Latest / The Bill Handel Show / Gene Editing and Country Clubs
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: You're listening to KFI AM 640, the Bill Handel Show
- 0:04Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
- 0:08Speaker 2: A week from Tuesday, the big day. Okay, I'll tell
- 0:11Speaker 2: you what else is a big day. Like now, and
- 0:14Speaker 2: hear what's going on. This has to do with the
- 0:16Speaker 2: war in Iran, which has everything to do with the election,
- 0:19Speaker 2: as you know. And the president, of course, defends his
- 0:23Speaker 2: action as his supporters defend his action. And one of
- 0:28Speaker 2: the issues that really nailed the Republicans, I think, is
- 0:31Speaker 2: what's going on with the war in Iran and how
- 0:33Speaker 2: that's connected to the price of energy, fuel, diesel, fertilizer. Okay,
- 0:39Speaker 2: so what is the latest? Well, the latest is Iran
- 0:43Speaker 2: has threatened to strike U.S. bases and warships and civilian
- 0:48Speaker 2: targets in the Gulf countries in that neighborhood if the U.S.
- 0:53Speaker 2: and Israel resume attacks. The president has said, well, he's
- 0:58Speaker 2: been threatening attacks for months, this sort of ceasefire that's
- 1:04Speaker 2: a tenuous ceasefire. Everything is stalled, and so everybody is
- 1:07Speaker 2: treading water. But the president has said if he is
- 1:10Speaker 2: going to attack, it's going to be right after the election,
- 1:13Speaker 2: which I guess the premise is make sure you vote Republican,
- 1:18Speaker 2: and then everything will be good. Make sure you vote Republican,
- 1:21Speaker 2: then I will act. That's the basic premise. After the election,
- 1:29Speaker 2: prices will go down like a rock. But, OK, that's
- 1:33Speaker 2: the political front. Now, on the military front, Iran is
- 1:38Speaker 2: threatening to really go after these bases, shipping airports around
- 1:46Speaker 2: the Mideast. And in response, the U.S. is moving troops
- 1:50Speaker 2: off of regional bases, pulling government employees from that area. Diplomats,
- 1:58Speaker 2: diplomatic families have been ordered to leave Saudi Arabia. So
- 2:02Speaker 2: now the president said that we have won the war.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Day one, the war was won. Not quite true. And
- 2:09Speaker 2: the president also said that Iran's entire military capability has
- 2:13Speaker 2: been destroyed. Also not quite true. Now, when he said
- 2:19Speaker 2: that the Navy has been destroyed, yes, that is true.
- 2:23Speaker 2: And the ability of Iran to wage war in certain
- 2:27Speaker 2: aspects is true. But a couple of things are not.
- 2:30Speaker 2: One of them is war. We've wiped out their ballistic
- 2:34Speaker 2: missiles and their ability to attack with drones. Not even close.
- 2:39Speaker 2: Analysts who look at this have said that Iran has,
- 2:42Speaker 2: if not thousands, at least hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles.
- 2:48Speaker 2: They have plenty of firepower left. And also, they are
- 2:53Speaker 2: prepared to use it. The Revolutionary Guard and the mullahs
- 2:57Speaker 2: that control Iran– They don't have anybody to report to.
- 3:03Speaker 2: They can do whatever the hell they want. It's much
- 3:05Speaker 2: like Xi Jinping and much like Vladimir Putin. They can
- 3:09Speaker 2: do whatever the hell they want because it is a
- 3:12Speaker 2: complete dictatorship. Now, in China and Russia, it's a one-person dictatorship.
- 3:18Speaker 2: In Iran, to a certain extent, it's the Grand Mullah,
- 3:22Speaker 2: the Grand Vizier, you know, the imperial wizard of Tehran,
- 3:27Speaker 2: whatever the hell they call him. And he sort of
- 3:30Speaker 2: makes the decisions, has veto power, if nothing else. But
- 3:33Speaker 2: Iran is saying, and they're willing to go balls to
- 3:36Speaker 2: the wall. So the general thinking is, well, that's the
- 3:39Speaker 2: other thing. Their economy has been destroyed. Their economy is teetering.
