Alan Kahn and Dana Austin

[00:00] ALAN KAHN: Hey Dana.

[00:01] SPEAKER B: Hi.

[00:03] DANA AUSTIN: My understanding is we're supposed to read each other's bios before we start.

[00:07] ALAN KAHN: That's right.

[00:08] DANA AUSTIN: I'm sure yours is incomplete as mine is. So yeah, we'll get to know each other.

[00:15] ALAN KAHN: So yeah, sure. Happy to read yours first. Marine Corps veteran, Sergeant, I keep myself extremely fit. My grandpa taught me to shoot. at age 10. I have two full CDs of original music online. My YouTube channel is live performance videos, recordings of live performances, studio work and some silly stuff. I truly enjoy the food of many cultures. I arranged my daughter's marriage to a man from India. Kidding. My son-in-law is from India, engineer by day, gourmet Indian chef by night. Happy me. I enjoy reading, boating, plain old worm fishing. You've got a BA and a BS and an MPA and you're 70. Congratulations, man. That's very, very impressive.

[01:03] DANA AUSTIN: Just had my birthday. Somehow they got me scheduled on, on my birthday, #### ####, and I'd had to write to the partner and say, I'm sorry, but I've got stuff going on on that. I don't have any idea how the 22nd got in there. Okay, I, unfortunately, oh. well, you'll still be able to see me. I have to scroll up a little bit to. Yeah, yours. Okay. Whoops. Come back here. There we go. All righty. Antris, seeing live music and sports. Mariners baseball. I I was a big fan of the Nationals until they sold out watching irreverent dark comedies and dramas. like. And I don't know these AP bio, Mo and severance walking my dog in parks and on beaches. I miss my little dog. I've been teaching high school in English for more than 30 years in an urban area and have been exposed to people of many different, many of them different than my own. My father was a Holocaust Survivor and His father was a victim of the Nazis. I have family in Holland and Israel, and I am proud of my heritage, though not very religious. I am socially liberal, but believe in free market capitalism, although I have a problem with our tax system being tilted too much toward the rich. That sounds about right.

[02:40] SPEAKER B: So.

[02:41] ALAN KAHN: All right. What do you want to talk about Dana?

[02:44] DANA AUSTIN: Well, I want to talk about my Jewish relatives because it's really kind of a long story. But I'll try to keep it short. When I was 26 or so.

[03:00] SPEAKER B: And.

[03:00] DANA AUSTIN: My wife and I were sitting in my mother's living room and she said, well, I have something to tell you. that the dad I grew up with was sterile childhood moms back then. And so when they were living in Connecticut, there was a doctor who was helping women get pregnant. The donors were Yale medical students. And of course, back then, they had no idea about DNA, at least the very vague notion of it. So here comes 23andMe. My sister and I joined and it correctly identified us as half siblings, different bio dads. The unexpected thing is that we found half siblings in different places. They had used the, you know, they had used our donors for multiple pregnancies.

[04:12] SPEAKER B: Yep.

[04:13] DANA AUSTIN: The, of the turkey baster variety. Anyway, so I have two half brothers and two half sisters, one of whom I grew up with, and my new patent, they're both named Amy. which is kind of funny. My new Amy is Jewish, and there was a great or great great aunt who's a Holocaust survivor, moved to Israel, had a parcel of children herself, and now there's more and now there's more. So I actually have blood relatives. I've never met or spoken with in Israel, which I think is pretty cool. So anyway, after the, the Hamas attack, I was getting, she was forwarding first-hand accounts of what was. And there were a lot of, a lot of people, especially older people, never again. Right. They didn't believe. It had happened. So, and other stories like, they spent a lot of time in bomb shelters.

[05:31] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[05:32] DANA AUSTIN: And they, there's one story of.

[05:38] SPEAKER B: There.

[05:38] DANA AUSTIN: Were a lot of, a lot of the men were called up. And there are the mothers and children. and as the missiles went overhead, they were singing to calm the children down. So that was one of my favorite stories from that. Anyway, so that's my weird.

[05:58] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, that. That's a fascinating story. I mean, you know, I did my ancestry, too, and super boring. 100 European Jewish. No, you know. Cheyenne or, you know, no black, you know, grandparent or so that great grandparent, pretty, pretty standard stuff for, for, yeah, an American Jew. So, yeah, so, yeah, I, I don't have a funky story like that. I like that, though. And it's pretty, pretty amazing.

