Donating is easy call 1877 k. P.b.s. Car on John p.b.s. . When you're reporting a tax. Cut on me to be obsessed with. They are creating victims over the world a new leak of offshore financial documents casts more scrutiny on the ultra wealthy and creates new challenges for journalists from w n y c in New York the media Garfield of course paradise papers reveal only a fraction of the world did it well in the wealthy intend to keep it that way there's a wealth management firm in the u.k. Whose motto could serve as the model for the entire industry I want to be invisible and a Syrian refugee finds himself in a Wild West theme park in Sweden where tourists relive the rough and tumble of the American frontier. With. I have my holster on my server there's more coming up after the. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Jenny Herb's the strongest earthquake in years has struck northern Iraq and parts of Iran Iranian officials say more than 60 people are dead at least 4 more are reported dead in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq N.P.R.'s Jayna Raf has more from interview according to the u.s. Geological Survey the center of the quake was near how lab in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq it measured 7.3 that's considered a strong earthquake people reported killed in the Kurdish town of Dar band account and in at least one Iranian village across the border in Erbil hospital authorities said dozens of people had been admitted for treatment buildings were shaking here a lot of people rushed out of their houses into the street the tremors were felt as far away as Baghdad attack Iran engineers were checking for damage to the Dar ban to come down and advised people living near the river to leave officials at the larger Mosul Dam said there are no immediate signs of damage there Jane around n.p.r. News. Republican lawmakers took to the airwaves to tout their plans for a major tax overhaul N.P.R.'s Collins wire reports their efforts are partly aimed at skeptics within their own party on a basic level Republicans agree the tax code needs fixing but the details are more complicated the House and the Senate have separate plans some conservatives worry about a ballooning deficit and already influential Congressman Kevin Brady has told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday the House will reject one key part of the Senate plan the elimination of state and local tax deductions are you saying that the House will not accept a total elimination of that just won't fly and if even if the Senate passes it that's what I'm saying still treasury secretary Stephen Newton told c.n.n. State of the Union he's optimistic the good news is both the House and the Senate and the administration have the same objectives and he claims they'll get this overhaul done by Christmas and why are n.p.r. News. In Sutherland Springs Texas hundreds of people gathered at the 1st Baptist Church for the 1st service since a gunman opened fire last weekend killing 26 The service was held in a tent on the property Senator John Cornyn was at the service he says he was moved to see Pastor Frank Pomeroy who lost his 14 year old daughter in the attack lead the service where they find the strength to carry on after such a terrible tragedy is truly remarkable but it's clear they are people of deep faith and that's what sustains them and gives them hope even during a dark times like the officials recta the temporary memorial inside the building where $26.00 empty chairs are displayed a cargo ship loaded with frozen treats and other supplies successfully launched from Virginia today on its way to the International Space Station The unmanned rocket rocket rather should reach the station by Tuesday carrying 7400 pounds of cargo including pizza you're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington. There's been much debate on whether a jumbo jet can be effective in firefighting when it comes to battling massive wildfires in the West Boise State Public Radio's McComb reports a dispute between the aircrafts operator and the u.s. Forest service centered on the jet's storage capacity despite devastating fires across the west this summer a huge 747 capable of carrying more than 1900000 gallons of water was off limits to most firefighters that's because Forest Service rules limit contracts for air tankers to planes with no more than 5000 gallons of capacity Jim Wheeler the c.e.o. Of the 740 seven's operator global super tanker Services says that approach fell flat but the arbiter he is yelling Accountability Office has changed our argument that it won't leave the low Plax will lower the poppy end of the airtime Wheeler is optimistic the Forest Service will soon be out with new guidelines according to the National Interagency Fire Center wildfire scorched about 14000 square miles this year for n.p.r. News I'm Matt Gilman Boise at the weekend box office Thor Ragnor rock held on to the 1st place for the 2nd week for an eon an estimated $56000000.00 in ticket sales John Airlines is flying 5 Boeing $78078.00 airplanes and 2 other aircraft for a deal worth an estimated $1100000000.00 The Chicago based manufacturer made the announcement at the opening of the Dubai Air Show The deal also includes a landing gear replacement deal and a separate agreement has Emirates Airlines by 40 dream liners from Boeing that would be for an estimated $15100000000.00 I'm joining Herbst n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the Arcus Foundation dedicated to the idea that people can live in harmony with one another and the natural world learn more about Arcus and its partners at Arcus Foundation dot org and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As a young comic book readers Stephanie Williams The x. Men. People of color because of the way they were now she co-hosts a podcast that features black female superheroes We'll have her story and also president visiting the Philippines take on that country's human rights that's on the next morning edition. 