- 3:45Speaker 2: The rial, which is their currency, is worth nothing. People
- 3:50Speaker 2: are really in trouble. Unemployment is through the roof. All
- 3:54Speaker 2: of which is true. And the leadership in Iran doesn't care. Now,
- 3:59Speaker 2: there was one attempt at protests. And anyway, well, tens
- 4:05Speaker 2: of thousands of Iranian citizens were gunned down in the
- 4:08Speaker 2: street by military forces, the Revolutionary Guard particularly. Nobody's going
- 4:14Speaker 2: to protest anymore. That's not going to happen. So Iran
- 4:17Speaker 2: moves forward. And here's what we're dealing with. We're dealing
- 4:19Speaker 2: with a country that will not only cut its nose
- 4:24Speaker 2: despite its face, but cut its face despite its face.
- 4:27Speaker 2: Prepare to go all in. And the United States has
- 4:32Speaker 2: to deal with that, and the rest of the Mideast
- 4:33Speaker 2: has to deal with that. What this war did not
- 4:37Speaker 2: only cost us dearly in terms of our economic situation,
- 4:43Speaker 2: in terms of look at the cost of gasoline, look
- 4:45Speaker 2: at the cost of food, I mean, look at the
- 4:48Speaker 2: cost of living having gone up pretty dramatically. So not
- 4:51Speaker 2: only has it affected us short term in terms of
- 4:55Speaker 2: our economy, but long term, because Iran realized that very
- 4:59Speaker 2: quickly that it controls the Strait of Hormuz, of which 20%
- 5:03Speaker 2: of the world's oil goes through. It controls it. It
- 5:07Speaker 2: can stop shipping coal, which it has. It can charge
- 5:10Speaker 2: tolls for allowing any ship, which it deems okay to
- 5:14Speaker 2: pass through the strait, which it has. And as the administration,
- 5:19Speaker 2: specifically Donald Trump, has said, we control the Strait of Hormuz.
- 5:23Speaker 2: It's ours. And that shipping is, in fact, back to
- 5:28Speaker 2: its normal amount through the Strait, which it really isn't
- 5:31Speaker 2: because it's off 90 percent. Ten percent of the ships
- 5:34Speaker 2: are going through. So what do you do with that? Well,
- 5:38Speaker 2: we're going to see. The bottom line is Iran is
- 5:42Speaker 2: far more formidable, far more dangerous and dangerous. realizing it
- 5:48Speaker 2: controls literally it has the world by the balls, assuming
- 5:52Speaker 2: the world has walls. Some countries don't because they're considered, uh,
- 5:56Speaker 2: don't you call country she, therefore, no, I'm not going
- 5:59Speaker 2: to do that. That's way too deep for me to
- 6:01Speaker 2: analyze all that, but that's what's going on with Iran.
- 6:05Speaker 2: And for anybody that does not believe they're prepared to
- 6:07Speaker 2: do exactly what they say, uh, it's kind of crazy, uh, to,
- 6:12Speaker 2: to say that or to ignore the truth. Oh, also
- 6:15Speaker 2: another task force, uh, Another naval task force is on
- 6:23Speaker 2: its way, which I think would make three now in
- 6:26Speaker 2: the area. And we've been told by the administration the
- 6:30Speaker 2: war so far is costing $ 35 billion, which I think
- 6:33Speaker 2: way under represent the actual cost. And that does not
- 6:36Speaker 2: include the damage to the bases. in the various parts
- 6:41Speaker 2: of the Mideast where the damage is in the billions
- 6:44Speaker 2: of dollars. So let's not forget what it's costing us
- 6:47Speaker 2: when it's almost impossible to get social programs through. We
- 6:51Speaker 2: just don't have the money. Okay, we'll deal with that.
- 6:56Speaker 2: Coming up, data centers. You betcha. What's going on with
- 7:00Speaker 2: data centers around the country? Well, things have switched. Things
- 7:02Speaker 2: have changed. I'll share that with you coming up.