[06:32] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[06:32] ALAN KAHN: In Israel, I think they've got one of the highest sort of birth rates. in the entire world. I think it's just a thing that you do as an Israeli Jew and more, most Orthodox people in this country, it's just like you have a bunch of kids. It's kind of like, I don't think it's like as big as like commonly with, you know, used to be with Catholics and then Mormons and things like that, just having loads and loads of kids. But, you know, birth rate's pretty high. So I have the same as you just, you know, my uncle who, who moved to Israel after World War II, after having hidden throughout the war. and managing to survive.

[07:11] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[07:12] ALAN KAHN: Moved to Israel, helped to found the state in, you know, 47 and 48.

[07:16] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[07:17] ALAN KAHN: And had, had daughters and daughters got married. And, boy, yeah, that's the biggest part of my family over there over here. For, you know, whatever reasons, people had zero to two kids. I I I've got two kids. I'm the biggest reproducer in our family, which is kind of insane, but whatever. You lustful thing, you. Yes, yes. So tell me a little bit more about your Indian son-in-law and that whole thing and how that all went down.

[07:56] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, I don't have, I mean, it took him six years to become a United States citizen. So I have really no sympathy for people who jump the line. Irene really no sympathy. He did it the right way. and I'm proud of him. And I really, he's a good man, a great cook. He's a good man. Really good man. I'm proud to have him as my son-in-law. And she, he and my daughter have three beautiful biracial granddaughters for me.

[08:32] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[08:33] DANA AUSTIN: So that's fun. So there's all of my relatives there. My son is not married. And I've got a cousin with whom I keep in touch. And there are some other ones that we don't know about somewhere around. Yeah.

[08:48] ALAN KAHN: And, you know, the guidance on one small step is that we should be doing these Preparatory questions. But since you touched upon it, touched upon the subject of immigration, I would love to hear more about your point of view. I mean, am I right that you live in Texas?

[09:04] DANA AUSTIN: Oh, no, Central Virginia.

[09:07] ALAN KAHN: Central Virginia. Okay.

[09:08] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[09:09] DANA AUSTIN: My career was in Washington, DC. So I tell people that I moved from rural Pennsylvania to rural Virginia by way of 30 years in DC.

[09:20] ALAN KAHN: Oh, my word. Okay. All right. Well, maybe we could talk a little bit more about your points of view on, on immigration. I mean, you know, like I said in what has my BIOS, is my dad immigrated to this country during World War II. He was 17 and was basically put on a boat and for various and complicated reasons, you know, he had to leave his family behind. His father was taken and murdered by the Nazis. And at that point, my grandmother, my uncle and my aunt all went into hiding. But my dad because of some money changing hands and other complicated bits of wizardry managed to get on this book to Cuba because he couldn't get into the US because there was quota, you know, for Jews. You know, at that time, you know, Jews were among the undesirable groups, I think, as far as, you know, feeling at the time, which is, you know, that changes, right? So he had to stay in Cuba and finish high school there. And then only reason he was allowed in the states was because he joined the army. He tried to join the US army, but he had flat feet, so they wouldn't let him in. So he had to join the Dutch army, which was operating out of Canada. So he kind of transited through the United States and ended up joining and serving with the Dutch army through to the liberation of Holland. At which point, he was fortunate enough to find his his mother and siblings had survived. And then, after all was settled, you know, the family split up is his brother went to Israel. And he decided to come back to the states and went to school, you know, University of California, Berkeley, got a physics degree and, and, end up becoming an engineer for working with the Air Force and sending satellites up into space in the early part of the space program and all that kind of good stuff. so, you know, my dad was an immigrant. I generally have pretty positive feelings about, you know, if people need to leave, you know, war-torn countries and if they're being persecuted and whatnot, I, I have a general pretty open feeling like, hey, yeah, bring them in. You know, that's the lifeblood of, of this, of this wonderful country, is that we're one of the few in the world that has this kind of crazy mishmash of multicultural and we attract, you know, the brightest, most talented people, the hardest working people from all over the world. And I understand your, your idea about jumping the line. And I, I totally sympathize with that. And the reason why I asked if you're a Texan was because, you know, obviously people live in border states have a completely different, you know, point of view because it affects them in a way that doesn't affect Certainly, you know, me, we're up by the Canadian border. Or, you know, you probably less so, but maybe you do have plenty of Latinos and other immigrants in your area.

[12:28] DANA AUSTIN: I don't think so.

[12:29] ALAN KAHN: Just curious what your thoughts are, if you want to jump in on that.

[12:32] DANA AUSTIN: People who are fleeing.

[12:37] SPEAKER B: Death.

[12:40] DANA AUSTIN: They have my sympathy too. my solution. Now, we used to have the draft. I don't know if people still have to register for it.