4 to 9 am weekdays on k. P.b.s. Where news matters. In New York this is on the media Brooke Gladstone is out this week. The week began with a dose of media who. Now a new series of investigations reveals the offshore financial dealings of some of the world's wealthiest people and biggest corporations the stories are tied to what's being called the Paradise papers no not the papers that was last year's massive leak that exposed by corporations and rich individuals through offshore accounts the Paradise papers are a much bigger trove of documents that revealed even more rich people of voiding even more taxes 9 trillion dollars in taxes it's estimated 0. One of many investigations getting a lot of attention the investments of Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross kept a stake in a shipping company called navigator holdings after he became secretary. Is the Russian energy company the bore whose owners include Vladimir Putin's son in law and Kremlin linked all of darks on the u.s. Sanctions list to be clear this is not an allegation of wrongdoing but proof that the super rich get to play by a different set of rules as President Trump chief economic advisor Gary Cohn put it this is the way the world works just not for you. Marina Walker is the deputy director for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists which has just published the paradox papers Marina Welcome to the show thank you for having me we often talk about journalism shining a light in dark places of criminality corruption and abuse the Paradise paper seems more like a case of shining a light in dark places of legality no immediate signs of criminal activity here right exactly a lot of these structures our league and that East the biggest scandal and the biggest revelation that in 2017 in fast portion of our economic life a kerosene secret stashed away in the Caribbean into Pacific Ocean not only skirting taxation but also regulation if it's all legal and above board why all the secrecy why doesn't Queen Elizabeth want to know that she's got part of her fortune stashed in the Caribbean perhaps one of the reasons why they stayed off we nearly 7 didn't want to do all these kind of transactions in return as opposed to a tax haven was because one of the investments they were using was in a company I Q So if preying on poor people oh it was a rent to own company at that charges poor people large monthly fees to rent furniture or a television set and they end up paying huge premiums over the actual value Yes exactly present Tony lending and usually would public figures doing in the secret world offshore tax havens it's completely at odds with their public image in the Riata world and these leak. Peels away that public image included in this recent you find members of the Trump administration including Gary Cohn the chief economic advisor to the president and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross squirreling money away off shore you have Kremlin money by way of billionaire Yuri Milner some of which was used to buy high stakes in Twitter and Facebook these are eye openers at this particular political moment in the United States what kind of follow up will there be for these nuggets of information what he's seen trysting is that when would have all Ross became commerce secretary he they invested off a lot of his companies and he was praised in his coffin Maisha hearing for doing so but he kept 9 companies and 4 of those 9 companies out there ones that connect him with a crime ring in that case so if you were a millionaire We knew that he had invested heavily in Facebook and Twitter what we didn't know on what these documents reveal is that for those investments he had significant backing from financial institutions and banks that are owned by the Russian government and that by widely Quincey there to be instruments off the Kremlin for their own a strategic purposes there is no evidence in these documents that the Kremlin was you seeing you were a millionaire for the strategic purposes but we have to look at the current political climate the context of what is going on Forgive me for paraphrasing but as I look at the stories that have emerged in of the responses from the principals named within them their reaction from the Wilbur Ross is and Gary Cohen's of the world is approximately Yeah so you've caught me observing the law. In the case of Gary Condit is interesting because he's so sharp connections have to deal with his past as an executive at Goldman Sachs and what he says he's tagged this is how the world works and my question to Heaney's if this is how the world the words in which the National Conference and wealthy individuals can go offshore and get their taxes cats to virtually 0 What money are you going to use in the new administration to pay for the infrastructure the hospitals this cause the roads and more that you have promised the American people all right so I'm going to assume that these records came into your hands because somebody in the Caribbean linked to them to you a gigantic data dump what is the process of looking at all of these corporate entities and the transactions between them and then actually seeing any of these pictures emerge with famous names and faces attached to them. When you spin a year long process we activated the same network that we had us in the Panama papers but we realized that we needed to expand it and we needed to have people in places sad we hadn't needed before like Derek you for example these leaks are Kalak when they 1st arrive the biggest challenge was to put it in a readable format you know platform where you can do searches like if you where searching in global So our partners anywhere in the world can be searching the documents at the same time for people and companies self interest to their countries we also want us reporters to be talking to one another so we provide a platform that looks a little bit like a social media wall and that's what all the activity and the sharing under frustration off the sorry chase and the reporting takes place I could not help but notice that one of your journalistic collaborators this time around was the New York Times which was conspicuously not in the Consortium for the Panama papers what changed I think they changed their New York Times came to us after that kind of our papers and they requested access and we gave it to them and they told us if anything else comes forward we would love to be included and we want to have this experience of having a lot of collaboration so we took them on their offer and we said we don't want your stars we want the best team players that you've got and they they leave it on that and you're conceding in their front pages of this week no I want to ask about how these stories have been spooled Well it seems as with the Panama papers the revelations are coming out a little bit at a time is that a marketing strategy to maintain interest while when you have 382 reporters from more than 1000 media in any stations working in silence for more than a year writing their stories reporting researching