and seventh or eighth grade or whatever it was, but you know, these people, they should know better. That's all there is to it. Zack, that was beautiful and your mother sounds like she was pretty beautiful. That is perfect. Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency. God. For me, what do you say to that, Marjorie? I said, I wish I... That's exactly my point. I wish I'd heard that earlier in life. It might have helped me. It helped me out a lot. Now, here's Sam from Behaven. The fact that we were discussing this says everything about today's society, what the hell ever happened to respect the elderly, particularly if they are disabled? That's Sam from Behaven. And then I have somebody else who says, "I have claustrophobia and cannot take a window seat." Exactly. So the flight attendant needs to find one of the many other aisle seats that does not involve anyone with disabilities. That's, by the way, that is really what should have been the outcome here. If the couple, the elderly couple, needed an aisle seat or whatever, you go take it from somebody where one of the partners does not have a whatever claustrophobia is a thing. My Catholic guilt would make me give up my seat. Obviously, I don't think the airline though should have put the people in the wrong seat to begin with and then ask the young couple if that was okay. They should have let them take the seats they bought and then asked if they were willing to get them off. Oh. Yeah. Neil and Framingham, welcome to the show. Hi. Hi, Jim and Marjorie. How are you guys? Excellent. Excellent, Neil. Thanks for calling. What's up? I love you both and Marjorie. I'm glad you're feeling better. Thank you. Oh, nice shoes. Yeah. So I want to put a little twist, a little turn on this. And I want to say, maybe the elderly couple isn't disabled. They've been around a long time, they're very smart, and maybe they could be very cunning. And this was their way of getting a seat at a lesser cost. You're incredible. You are really. So do you know anybody's ever done that kind of cunning, sly thing there, Neil? I've not in that situation, but I do know that when I was growing up, my mother would always say I was eight years old until I was about 14 to get the children's pride. Well, obviously, I am familiar with cunning. Another incredibly savvy mother to in a row. Neil, thanks for your call. We appreciate it. I've found that most people on airplanes are A-holes who seem to think it's the airplane. That's Paul from Wister. Now, you know, neither of us, I have to admit, are experts in this. We agree. We're not. We travel, but we don't travel a lot. We've decided, because we want to bring the best to you, that we would find an alleged travel expert. So Marjorie suggested the guy, he's laughing there right now. This would be the travel writer, I believe he is, for the Boston Globe. He is currently a New York working in a story about the 10 most expensive hotel rooms in New York City. He has to stay in all of them. Christopher, you're welcome to the show. Don't hang up. We're going to get back to you. Hi, Christopher. How are you? Well, how are you, Jim? Great. Do you know what the Marjorie's fine to? I know what the M.I.B.A. whole conundrum is today. Do you know what the theme is? I do, yes. Okay. So, can you tell us your travel writer? Correct. Your travel, right? Alleged travel. Okay. Alleged travel, right? Yes. So, who is the A-hole here, Christopher Mueller? I'm going to go ahead and say it's the elderly couple. Oh, yes. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Wow. Why is that, please? Well, you know, I've encountered this a few times myself. Yeah. I'm surprised to hear this. So, I, of course, side with those who have been asked to change seats. And in this particular case, I'm usually fine changing seats. If it's a circumstance of it won't make a difference to my experience. Oh. You know, for instance, if I'm in a window or an aisle or in an extra spacey or in business class and someone wants to exchange their seat, change their seat for a lesser seat, I don't care what the circumstance is, then I'll say no. If it doesn't impact my experience at all, then I'm fine with it. So, in this particular case, I would say because these folks had reserved these particular seats for a particular purpose, then they are allowed to keep those seats. And I also think it's really unprofessional for a slight attendant to roll her eyes or his eyes. It's like there's no, it's wrong on so many levels. So, Marjorie, it's interesting. You have the counter position. And while when I take the position that Christopher did, you're essentially almost yelling at me. And Christopher says it. You haven't said a peep. Well, why don't you respond to Christopher, you're the travel writer at the most alleged travel. I have a new perspective because he is the, he is the travel writer and I almost never fly because I need to be so nervous to fly, but it's the guilt thing, Christopher, for me. It's a guilt thing. You know, some disabled person comes up and says they can't. Do you experience guilt, Christopher? No. Do you experience guilt? I'm sorry. Could you define guilt for me? So, before you go, next time you're going to go right now, before you're on again, how many corn dogs did you have with the Big E? Tell the truth. Well, I was more of a baked potato. I did eat the entire butter sculpture, but