- 7:06Speaker 3: You're listening to Bill Handel on demand from KFI AM 640.
- 7:12Speaker 2: Next week on Monday, we're going to start my voter guide,
- 7:16Speaker 2: which I do every single election where I tell you,
- 7:20Speaker 2: cause you're absolutely fascinated as to who I'm voting for,
- 7:24Speaker 2: what I'm voting for and why. And I, as I
- 7:28Speaker 2: wake up every morning, especially during voter guide season, I
- 7:32Speaker 2: look in the mirror and go, Hey, people are really
- 7:35Speaker 2: interested handle. Okay. So with that in mind, a quick
- 7:39Speaker 2: word about following my voter guide, same rules always apply.
- 7:42Speaker 2: If you use it as a voter guide, you're fired
- 7:47Speaker 2: as a listener. I can't listen to KFI anymore. This
- 7:49Speaker 2: is my voter guide for me, not for you, but
- 7:54Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you why I'm voting and try
- 7:57Speaker 2: to explain some of the propositions. Why? Because reading the
- 8:00Speaker 2: propositions doesn't tell you what they're about. Certainly the ads
- 8:04Speaker 2: don't tell you because they're a bunch of liars. And
- 8:06Speaker 2: titles don't tell you what it's about because that's a lie.
- 8:09Speaker 2: So it's difficult to try to figure out what it is.
- 8:12Speaker 2: I really like the ads because those make absolutely no
- 8:15Speaker 2: sense at all. Okay. Big story about data centers in
- 8:20Speaker 2: California specifically and throughout the country. But California is really
- 8:24Speaker 2: jumping on this. When these data centers were first announced
- 8:28Speaker 2: and started to be built, that was kind of neat.
- 8:30Speaker 2: I mean, they were going to hire hundreds of people
- 8:33Speaker 2: for high-end jobs, pay very formidable taxes to the local
- 8:40Speaker 2: city or county. And there were some issues. The amount
- 8:43Speaker 2: of electricity that had to be provided to these data
- 8:46Speaker 2: centers by the local municipality, the utility, the amount of
- 8:51Speaker 2: water that is to be used, and the amount of
- 8:54Speaker 2: noise that it makes, these data centers make, but they
- 8:57Speaker 2: go way higher. way outside of the cities or urban areas,
- 9:03Speaker 2: if possible. So let me tell you what's going on
- 9:05Speaker 2: because the world has changed. All of a sudden, you
- 9:08Speaker 2: see these cities and counties and the state saying, you know,
- 9:13Speaker 2: wait a minute, aren't we jumping at this way too quickly? Huh,
- 9:18Speaker 2: there's a lot of downside here. And the underlying issue
- 9:21Speaker 2: of AI in general, which is another topic for another time.
- 9:25Speaker 2: So let me tell you what's been going on. Right now,
- 9:28Speaker 2: California is number three in overall data center density. The
- 9:35Speaker 2: state is home to 366 of these centers that are
- 9:38Speaker 2: either fully operational or under construction or moving through the
- 9:42Speaker 2: planning process. And a lot of local officials are proposing,
- 9:46Speaker 2: let's put a moratorium on this. Or some are saying,
- 9:49Speaker 2: let's stop this in its tracks, period. So first half
- 9:53Speaker 2: of October, just two weeks there, Oakland City Council unanimously
- 9:57Speaker 2: approved a $ 46 moratorium on any new approvals. That was
- 10:04Speaker 2: the fourth city in the Bay Area to adopt such
- 10:06Speaker 2: a measure like that. San Francisco approved a similar moratorium
- 10:10Speaker 2: this month, and the L.A. County Board of Supervisors postponed
- 10:14Speaker 2: a vote to permanently ban large-scale data centers. And these
- 10:18Speaker 2: big big data centers called hyperscale facilities, usually on unincorporated land,
- 10:25Speaker 2: after receiving an overwhelming volume of public feedback negatively, all
- 10:30Speaker 2: of a sudden the county said, we're going to hold off.