their. A lot of stories decided 13 and a half 1000000 records and we are probably only scratching the surface where you Arsenius that carefully planned rollout off stories sports figures and celebrities are in the data where not telling those stories 1st lets them 1st the stories of elected officials multination us and then we'll roll out on the rest of the stories I think the instincts of the public and even of newsrooms is to look for the juiciest to get bit the most infuriating corruption the most high profile misconduct and so far the paradox papers have not really yielded a whole lot of that I think if we are not infuriated when we see that a Kompany like Apple that had been cracked down on for its I view save Thanks I widens strategies goes on and ass x. Actually the same 2 or 3 years later maybe that's something that we have to think our society I we all k. With the wealthiest escaping or roles what have we now in hopes that people will make the connection between the stories they are reading about hypoxia and conflicts of interest and secrecy and their own lives and when they read those stories and they wonder who's the victim here but they can quickly realize that their victim is them Marina thank you very much thank you. Marina Walker is the deputy director for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists So after the Panama and Paradise papers opened our eyes to the lifestyles of the rich and famous we've still glimpsed only the tip of the builder bird so says Brook Carrington professor of economics sociology at Copenhagen Business School and author of capital without borders according to Harrington if we really want to understand the world of ultra high net worth we have to look past the wealthy to the network of wealth managers responsible for keeping capital intact Brook welcome to in the media thank you I'm very pleased to be here you have a kind of remains of the day approach to this or Upstairs Downstairs you look at the system of wealth and privilege through the prism of the support staff the occupation called Wealth Management What is wealth management a wealth manager is a professional usually from a background in the law or accounting who specializes in helping ultra wealthy people put assets offshore it started in the Middle Ages in England with the 1st trust funds and trustees that were created but it was only in like the last 25 years that a profession called Wealth Management has coalesced around service to the ultra rich to do the job well you have to be super confident but also extremely sympathetic it's a very unusual combination of skills like no one asked their surgeon to be a super sympathetic person although we ask of our surgeons is just be good at removing my brain tumor you don't have to hold my hand and talk to me about my family problems but the wealth manager has to do all those things and excel at them without rolling your eyes and acknowledge privilege or in some way letting on that you might not take them seriously this suggests. The kind of a literal subservience and the indignity that goes with it your research shows that indignity is indeed often a part of the package many of the people I spoke to complained bitterly about an attitude of like I have the money and you don't so you're my puppet one of the 1st stories ever heard was from a lady in Switzerland who said yeah I had a client call me saying I had to help her find her lost bracelet and I said Well do you know where you lost it and she said Well I'm outside a restaurant in London and this one was based in Switzerland the wealth manager so the client was asking her wealth manager to find a piece of jewelry that was lost in a different country the client couldn't even name the restaurant or the street that she was on so somehow the wealth manager triangulated on the the general location of the client sense some people out found the bracelet and build a client for it but it was that sort of hand-holding that was astounding what some of the people later viewed called Social Work for the rich I talked about remains of the day now I'm thinking of Smithers the majordomo of Mr Burns in The Simpsons so is it a world of Smithers in a way yeah it's a world of much more straight face and less overtly obsequious Smithers is and the notion is to look at the gross amount of assets and income and to shield them to the degree legally possible and sometimes extra legally possible from taxation and from just simply the view of the outside world that might also include debt avoidance or not wanting to pay divorcing spouses wanting to disinherit your children wanting to dodge trade restrictions there are all kinds of things that off sure. Can help you get away with and tax is just the tip of the iceberg is everybody in the business a crook I would say very few people in the business are crooks in the sense that it's extremely important to do this job well that you don't break the law because even if you're only charged with an offense it's a disaster for your career even if you when the game is over because you've lost your secrecy there's a wealth management firm in the u.k. Whose motto could serve as the model for the entire industry and it's I want to be invisible that's what they're selling to clients and that is what the wealth management industry itself tries to emulate and so far you know 18 months plus since the Panama papers broke I'm aware of only one instance in which anyone has even attempted to bring a prosecution and that's in India given that it was the largest data dump in the entire world and practically everyone was pawing through it looking for something to pin charges on I think that's pretty extraordinary one striking aspect of all of this culture is that laws apply generally to citizens. But if you were wealthy enough you can be from every place but no place at all at the same time you can sort of choose your location anywhere in the world to operate especially out of the reach of not only your own government but any government one of the people I interviewed in Switzerland said she found her clients actually kind of scary and dangerous because for them national governments are just playthings they buy and sell them at will Heaven help you if you're a refugee or an immigrant because all the doors are closed but if you're wealthy enough they roll out the red carpet for you companies and countries compete to get you new passports that they've actually managed to create a situation of representation without taxation I have a check that I have to write to the Internal