[12:50] ALAN KAHN: They do.

[12:50] SPEAKER B: And.

[12:51] DANA AUSTIN: But I have absolutely no qualms about drafting maybe 2, 000 lawyers and 500 judges to process the people who are. You know what I mean? I just. If they're just sneaking into the country, that's one thing. If they're fleeing gangs and violent government and all of that, I'm absolutely sympathetic. I don't want to send them back. But the lawyers and the judges will have to determine if they're faking it or you know, whatever. There are lots of countries where you're just going to say, yeah, -huh, you are. So, yeah, I, I, didn't express that part of my, of my lack of sympathy. I do have.

[13:50] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, sure. So, so what's your take on the whole, you know, Trump administration's immigration policy?

[14:00] DANA AUSTIN: Well, again, they don't have the 2,000 lawyers and 500 judges that, and so they're leaving a lot of people in limbo. I'm sure the people who are seeking asylum really don't want to be flown back to their own country.

[14:22] SPEAKER B: So.

[14:25] DANA AUSTIN: The pendulum has swung too far.

[14:28] ALAN KAHN: I think.

[14:29] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[14:30] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, I'd agree with that.

[14:32] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[14:32] ALAN KAHN: Some of, some of the things they're doing, like flying them to third countries or, you know, they put them those El Salvadorian that lock up and some of them turned out to be, like, gay hairdressers who, you know, happen to have a tattoo that somebody mistook as a, you know, MS-13 tattoo that I think, you know, yeah, that's craziness, you know, you know, those people are going to get Yeah.

[14:55] DANA AUSTIN: Hand up the criminals and send them to the worst possible country.

[14:59] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[15:02] ALAN KAHN: Right, right. Can you tell me a little bit about your service, about what it was like being a Marine and where and when you served?

[15:12] DANA AUSTIN: Sure. Saigon fell when I was in boot camp. That was a bit of a trigger for the drill instructors. And they pretty much beat hell out of all of us. And if somebody needed medical attention, you fell in the head. And we all would fill out an accident report saying the private fell in the head. Until one time, even the drill instructor was shocked by what he did and sent the person straight down to sick bay. and of course, he didn't say he fell into a drill instructor. Just beat the crap out of me. There was a. A court Marshal, and that drill instructor who was probably on his way to Gunnery Sergeant was busted to private. And he was still there. As we were graduating, we had to walk by him. That was the drag.

[16:11] SPEAKER B: So.

[16:13] DANA AUSTIN: And after that, of course, we were known as the alligator platoon. because we made allegations.

[16:23] SPEAKER B: So.

[16:23] DANA AUSTIN: And then sometime after that was the official last battle of the Vietnam War, my house. But so I was supposed to be a radio operator. And back then, the radio was prick 25, which has like a eight foot antenna. And so Vietnamese or Vietcong snipers. knew that the lieutenant was right in front of that. And they, and they knew, you know, all I had to do was go like this. So it was not the, the greatest job, though it, I didn't end up having to go into combat with a prick 25 on my back. And I guess what a lot of radio operators did then was Loop the antenna. It didn't work quite as well, but you could still communicate, so.

[17:14] SPEAKER B: A little.

[17:16] DANA AUSTIN: Didn't get shot at nearly as much. Lost a few friends, older people, older guys.

[17:28] SPEAKER B: And.

[17:30] DANA AUSTIN: Lost a bunch of self proclaimed big brothers and or uncles. They're friends of my father's. they were all gay or bi and they all died of AIDS. Oh, well, except for one who was in a committed relationship. He's still alive. He's 80 something at this point. But, yeah, I mean, I had a lot of fun with them. They all lived in New York City, you know, and so I'd go up to visit my dad and they. My parents were. and he wanted nothing more than to get back to New York City. They lived in Brooklyn for a while before they moved to State College, Pennsylvania, where Penn State is. And yeah, so he was dean of students at New Paltz, and then he had a job lined up in New York, and New York went broke. but he stayed there anyway. He got into an apartment that became rent controlled. So it was a studio apartment, but as late as 2005, he was still paying something like 650 a month. Rent.

[18:52] ALAN KAHN: Yeah.

[18:52] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[18:53] ALAN KAHN: Rent control.

[18:55] DANA AUSTIN: Really ready for him to move out. The place had gone. There were like two or three people in the building who didn't. didn't buy, so.

[19:07] SPEAKER B: All right. Wow.

[19:08] ALAN KAHN: What a story. You know, my dad was a radio. A radio guy, too.