- 10:33Speaker 2: And in Santa Clara, city officials considered a moratorium vote,
- 10:37Speaker 2: and they're moving forward with new rules to govern these
- 10:42Speaker 2: data centers. I mean, there is a lot wrong with this. AI, yeah,
- 10:47Speaker 2: a lot of benefits. Matter of fact, I'm going to
- 10:50Speaker 2: do a story at 8.30 about one of the fathers
- 10:55Speaker 2: of AI, one of the most interesting people you'll ever
- 10:57Speaker 2: hear about. But at this point, there is a widening
- 11:01Speaker 2: gap between what the proponents are. of AI and these
- 11:07Speaker 2: data centers are all about, and those that are going,
- 11:09Speaker 2: hold on, let's slow this down. Last month, Gavin Newsom
- 11:13Speaker 2: signed into law seven new measures that focus primarily on
- 11:18Speaker 2: disclosure requirements. That's the big deal. We need more information.
- 11:24Speaker 2: We want environmental impact studies being done because they're being
- 11:28Speaker 2: built at a very rapid rate with not a lot of...
- 11:32Speaker 2: IR requirements coming in and grid protection. How do we
- 11:36Speaker 2: protect the electrical grid because they demand so much power? Now,
- 11:40Speaker 2: grassroots groups and city councils throughout the state are moving
- 11:44Speaker 2: to just halt them, stop them entirely. That's it. We're done.
- 11:48Speaker 2: No more data centers. And you're going to see this
- 11:51Speaker 2: fight going like crazy because these, well, they're described as
- 11:56Speaker 2: energy hungry facilities. They strained the power grids. I mean,
- 12:01Speaker 2: really strained the power grids to the point where I
- 12:04Speaker 2: think it was Amazon or was it Google? That is, no,
- 12:11Speaker 2: it wasn't. One of the big companies is re-energizing a
- 12:16Speaker 2: nuclear facility that has been decommissioned to create enough energy to,
- 12:22Speaker 2: in fact, power one of these huge data centers. That's
- 12:25Speaker 2: how much power they take. And the amount of water,
- 12:29Speaker 2: when we have a limited resource of water, and we
- 12:32Speaker 2: have a finite amount of water and it's dropping all
- 12:34Speaker 2: the time, that it gets very expensive to build these things.
- 12:40Speaker 2: So we're going to see what happens with this. And
- 12:44Speaker 2: the problem is with the jobs, because AI centers and
- 12:49Speaker 2: almost any kind of major... New technology doesn't demand much
- 12:54Speaker 2: in terms of people. You wait until, for example, Amazon
- 12:58Speaker 2: has figured out a way to roboticize, is that a verb?
- 13:03Speaker 2: To roboticize, to where they can, within the warehouse, where
- 13:09Speaker 2: robots can figure out how big a package it is,
- 13:12Speaker 2: pick it up, move it on to the proper conveyor belt,
- 13:17Speaker 2: put whatever product in the packages. Once that's done and
- 13:20Speaker 2: they're well on the way, now you're talking about, what,
- 13:22Speaker 2: a million people out of jobs? But they're not great
- 13:25Speaker 2: jobs either. I mean, working in a fulfillment facility is
- 13:28Speaker 2: no fun job. And they're hiring hundreds of thousands, of course,
- 13:31Speaker 2: for seasonal work. So what you're going to see, well,
- 13:34Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a slowdown of these
- 13:36Speaker 2: data centers being built. I think there's going to be
- 13:38Speaker 2: a lot more... diversity in terms of the people who
- 13:42Speaker 2: don't want this and do want this, a lot more transparency,
- 13:46Speaker 2: and they're just going to look at it much more carefully.
- 13:48Speaker 2: And that's what's going on. Okay. What are we going
- 13:51Speaker 2: to do next? Oh, okay. This is a topic that
- 13:56Speaker 2: fascinates me and it's about gene editing. I've been talking
- 14:00Speaker 2: about this for, well, When I first started practicing law
- 14:03Speaker 2: and teaching, hard to believe I was a professor of law.