Revenue Service and I am see they that various kinds of oligarchs and corporations can shirk their responsibilities to whomever they otherwise would owe taxes to. But in the overall scheme of things against the whole world economy is what is not paid kind of a drop in the bucket does it matter I think it matters a lot I mean the big lie is that we're all sort of self-made individuals and everything that happens to us is a result of our own personal choices as though we don't use the roads and the Internet that was created you know from the taxpayer funded DARPA net I know about you but I went to public schools we are the product of investments that society has made in the future and until recently the social contract has meant that we're obligated to pay forward so that other people can benefit from living in our society just as we did if people break that social contract to enrich themselves pretty soon things start to fall apart you get sort of French Revolution type conditions if we can agree that these multilayered offshore schemes are antithetical to general equity morality and the operation of a society through taxation what can be done I don't think any of the effective answers are legislative because wealth managers have 247-3652 invent clever ways to get around whatever law you put up as an obstacle and more importantly they have the eager cooperation of many countries to help them write laws that are tailor made to the interests of their clients in fact many wealth managers are themselves tapped to directly write the laws of offshore jurisdictions How do you force people to pay their fair share is it doable I don't think in Foresman and forcing are going to work many of the people we're talking about have more wealth than the g.d.p. Of small countries so nobody forces them to do anything I think short term and long term there are some social. Forces that you can harness to bring about change I'm old enough to remember a time when it was considered patriotic to pay your fair share of taxes that changed starting in about the eighty's but that's relatively recent in the grand scheme of things I believe it could be turned around the other thing is rather than focusing on the wealthy people themselves who benefit from these offshore schemes recognize that they're not doing this themselves that they're not inventing these offshore schemes they're paying people to do it and so if you want the offshore schemes to stop you have to shift focus and look at the professionals who make it happen because without them the whole offshore system falls apart people who can't find their own bracelets outside restaurants in London are not masterminding multi-layered offshore schemes and I would say about 25 percent of the people I interviewed were really conscience stricken about the nature of their work they could really see that it was making the world a worse place to deprive states of tax revenue and of course they were instrumental in making that happen I believe that those are the John Doe's of the future you know that the people who leaked the Panama papers there are still lots of leaks to come and pretty soon there won't be any place to hide Thank you Brooke I really appreciate it thank you it's a pleasure speaking with you Brooke Harrington is a professor of sociology at Copenhagen Business School and author of capital without Borders wealth managers and the one percent your new duties will include answering Mr Burns on the bring us tax return moistening his eye balls assisting with this chewing and swallowing lying to Congress and some like. Coming up the press gangs up on a bully. This is on the media. And the media is supported by blooming delivering going my recipes pre-selected portions and fresh ingredients to customers stores more at Blue everybody comes. Staples offering technology solutions for businesses from laptops and tablets to smartphones and including tech services like set up for a parent executing more at Staples and Staples dot com Staples it's pro time. Hey there I'm Joshua Johnson the host of one our programs named after the 1st Amendment and one a is for everyone especially the curious Our job is to help you better understand the world where it's headed and what we can do about it the news is relentless and one a. And n.p.r. Is here to keep you up to speed on all the biggest stories as the day progresses that's one a week days of starting Monday Nov 13th on k. P.b.s. Where news matters p.d.s. Is supported by Sky falconry where you can experience the opportunity to put on a glove and free fly a bird of prey offering interactive educational hands on experiences with Raptors and promoting preservation through education reservations for classes or gift certificates at Sky falconry dot com Jackson design and remodeling inviting you to their design or remodeling seminar November 14th from 530 to 730 in their Kearney Mesa show room. Designers and architects and explore materials and trends in living spaces are as v.p. At Jackson design a remodelling dot com This is on the media I'm Bob Garfield for the last 20 years the media business has been crumbling like a stale Pike crust centuries of obscene profitability have given way to an ongoing struggle just to break even so more and more both legacy media and digital newbies have looked toward deep pocketed ownership with the fortunes to weather the ups and downs mostly downs of the business the Chicago Sun Times newspaper has been sold to a group of investors that includes a former Chicago city council member the newspaper assets of the Washington Post are being bought by none other than Jeff Bezos you have here is Las Vegas casino mogul selling Alison could be the new owner of the Las Vegas Review Journal this sometimes has and ended well real estate developer Sam Zell bought the Chicago Tribune and treated it like a shopping mall relaunch Sheldon Adelson bought his hometown Las Vegas reviewed. Journal to stop getting nasty coverage in the Las Vegas Review Journal and now comes Joe Ricketts who 8 months ago bought the Gothamist network of hyper local online publications billionaire Joe Ricketts shut down 2 of his popular local news sites yesterday one week after his editorial staff voted to unionize 7 city focused publications were simply turned off Julia where it was up until that moment editor in chief of one of those sites L.A.'s Julia welcome to the show thank you so much for having me before you ever heard Joe Ricketts name the Gothamist publications were a little nervous about the online publishing environment