please don't tell the folks at the Big E. That. A few turkey legs, just cream puffs with my nickname is cream puff. Of course. Listen to this, listen to this text, see what you think, travel right, Christopher Musa. This is from Ellen and Boston. The airline is the a-hole for the system they create and perpetuate that make most flying uncomfortable for most adults and offer more comfortable seats at a premium. If the airline wanted to make the older couple comfortable, they should have offered a free flight to the younger couple, but know that would never happen. What do you think of that? It's interesting. I mean, if they did, if any airline did that, they'd spore like huge, huge goodwill points. However, what would happen is we wouldn't have heard about that. We hear about like the bad stuff. Yeah. We never hear about like the acts of kindness on an airplane, and I witnessed them. They do happen. It's usually me being kind. Oh my God. No, you have to go back and stay in the most expensive hotel rooms in New York. We'll see you soon, but I have to say your reasoning was sparkling. So, wait a minute. So, Christopher Musa is writing about the 10 most expensive hotel rooms in New York. Yeah. I just said that. He's there. I just said that. I just said that. Well, how can you write about it, mother wise? That is actually a joke. I'm here for a like a trade conference, a travel conference, because JetBlue made their announcement this morning that they're opening lounges at JFK and Logan. So I needed to be here to talk to folks about that. So, if we knew you weren't staying in the 10 most expensive hotel rooms, we would not waste our time. So, Chris, from you either go back to wherever you are, the whatever. Where is he? JetBlue or something? JetBlue, that's right. It's a pleasure. We'll see you soon. Thank you, Christopher. And talk about your big E adventure. Thank you, Chris, from you. The pleasure was all mine. I'm sure it was. Thank you. And I would say that the lot of people are blaming the airline. Here's another one. The airline is the a-hole. They should not embarrass any customer. They should have put the elderly couple in their correct seats and then quietly inquired of other passengers if they would be willing to swap that way. Nobody is embarrassed. And there probably would be someone willing to swap says Sam. By the way, it's pretty clear. The overwhelming, if there's a majority, is a plurality. No, or they're blaming the airline for not and, you know, it's true, the rolling of the eyes that we know that the flight attendant rolled his or her eyes. That's what Story says. Well, that's a problem. Why are you trying to roll his or her eyes? Let's go to Arrak, who's allegedly in the tunnels under Boston. How are you, Arrak? Welcome to the show. Well, howdy. Jim and Marjorie. How are you guys doing? I hope you can hear me. All right. We hear you perfectly. Yes. Fantastic. I'm a truck driver. I'm driving northbound on 9/93. Excellent. So, yeah, you know what? It's definitely the stewardess. You've got to figure it. The old people didn't say, "Hey, give me these seats." The lady probably saw that they were having issues and said, "Ah, you know what? I'm just going to stick them here," and regardless of whether somebody, you know, put their name on those seats or not, and just assume that they give it to them. So, yeah. Yeah. Definitely the a-hole is a stewardess. You know, thank you for the question. I mean, many people think that she was, especially when she rolled her eyes when they wouldn't get out of the seats, that that was exactly what happened. The older couple was sitting in the seats when the younger couple came in, and then these younger couple forced the poor, disabled elderly woman who was like 85 years old. She might have been 92, actually. Yeah. Marjorie, make it everywhere. Every piece is made up because she's losing. By the way, when we started this, we almost didn't do it because Marjorie thought everybody was going to say the couple were the young couple were the a-hole. So, why bother? But you were proven wrong. Yeah. You know, here's another question that a lot of people are asking. Why don't they have a section for people who have some kind of disability? The T does. If you're disabled, you can sit right by the door, and the T should not have to have- Well, by the way, you can-and my assumption is when you go online, that's why you get a seat with a-oh, you mean have a special accommodation where you don't have to like fight for a seat online with- Well, if you have a legitimate disability that makes it harder for you to travel on an airplane, and it is like a cow car. Anyway, I don't know anybody can stand. My dream is never going to happen. My dream is to be able to take the fast train across country, the fast train to New York City, the fast train to wherever, instead of just go through all this hassle, and everybody fighting over the overhead bins, I mean, you're so stressed about the sound to get up in the airplane. I mean, you can't take it. Which of the high-speed train rails that are currently being built, do you think will be finished? Well, in the United States, America, the richest country on Earth, there are zero. Zero is the answer. Yeah. Other countries seem to have done it, but not- I was in France 35 years ago, and I told us, I was on trade-grown B-tests, very fast speed, or