- 14:06Speaker 2: I know that's scary as hell. One of the topics
- 14:09Speaker 2: that we talked about was gene editing. And I'll tell
- 14:12Speaker 2: you the good, the bad, and the hopefully not ugly,
- 14:16Speaker 2: because that's part of gene editing, too, when we come back.
- 14:19Speaker 3: You're listening to Bill Handel On Demand from KFI AM640.
- 14:25Speaker 2: A couple of things are happening in the world. Benjamin Netanyahu,
- 14:29Speaker 2: prime minister of Israel, has ordered a full lockdown of
- 14:34Speaker 2: the border between the West Bank and Israel because of
- 14:39Speaker 2: a plot that was brewing. to kill actually a military
- 14:45Speaker 2: said it killed two Palestinians that were launching a terrorist attack.
- 14:52Speaker 2: So that's what's happening over there. Also, this Tuesday coming up,
- 14:57Speaker 2: the election in Israel, which is going to be a
- 14:58Speaker 2: big one. And then the next Tuesday is our election. Okay.
- 15:02Speaker 2: A story that I want to share with you, and
- 15:05Speaker 2: this has become big news. And it's all about gene editing.
- 15:09Speaker 2: And it's become pretty controversial. Now, there's good and bad
- 15:12Speaker 2: with gene editing. And this is when I started practicing
- 15:16Speaker 2: third-party reproductive law way, way back when. And I was
- 15:21Speaker 2: asked to teach a course, which I did for a
- 15:23Speaker 2: couple of years in reproduction, reproductive law. One of the
- 15:26Speaker 2: things we talked about was gene editing. Now, is gene
- 15:29Speaker 2: editing good or bad? Well, this is science, and society
- 15:33Speaker 2: does not keep up with science. It never does. First,
- 15:36Speaker 2: there's science, and then somehow society passes rules and deals
- 15:40Speaker 2: with the morals, etc. And that's the case with gene editing.
- 15:43Speaker 2: So let me tell you what's going on in a
- 15:44Speaker 2: good way with gene editing right now. When crops are
- 15:49Speaker 2: susceptible to pests, for example, or diseases, what ends up
- 15:54Speaker 2: happening is usually it starts in one section of the farm. Now,
- 15:59Speaker 2: how do farmers deal with this? Well, they put the
- 16:04Speaker 2: fungicide or insecticide and they spray the entire field. And
- 16:09Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, with the wind blowing, they're
- 16:11Speaker 2: spraying other fields to crab this one pest or one
- 16:15Speaker 2: disease and eradicate it. And it starts only at one
- 16:19Speaker 2: portion of the field. And that's literally, you know, using
- 16:24Speaker 2: a sledgehammer to drive in a small nail. Well, with
- 16:30Speaker 2: gene editing, and this is happening, plants, the genes of
- 16:34Speaker 2: plants are being edited. So the plant themselves tell us
- 16:39Speaker 2: when they are hit by a disease or a bug. Now,
- 16:45Speaker 2: the scientists say they do that anyway. You know, for example,
- 16:47Speaker 2: plants start to wilt. When you have a disease or
- 16:51Speaker 2: trees start to have holes in them when a bark
- 16:55Speaker 2: beetle shows up. But the scientists are telling us that's
- 16:58Speaker 2: too late. We want to grab them early, early. So
- 17:01Speaker 2: this gene editing that they have developed actually tells the farmer, look,
- 17:06Speaker 2: Which trees, which plants specifically are dealing with these bugs
- 17:12Speaker 2: and these diseases and do so early on, either by
- 17:16Speaker 2: turning a color or by growing in a certain way.
- 17:20Speaker 2: It's gene editing. They edit the genes. And of course,
- 17:23Speaker 2: that frightens the hell out of everybody. Oh my God,
- 17:25Speaker 2: what can you do with gene editing? So here is
- 17:28Speaker 2: the question that I brought up when we started at
- 17:30Speaker 2: the law school. Okay, there's good and bad. So let
- 17:33Speaker 2: me give you human editing, which incidentally, we're there. We
- 17:36Speaker 2: have the technology. We just, the law doesn't allow us
- 17:39Speaker 2: to do this. And we're talking about editing genes in
- 17:43Speaker 2: human beings. And I'm talking about the embryo stage, okay?