what was happening at the time last March when the site was sold after Gawker I think almost anyone who's at a small publication that doesn't have some giant corporate backing you were scared because you suddenly were incredibly aware that one rich person not liking the content could see you into oblivion one way to inoculate against the whims of an angry rich person is to have a rich person of your own with deep enough pockets to fend off a lawsuit or at least not shut publications down in the face of litigation so you are sitting in your office one day last March in getting the email that the Gothamist network has been sold to this guy Joe Ricketts What was your thought we didn't know what it would mean for us we didn't know what it would mean for the future of the sites and we didn't really know anything about Joe Ricketts as terrified as I am of Peter t. I felt just as scared about this guy and it didn't take long before things began to happen and of the new regime that made you even nervous or prominent among them was the deletion not by the new owner but of the former owner Jake Dobkin of the references to previous stories about your new owner Joe Ricketts they were either changed or deleted off the site altogether. The rationale for that was like the Bloomberg networks which don't cover Bloomberg as a media entity owned by Joe Ricketts we shouldn't coverage our records which is reasonable enough in theory although not true that Bloomberg does cover Bloomberg but you can kind of understand the theory behind it I guess except that doesn't include a racing previous reporting what were you and your colleagues saying to one another when you realized right off the bat that that was taking place it was really scary to us because we didn't know whether or not it was going to be a slippery slope we didn't know if this was the beginning of in our rally in memory hall or if those were going to be the only things to disappear off the site and shortly thereafter the staff began to think about what can we do to protect ourselves against the erosion of the Gothamist way of doing things what form did these conversations stick members of our New York office had already been talking about unionizing prior to the sale but the sale really kicked it into overdrive and made it feel much more urgent. Right away our New York office was Matt with a pretty strong anti union campaign something our bosses told us was that Mr records was philosophically opposed to unions and that should be kind of reason and off for the sites not to have any sort of unionization campaign which seemed very unlike the Gothamist way of doing things which would be to question authority to probe further to agitate for what we felt was right it all happened so fast yes they voted to unionize and a week later 116 journalists were all laid off do you have any insight as to whether he made this move because it was going to turn a crappy business into an even crappier business or out of just pure spite or whether there's some 3rd explanation. I've never met Joe wreckage so I can't pretend to know what his motivations are for anything but he had just bought the Gothamist network 7 or so months before he presumably spent several $1000000.00 to purchase our sites which were at the time profitable to than shut them down a couple of months later seems a strange way of doing business on November 2nd you get an email and your job is disappeared but that's not the only thing that disappeared please tell me about the archive so we actually found out we'd all last our jobs when the sites went down our archives were later restored largely I think due to public outcry but when the sites were 1st closed all of our sites were just replaced with a letter from Joe records informing readers that he had made the very difficult decision to close Gothamist and d.n.a. Info for us at L.A.'s 13 years of reporting work on the archive disappeared wiped from history on a personal level that felt like retribution new $100.00 some fire journalists who are now all about to go look for work with our clips wiped off the Internet but to me that wasn't even the really terrifying and her effect thing about the archives going down we've been doing local reporting for more than a decade exhaustively covering the minutiae of daily life in our cities and the minutia of city hall and the idea that in a couple of days when someone goes to Google something about about Official all that reporting is just gone like it never happened it's really really scary it really drove home the fragility of all the news sites we rely on and then there's the ongoing coverage which is no longer ongoing what's the effect not only on your former readers but on the ecosystem for Los Angeles journalism. We were a small site we were pretty scrappy but we also broke a lot of news an ally the l.a. Times an indoor stick city council candidate who was very charismatic and very popular and poised to unseat an incumbent after L.A.'s found and published his crazy history of online comments we were the 1st ones to cover Romulo of Alec and solace and l. a Father who was detained by ice while dropping his young daughters off at school those are just a couple of examples but it's coming at a time when a lot of other media forces and I are also fragile are having their own struggles our friends at l.a. Weekly were sold 2 or 3 weeks ago by Voice Media to a newly formed l.l.c. And all that's known about it is it's associated with the we've Loire they don't know who owns that which is scary and the l.a. Times is actually having their own unionization campaign that's been met with a lot of union busting tactics from their corporate owners and what about you we could go you have a job no you don't what's next the ground hasn't quite settled yet it's been kind of a crazy few days but the last couple of days I've gotten dozens of text messages and Facebook messages and e-mails from sources on stories checking in and thanking me for whatever I had written about them and saying the fact that we covered it mattered to him I hope to find another reporting job where I can keep telling their stories and other people's stories Well Julia I wish you the best of luck and thank you very much for joining us thank you so much for having me until a week ago Julia where was editor in chief of Las. We contacted Joe Ricketts for comment but received no response. And in other tyrants news when Walt Disney Company didn't like an l.a. Times investigative series about its undue influence on local government around Disney land