whatever the hell I mean. Very good, Jim. 35 years ago. 35 years ago. They had these bullet trains kind of thing. Yeah. Okay, fine. We're still fighting about North South Station, how to be connected. North South Rail, we call it. Well, whatever it is. Whatever it is. East West Rail, too. East West. Who's fighting about it? Are we fighting about it? They've been telling Fall River my hometown is going to be trained for about 50 years. Where's the train? That's really sad. They say it's coming. Kathleen. I'm suspicious. Yeah, wait, it's a station. It's on its way. I mean, welcome to the show, whatever it is, hi, Kathleen. Hi. Hi. My grandmother used to get on an airplane, sit down in first class without saying to the ticket. And we said, "You can't do that," and she said, "Would you tell me to get up?" So I think I have a grandmother who would have been the sheister who would have, yeah. That was a great way to end this, Kathleen. That was great. The sheister is. She says, "I love that style, too," like intentionally sit down, and who's going to ask her to move. Okay, we should ask Jack Bonk. He's the real guy. He's right here. Why don't you ask him? Okay, here's the issue. An elderly couple is sitting in the seats on an airplane, and one of them is disabled. They didn't pay for it, and the younger couple comes in, one of them has claustrophobia, and the students, or the flight attendant, ask if the younger couple would give up their seats for the older disabled couple, and the younger couple has dropped dead. They didn't say drop dead. They said, "No." What do you think? It was a hard one, because as you were just saying that, I was realizing, so we have a whole system for this now. Most airlines, you get to pick your seats, of course, however, they maybe aren't well versed in that, and didn't know that they could do that, which makes it complicated. And so they had horrible seats. So they had horrible seats. No, you shouldn't fly. If you had a fly. Go to the senior centrist, as do you know. I said that. You can't help you with a computer. I don't know how to fly, Jim. Well, I understand. But when you get... Now you don't do it in your arms, my mortgage's moving her arms. So what is your position again, or you've straddled it? Well, I think I just straddled it once I realized that there could be other circumstances, but yeah. That's right. By the way, I went to a play last night, and once again, who was sitting two rows in front of me, in front of me, greeting well-wishers by the dozens, purely to aggravate me, that be Jared. Was that what I was doing? Is that why I was doing it? Exactly. Jamie just said it as to change seats with him, which is very good. It's a brilliant thing, James. Okay. What's on that show here? We have the Habritian Baker, also known as the sexy Scottish Baker, as proclaimed by an American magazine, who has his Habritian Baker at home cookbook. He's going to be taking us all through Scotland. What's Habritian in the... This is where he's from in the Scottish islands. Oh, Scotland. Yeah. Okay. And so the book is gorgeous, and the food looks great. So what is Scottish baking? Is that like Irish soda bread? I think there are things of that nature, and he forages. So a lot of it is... For, by the way, I think there are things that nature meeting is no idea, and the show starts in two minutes. He's not true. Okay. What else? And then, do you know what today is? I do. No. What is it? What is it? Today is taught like a pirate day. Oh, it is? It is. Go ahead. Edgar B. Hartwerk... Edgar B. Hartwerk the third is going to be here to explain the whole history of this, and he talked to Dave Barry as an authority, too, about applying this as the case. By the way, you thought Dan Barry was Dave Barry yesterday, I meant to tell you. Oh, is that a mix of them up? Yeah. Same thing. It doesn't make any difference. Oh, well. Okay. We'll be listening. Oh, you have more? And the saxophonist James Carter. Oh, sorry. He's playing with them. Great. I can't wait to hear them. Jared, come first. I know. We can listen. Then we know what they asked tomorrow, so it's fine. You're not going to complain? I will, but when he leaves, I'll come on. Are you going to ask to trade guests right now? We will. There we go. Bye. Jared Bowen shows, starts right off the two o'clock news every day of the Culture Show, and tomorrow's going to be live at the library. You can keep up with this 24/7 way of our podcast here at Boston Public Radio, or check out our TikTok page, Boston Public Radio. That has the one we can play. We don't have enough TikToks. During tomorrow, I'll be live at the Boston Public Library. No tickets, RSVP is needed. Live music Friday with saxophone player James Carter, the Jared, has first. By the way, Zoe just posted, Margry says, "What's Scottish baking? Irish soda bread?" That's a break. I missed that. That's why I was sort of in the same vicinity. Go ahead. Okay. Callie Crossley, director. Gary Pirloff, excuse me, and Rebecca Gible, behind a new projection of 20 more winning Leopold's dot at the time team. So, it's spectacular. For the cover, I want to thank our crew, but we don't have time. I'm sorry. So, the Culture Show, as I said, right after Jared, I've read a two o'clock news. I'm Roger Egan. I'm Jim Bowen. I'm Jim Bowen. Quit while I'm ahead. See you later. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)