- 17:46Speaker 2: Fairly early on. And let's say we can get rid
- 17:50Speaker 2: of genetic diseases like Huntington's. or Tay-Sachs, or sickle cell anemia,
- 17:56Speaker 2: where we edit the genes so that embryo or that
- 18:01Speaker 2: human being that is created out of that simply doesn't
- 18:04Speaker 2: have the gene, doesn't have the proclivity, or just isn't
- 18:08Speaker 2: able to develop some of those diseases because they're inherited.
- 18:11Speaker 2: That's the good stuff. However, that same technology allows us
- 18:16Speaker 2: to edit genes to make a kid faster, stronger, taller,
- 18:21Speaker 2: and all blue hair, blue eyes, blonde hair. That great
- 18:24Speaker 2: Aryan mode, Aryan model of superiority, same technology. Now that's
- 18:30Speaker 2: the scary part, but if a science can do both
- 18:32Speaker 2: and all of a sudden we are dealing with limiting
- 18:35Speaker 2: what science can do by law, that seems to be
- 18:38Speaker 2: the same way it's going with the gene editing with
- 18:40Speaker 2: the plants. Now, is anybody going to be born weird
- 18:44Speaker 2: because of gene editing? No, but the plants and a
- 18:47Speaker 2: lot of people don't understand, for example, corn is modified.
- 18:51Speaker 2: You can't get corn in this country without being modified
- 18:55Speaker 2: by gene editing. It just doesn't exist. And what gene
- 18:57Speaker 2: editing has done in many cases is allow a third
- 19:01Speaker 2: crop to be planted and harvested. That's the case of wheat.
- 19:05Speaker 2: That's the case of rice, which, well, if you have 30%
- 19:08Speaker 2: more rice, more wheat in a given country, especially a
- 19:11Speaker 2: poor country, that's an extraordinary thing. So people are frightened
- 19:15Speaker 2: of this because they're long-term. We don't know what is long-term.
- 19:19Speaker 2: We don't. And frankly, I think we're going to develop
- 19:24Speaker 2: a love for people with arms sticking out of their forehead.
- 19:27Speaker 2: I'm okay with that. We just don't know what the
- 19:29Speaker 2: long terms are, do we? But we do know that
- 19:33Speaker 2: in reality, I don't think there's going to be much there.
- 19:36Speaker 2: Am I willing to take a chance? Hell yes. Hell yes. Man,
- 19:41Speaker 2: I would have loved to be able to edit my
- 19:44Speaker 2: daughter's genes in the embryo stage. I would have edited
- 19:48Speaker 2: out their... uh not only ability but uh their their
- 19:54Speaker 2: want of using credit cards if i could get rid
- 19:57Speaker 2: of that genetically so they did not want to use
- 19:59Speaker 2: credit cards i would have paid huge money for that
- 20:02Speaker 2: yeah you could you could get rid of um diarrhea
- 20:05Speaker 2: i heard that runs in your genes Wow. Wow, even
- 20:10Speaker 2: Amy is shaking her head at that one. Okay, so
- 20:14Speaker 2: you're seeing, so the bottom line here is grabbing these
- 20:18Speaker 2: plants at a very early stage at some part of
- 20:21Speaker 2: the field. Remember that you're talking about if a disease
- 20:25Speaker 2: comes in or an invasion of bugs comes in, an infestation,
- 20:29Speaker 2: it doesn't all happen at one time. The entire field
- 20:33Speaker 2: doesn't get it. It starts somewhere. And what this program
- 20:37Speaker 2: or what this science does is grab that somewhere early days.