it decided to fight back it blacklisted the times from press screenings of its films including the hit Thor Ragnor rock as k.c. R. W. Public Radio reported this is a bald attempt to try to influence future coverage new sky bridge by the l.a. Times by punishing their access to movies if you aren't aware in Ragnall Rock The Mighty Thor finds himself in a deadly gladiatorial contest that pits him against the Incredible Hulk his former ally and fellow Avenger So yeah one media titan battling another no irony there or anything but plenty of stupidity for 3 reasons 1st the stunt simply called massive attention to the very reporting Disney didn't like it overlooked the reason for press screeners in the 1st place to generate free publicity for Disney's own movies and for good measure it antagonized other media organizations who resented the bullying of their colleagues culture journalists from The Washington Post a.v. Club the New York Times and flavor wire as well as the l.a. Film Critics Association the New York Film Critics Circle the Boston Society of Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics jointly agreed to boycott new Disney releases and or exclude them from annual awards consideration a pretty dramatic show of solidarity One might even be tempted to say cinematic. Something. To prevent right in Iraq the end of everything. Putting together a team. With. The battle was fierce. But brief within 2 days Disney caved and it was all high fives among the Avengers who doesn't like to see a bully get his comeuppance. But at what cost in order to back does need down competing media organizations had to band together and act as $1.00 with a shared agenda in more or less precisely the fashion the anti-press political right always claims the media do when the president is calling you an enemy of the people consortiums of retaliation are what you call bad optics Furthermore the boycotters used editorial coverage or the withholding of it as their mighty sword which is usually a clear cut ethical violation sometimes it's called extortion Now I will pretend not to be thrilled at this news humiliation in this case and I won't spoil the regular rock outcome between Thor and The Hulk but let me just say in life and in movies with sequel possibilities there is room for ambiguity and United fighters . More to the point. Did anybody when. Coming up in Sweden Syrian refugees poor into the West the Wild West this is on the media and the media is supported by Staples offering technology solutions for businesses from laptops and tablets to smart phones and including tech services like set up repair and tech security more at Staples and Staples dot com Staples it's pro time. Tom Hanks started out as the goofy guy but nowadays show business takes him very seriously get older in the nature that comedies change I mean not look you're talking to somebody was on Bosom Buddies in 1980 that was the only game I could get a conversation on character types and typewriters with Tom Hanks next time on one. Weekday afternoons it to p.b.s. Radio where news matters. P.b.s. Is supported by possible care for more than 25 years sharp hospice care has been dedicated to providing compassionate care for patients and families facing a life limiting illness sharp dot com slash hospice shark a Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego presenting memories of under developments at the downtown location showcasing more than 400 objects from more than 50 artists working in 8 countries throughout Latin America and the youth through February 4th 2018 m.c.a. Estie dot org And an earlier segment you heard economic sociology professor Brook Harrington of Copenhagen Business School say this The Big Lie is that we're all sort of self-made individuals and everything that happens to us is a result of our own personal choices from her academic perch in Denmark she was describing the myth of self-reliance a peculiarly American concept that holds little allure in Scandinavia indeed as o.t.m. Producer Michael low injure recently discovered in a visit to Sweden the very meaning of the Wild West is turned on its head in a place where what is prized is not independence but cooperation and shared responsibility for all who come there in the middle of nowhere southern Sweden there's a popular Wild West theme park called High Chaparral blonde families travel down here in the summer to act out the rough and tumble life they see in the old cowboy phones I met many Swedes who had never visited the United States before and yet they spoke of the Old West with deep affection it's so cool you could do so Max with so little at that time that I loved everything about it in the 1970 s. When Westerns were all the rage here the parks founder Big Ben set out to make Sweden's 1st Western film he built an old front to your town film set complete with a general store a saloon in an old bank on a dirt road and the build up is Main Street that is the main street today and the film this movie and this turned out to. Beautiful Pluto in mule Erlend send is big guns grandson and the current owner chaperone which has since expanded into a bonafide amusement park like his late grandfather a meal lives and breathes this stuff he goes everywhere trust up as a front here patriarch with a 10 gallon hat and a sheriff's badge the theme park gets its name from an American t.v. Show from the 1970 s. Which follows the cannon family as they fend off hostile tribes and rough it out on their front to ranch we came here to settle this ours on the territory we're staying Mr Can't you don't seem to understand we've got a major Indian uprising on our hands. Became incredibly popular here in Sweden everybody watched it probably more popular here than in the United States dog blank teaches North American studies at Upsala University in particular one character mano Leto the Mexican guy and the show who was the heart breaker here there was even a Swedish song written about him by one of the most well known and beloved singers in Sweden and lead to Bob's only. Child. I went to High Chaparral in the summer of 2016 because I'd heard that a meal had invited Syrian refugees to live at the park that refugees would find sanctuary in a Swedish western theme park actually makes quite a bit of sense as you'll soon see. During my visit I met a Buddha a curious Syrian guy he had just arrived so we toured the park together with some insight provided by a passing cowboy enthusiast Johann Hellstrom I have a gun belt with cartridge. I have my holster back on my rump so to speak because when I work I don't want to the gun to get in the way just some questions about history we have from Syria yes and when we see movies about go boy we just ask Johan if the real cowboys were as violent as they seem in the movies between the town it was generally lawless there were bandits people who wanted to rob you kill you take your stuff it was just off the deceiving war it was unrest in the country like in Syria everybody is on safe but what we see in the movies I think that's misrepresentation of the cowboy that you should shoot anyone on sight that you don't like you know that's what you know about go Boy Next we stopped at the open air theater home of the famous hotshot wild west stunt show offering epic battles between heroic Lamen and dastardly outlaws. In Syria we have more exposure got so little. We have been through the sky but that's normal. I mean you're coming from a real war you know and then here we have tourists who are paying money to see a fake war what do you think about that it's. Really a Buddha arrived here as a refugee in 2015 the year Sweden along with Germany assert itself as the preeminent safe haven of Europe yesterday Sweden became the 1st European country to announce they will give prominent residence status to all Syrian refugees to apply and their families Sweden takes in the highest number of refugees per capita in Europe 163000 individuals applied for asylum here in Sweden a country of 9800000 p. People that's 163000 people in 2015 alone 50000 from Syria in the last 5 years the u.s. Has accepted less than 20000 Syrians and that number will likely plunge thanks to the president's travel ban How did small him aaj and his Sweden come to bear the weight of the refugee crisis while the us the melting pot shrugged it off one answer perhaps lies in our competing depictions of the Old West. To most Americans a glorification of the visceral brutal masculinity of the cowboy think John Wayne or Gary Cooper gritty men who express themselves not with fancy prose but 38 caliber bullets from revolvers akimbo. America's self image owes much to the pop culture archetypes and imagery of the Old West defined by saloon brawls clashes with the Native Americans an epic journeys across the frontier the virtues of rugged individualism the belief that every man best look out for himself no one hears stay out of this. I don't like Joe and me. For what I got to do sometimes our heroes portrayed as a poet or a crooner but he's still a nation of one Here's Roy Rogers singing a cowboy ballad in 1940 s. The Border Legion. Oracularly no no. No that we rise and fall on our own determination our own grit jibes with the idea that the poor failed because of their own bad judgment or shoddy work ethic Reagan who rose to fame as a Western actor artfully fused the Old West with this political m.o. Early in his presidency I've been looking forward to coming home to the great American West it was 1902 and he was campaigning for Wyoming Senator Malcolm wallop as his White House was dismantling many of the nation social welfare. Programs you and your forebears as Malcolm said tame the wild frontier and believe it or not you did it without an area redevelopment program or urban renewal. Individual freedom individual integrity and individual ingenuity made us the greatest country the world has ever known Meanwhile I met Swedes at High Chaparral who had drawn a different lesson from the Old West and meals grandfather Big Ben was inspired to start the park because of the history of Swedish emigration to the us back in the 1900 centuries a devastating wave of poverty and famine swept Sweden particularly the region where High Chaparral resides today if you were living here in the early $1000.00 hundreds you would be a very very very poor man so over a quarter of Sweden's population picked up and left for the us the emigrants by author Vilhelm Moberg voted the most influential Swedish novel series of the 20th century helped define the Swedish trek into the American West 2 films based on the novels detailed the perilous ocean of fasting and the cruelty of the pioneers life so many have a tough time after staking out a property in what would become Minnesota the film's heroes work with other pioneers to stave off starvation and survive the harsh winter the story shows none of the Hollywood Cowboys fantastical feats instead focusing on the conditions that many American pioneers actually faced Western historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote in 1903 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier that in fact it was the root of American egalitarianism because it took collective effort to survive hardships so severe here's Professor dog block again because the fronts here is the great equalizer there it doesn't matter who you are what background your from there what counts is if you can work and if you can contribute you needed to work to get there in a way to. Build up a new society historians estimate that a 3rd of cowboys in Texas were black or Latino ranch work was among the few jobs available to minorities following the Civil War but people of color are rarely depicted as good guys in the classic Westerns in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson a Texan struggled to end poverty and expand voting rights his view of the Old West would have been familiar to the Swedes we didn't build this nation by everyone's rights and drawing board. With Mildred like we build the West by pitching in together Johnson had just signed the Economic Opportunity Act the centerpiece of his war on poverty and he was looking to continue the flow of funds into other great society programs like Medicare and Medicaid However after Reagan flipped the script 18 years later the political references to the west turn from blue to red * . I've been called a maverick someone who will marches to the beat of his own drum John McCain has always defined himself as a righteous non-conformist by calling himself a maverick cowboy slang for a calf that roam from the herd but we get them out we go into jails and then they go back to their country and President Donald Trump invoked the frontier to dramatize his campaign of using police against m s 13 the American gang associated with El Salvador it's like I'd see in a movie there liberating that town. Like in the old Wild West right. Of course these political touchstones feature little mention of the public infrastructure that powered industry in the West the tribes murdered or forcefully removed from their land or the federal programs that