- 20:42Speaker 2: So you're only dealing with that very limited, very strategic
- 20:46Speaker 2: way of dealing, pinpoint dealing with the problem that we
- 20:51Speaker 2: have with these plants. Effectively, the plant is showing off. saying,
- 20:57Speaker 2: here it is, and having a problem. Hey, look at
- 21:00Speaker 2: my leaf here. Look, it's going badly. So they're saying,
- 21:05Speaker 2: we'll have the plant actually be able to say that.
- 21:08Speaker 2: Talking plants. I don't think so. So we'll figure this
- 21:13Speaker 2: out at some point. It's kind of a neat thought. Boy,
- 21:15Speaker 2: that was fun teaching. Really was. Yeah, I don't remember
- 21:19Speaker 2: much of it because, frankly, I was... pretty high on
- 21:22Speaker 2: drugs at the time, but that is another story in
- 21:24Speaker 2: and of itself. Okay. Let's go ahead and take a break.
- 21:29Speaker 2: And here's the story I want to share with you.
- 21:32Speaker 2: You want to join a country club? It used to be,
- 21:34Speaker 2: you had to be white. You had to be male.
- 21:37Speaker 2: You had to want to golf. and sit around in
- 21:42Speaker 2: a country club setting with those country club chairs, drinking
- 21:46Speaker 2: that whiskey, smoking that cigar, and that's changed completely. Now,
- 21:50Speaker 2: kids are wanted by these country clubs. Smaller chairs, smaller cigars,
- 21:57Speaker 2: and kid-size, these little glasses of whiskey. Tell you about
- 22:02Speaker 2: that when we return.
- 22:04Speaker 3: You're listening to Bill Handel, On Demand from KFI AM640.
- 22:12Speaker 2: Starting Monday, it'll be my voter guide telling you how
- 22:17Speaker 2: I'm voting and that you cannot vote that way or
- 22:19Speaker 2: you should not. And that's on Monday. We're waiting for
- 22:23Speaker 2: the election a week from Tuesday. Tuesday is also a
- 22:26Speaker 2: big day in Israel. Major vote in Israel to see
- 22:30Speaker 2: if Benjamin Netanyahu is going to stay in power as
- 22:33Speaker 2: prime minister. So a lot going on today. So let
- 22:36Speaker 2: me tell you a story about having been in England.
- 22:40Speaker 2: I'm a real Anglophile and I've been to London a
- 22:43Speaker 2: bunch of times. And a couple of times through friends,
- 22:45Speaker 2: I was invited to the old gentleman's club, country club
- 22:50Speaker 2: kind of thing. where you sit around in these club chairs,
- 22:55Speaker 2: you know, the leather chairs, these wing chairs, and you
- 22:59Speaker 2: drink good whiskey, and you have cigars, and the waiters
- 23:04Speaker 2: are in mourning coats, you know, the tails and the, oh,
- 23:08Speaker 2: and the glove, the white gloves, I mean, it's spectacular.
- 23:10Speaker 2: Only men are allowed, of course, women are not allowed,
- 23:13Speaker 2: and you had to be, not only men, white men,
- 23:16Speaker 2: rich white men, And so the United States, the country
- 23:19Speaker 2: club model tried to follow that. Not quite. But it
- 23:23Speaker 2: was white men who were allowed in and it was
- 23:28Speaker 2: the traditional fare. It was golf and it was a
- 23:32Speaker 2: restaurant and not too much else happened. And it was
- 23:35Speaker 2: men who who participated. It was a lot of money
- 23:38Speaker 2: to get in and a lot of money in monthly dues. OK,
- 23:42Speaker 2: so that has blown wide open. As a matter of fact,
- 23:45Speaker 2: another quick country club story in L.A. Country Club, one
- 23:49Speaker 2: of the oldest, which is in the Hancock Park area,
- 23:53Speaker 2: is you talk about old school, only white men, only
- 23:58Speaker 2: rich white men originally, no Jews. That's a given. No
- 24:03Speaker 2: African-Americans or Mexicans, the only African-American or Hispanics. You saw
- 24:07Speaker 2: their work there. No actors were allowed in. No Catholics
- 24:11Speaker 2: were allowed in. So that's when a bunch of these
- 24:15Speaker 2: Jewish moguls, movie moguls, you know, the people that own studios,
- 24:20Speaker 2: who had, of course, more money than God, opened up Riverside,
- 24:24Speaker 2: their own country club. And this is Groucho Marx, who
- 24:28Speaker 2: couldn't get into the LA Country Club, was asked to
- 24:31Speaker 2: join Riverside, and this is where he famously said, I
- 24:35Speaker 2: will never join a country club that would let me in.