spurred Western growth in the 1st place know our record heroes succeeded all on their own and today we can too. As for Abboud the Syrian asylum seeker from the start of this story he could not have made his epic journey to the Wild West of High Chaparral without the help of other people in the years since I visited the park Abood English has weakened as he took Swedish classes so he told me the story through a Swedish translator don't you Jesse of all to some men mum he dropped out of college and emptied his bank account in the fall of 2015 when the violence in Damascus became unbearable his father and sister stayed home with the boots mother who was suffering from cancer and he and his friend Ayman managed to make it to Izmir in Turkey before the worst of their trouble began a smuggler agreed to take them across the Mediterranean to Greece in the middle of the night they were crammed onto a boat with around 75 other refugees Abood heard people praying reading from the Qur'an children crying 90 minutes later when the boat was far from the coast they heard a chilling sound if he heard the voice of the boat had burst a hole it was sinking like a man yelled to boo to take off his life jacket and jump in the water it would be easier to swim that way if you sleep then he did it to light they swim toward a tiny light on the horizon they couldn't tell if it was a Turkey Greece another boat but they kept going 3 hours later they washed up on the Greek island Chios they still had their phones wallets and passports which they had wrapped in plastic a week later they reached the border of Macedonia and Serbia at sunset they had heard that Serbian cabs were dangerous but exhausted from walking as the sun went down they decided to take the risk with for their friends they had made along the way they split into 2 cars a blue driver sidique seemed trustworthy southerly with a. Honestly it was on their. Muslim he was Muslim and he spoke Arabic sidique literally means innocent in Arabic after a couple hours on the highway the 2 cabs detoured into the woods then the driver sidique began making phone calls and Serbian which freaked out a booed. Where are you taking us he asked Sid Deacon the other cabbie stopped in the woods and ordered them to get out save for the headlights It was pitch black. 2 large Serbian men with knives were standing at the side of the road have been given have to look bangin no give us all your stuff they said. Luckily Ayman had been Syria's number one kickboxer for his age group for years in a row so Amun fought 3 at once. They shook off the assailants long enough to begin to sprint through the pitch black woods soon they were stopped by a flashlight police stop it was a policeman they beg for help. But the Serbian thieves Breivik topic on a Buddha name and successfully offered their own bribe $200.00 euros each for a ride to a nearby city. As they drove out of the woods Abood saw their 4 friends running on the side of the road gave the cop $200.00 euros for each of them and they all drove off to safety. Once in Sweden Abood bounced around a couple refugee parks before he arrived at high shepherd the park originally built in honor of Sweden's new beginning in the Old West and a meal opened up high chaparral to Syrian refugees because he was inspired by his grandfather big bent who journey the Balkan wars of the ninety's turned the parks vacant hotels into a refugee camp because you can't do anything by the self you have to help. Emile did not pay out of pocket to run the refugee camp last year the Swedish government offset much of the cost it was a shared responsibility which a meal believes will bear fruit for Sweden you have to be like a visionary you have to be very driven to actually take the trip because is a dangerous trip for you and your family and it's often very good people who wants to make an effort to get a better life a year after High Chaparral took in the Syrians Swedish Parliament pulled back the reins on its immigration policy to porting tens of thousands of refugees but Abboud was granted asylum and the Swedish government began paying for his housing and Swedish language classes as he prepares to start medical school this past summer as the park closed its refugee camp Abood worked at High Chaparral as a janitor dressed in full cowboy get up between shifts he was instructed to sneak up behind Swedish children and pretend to rob them at gunpoint shouting ever the hand of a local boy put them up a little cowboy you are identified as a cowboy. How absolutely if the image of a cowboy Syrian refugee is a perplexing Association for you then my point is made. The individualistic and at times ruthless portrayal of the old west by Hollywood in American politicians feeds a cold and lonely world view and who exactly does that narrative serve as James Baldwin once noted it's just one of many fantastical stories that wallpapered over a shameful history becomes a great shock to discover that Gary Kubiak killing all the Indians when you were rooting by Gary Cooper and the Indians were you the Hollywood ideal of the West that shapes America's identity obstructs our ability to see ourselves in the struggles of others to empathize at a moment when millions of people need a new beginning. For on the media I'm like a loner. That's it for this week's show on the media is produced by a lot of Casanova Burgess Jesse Brennaman Michael Owen Jer and les a fetter we had more help from Monique Laborde John Henry hand Kate Brown and Sara Chadwick Gibson and our show was edited this week by our executive producer catcher Rogers and our technical director is Jennifer Munson our engineers this week are saying fair and Terence when Ardo Brooke Gladstone will be back next week time Garfield on India is supported by the Ford Foundation the John s. And James l. Knight Foundation and the listeners of w n y c rating at. Discover the science and scientists of San Diego with me Margot wall the host of rad scientist. A new k. P.b.s. Podcast you can find red scientist in your favorite podcast app or you can get it online at k.b.s. Dot org slash red scientist stay rad p.b.s. Is supported by the Maritime Museum of San Diego presenting rum sailors pirates and prohibition now open included with admission and sponsored by Black Bart Navy rum spirits Mount Gay and 7 cave spirits for tickets visit Estie maritime dot org the California Health Care Foundation advancing health care that works for all Californians on the web at c h c f dot org This is 89.5 f.m. K.b.p.s. San Diego 89 point one f.m. K 206.