- 24:38Speaker 2: I'm just not interested. So what is going on with
- 24:41Speaker 2: the modern country club? Well, it's blown wide open. It
- 24:46Speaker 2: is no longer old school. Even the old school ones,
- 24:50Speaker 2: like there is a club in Florida, the Florida Yacht Club,
- 24:55Speaker 2: has renovated itself. And this is going on throughout the country.
- 24:59Speaker 2: New restaurants, pickleball courts, tennis courts, enlarges swimming pools, swimming
- 25:05Speaker 2: lessons for the kids, kids areas. That's a new model
- 25:09Speaker 2: of country clubs. And since COVID and since the Great Recession,
- 25:12Speaker 2: the amount of money that it took to join a
- 25:14Speaker 2: country club has dropped drastically. The average used to be
- 25:19Speaker 2: $ 60, 000 to join the clubs. Now it's $ 30, 000 to join
- 25:23Speaker 2: the clubs. And in some cases, when they need members,
- 25:27Speaker 2: it's absolutely free. There are, I remember when I was
- 25:30Speaker 2: in Las Vegas and I was going to buy a
- 25:33Speaker 2: house there and they said included in this house, in
- 25:36Speaker 2: this community is free membership to the country club. You
- 25:39Speaker 2: didn't have to pay entrance dues. There aren't too many
- 25:42Speaker 2: clubs left that pay full tilt. Now there are a
- 25:45Speaker 2: couple that go the other way. For example, Club 33
- 25:49Speaker 2: at Disneyland, which is something, it's what a 20 year
- 25:53Speaker 2: wait to get in something completely insane and It's, what,
- 25:59Speaker 2: $ 100, 000 to join the club just to be able to
- 26:01Speaker 2: walk in the door? Yeah, that one's pretty well regarded.
- 26:06Speaker 2: But those are very few and far between, to say
- 26:09Speaker 2: the least. So you can join a country club. There
- 26:11Speaker 2: are no longer the country clubs that we think of
- 26:14Speaker 2: as country clubs. They're now family clubs. And it's kind
- 26:18Speaker 2: of neat. And golf is, well, golf is still a
- 26:22Speaker 2: big deal. Only the other thing is you can pay
- 26:24Speaker 2: different fees, right? If you're a golfer, you pay one fee.
- 26:28Speaker 2: And if you don't play golf and just want to
- 26:29Speaker 2: use the tennis courts and the swimming pool, you pay
- 26:31Speaker 2: another fee. And I've been to a few of these
- 26:33Speaker 2: country clubs. The food is great. The food is reasonably priced.
- 26:37Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun. It's fun sitting around. Well,
- 26:40Speaker 2: you can also use it for parties, for birthday parties.
- 26:43Speaker 2: They have event rooms. There's a lot too many of them. Yeah,
- 26:47Speaker 2: I mean, you could sit around with, you know, other
- 26:50Speaker 2: rich white people and talk about how society is going
- 26:54Speaker 2: to hell in a handbasket because women can vote. And
- 26:57Speaker 2: it's equality across the country. We don't want that anymore.
- 27:00Speaker 2: Or we still want that. And you're a dying breed. Okay.
- 27:04Speaker 2: Are we done with this? We are. Yeah. Coming up,
- 27:07Speaker 2: it's Foodie Friday. And Neil and I, of course, of course,
- 27:11Speaker 2: are diving into food, which we do every Friday. This
- 27:14Speaker 2: is KFI AM 640.
- 27:17Speaker 1: You've been listening to The Bill Handel Show. Catch my
- 27:19Speaker 1: show Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and
- 27:22Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.