[19:11] DANA AUSTIN: Okay.

[19:12] ALAN KAHN: That was his job. Yeah, he was a radio man. I don't know the name of the radio back in those days, but, yeah, so he served with the Dutch Army, which was a 1500 man group that was in support of the Canadians. After D-Day they. They landed with, after the Canadians and. and supported them as they marched north up to Holland through Battle of the Bulge. So he never served in combat, but he had to carry a sidearm because, you know, during the Battle of the Bulge, they parachuted down and be ready for that. So luckily, yeah, he never got shot at. But yeah, you know, service is service and I thank you for it. And it sounds like that. that boot camp was pretty rough stuff. And that sounds terrible to watch somebody who's allegedly instructing you, beating the crap out of people and making y'all lie. And then you have to suffer the alligator platoon, you know, name because you're trying to do the right thing. Yeah, that's problematic.

[20:20] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, that was. That was kind of a drag, but, yeah. Yeah, honestly, I still have a couple of friends from then. And my best buddy during my enlistment came to visit a few years, I mean, we kept in touch, came to visit with his daughter and told me that he was in the process of becoming Jenny instead of John. And I thought, well, that's fine with me, you know? Yeah, it was fine with his kid, his daughter, and it was, you know, he thought it would be awkward and I thought it was just fine. So he was very relieved about that. Now, I was an executive in the Postal Service at Postal Headquarters. and another executive, two offices down.

[21:23] SPEAKER B: Came.

[21:24] DANA AUSTIN: Into my office to, you know, say that she was going to go through the transition. And she felt, well, I'll talk to the Marine first because he'll be a hard sell on this. And so, so she came in and. you know, sort of slowly got around to the fact that she was.

[21:50] SPEAKER B: Going.

[21:51] DANA AUSTIN: To go through the transition.

[21:53] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[21:53] DANA AUSTIN: And I say, well, you know, that's, that's fine with me. And you really should meet and talk to my friend Jenny. She's, wasn't she going to be Jenny as well? I mean, it was a riot, so. as far as I was concerned, as soon as I said my friend Jenny, she said, well, okay, and got up and left. She was like, all shook up. It was funny.

[22:17] SPEAKER B: So.

[22:18] ALAN KAHN: Wow.

[22:19] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[22:20] ALAN KAHN: So you sound, you know, way more open to, you know, gay folks and trans folks than, you know, most, you know, conservative that I would think. So you're kind of surprising me.

[22:35] SPEAKER B: So.

[22:35] ALAN KAHN: So it seems like you've earned it through just knowing people. I guess that's the problem when you don't know somebody, then you can draw all sorts of crazy, you know, abstract, you know, conclusions that just bear no basis on reality.

[22:50] DANA AUSTIN: Or hatreds, you know, or, you know, animosity or, you know.

[22:54] SPEAKER B: Right. Yeah.

[22:59] DANA AUSTIN: It was just the way I grew up. I mean, I was 14, 15 years old when I met these guys. and we smoked an awful lot of pot in the late 60s. And, you know, my father was. He actually started smoking cigarettes briefly so he wouldn't cough so much when he was smoking a doobie.

[23:21] SPEAKER B: And.

[23:23] DANA AUSTIN: I got good with that. But my. His famous phrase was, this doesn't affect me as he was going down. anyway.

[23:37] ALAN KAHN: It was much weaker back then, man. Oh, yeah.

[23:40] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[23:41] ALAN KAHN: Try this stuff these days.

[23:43] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[23:44] DANA AUSTIN: This is not your. Your dad's marijuana.

[23:48] ALAN KAHN: No, Lord, no. It's. Yeah, it's very scientifically produced for total impact.

[23:56] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah.

[23:57] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[24:01] ALAN KAHN: So, you know, just to bring him back to the political briefly, just, you know, what do you make of the idea, the way that trans people have been kind of used as sort of a political football, you know, in these modern days? Because, boy, it was successful for Trump to get him elected. I mean, that ad that he had, about, you know, Kamala Harris is for they and them and Trump is for you. You know, I thought that was a, an amazing piece of advertising. But unfortunately, you know, at the cost of, you know, the, the lives and, and safety of a lot of trans people, it seems like they kind of became, you know, along with, with illegal immigrants kind of a real punching bag. And to me, it kind of sounds like we might agree on this one. That's real unfortunate.

[25:01] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, I think woke went way too far, became weaponized, canceled culture. It was, oh gosh, I can't think of his name right now. Kind of like John Stewart only. I always on the right his name anyway, but he, he's the guy who says new rule all the time.

[25:27] ALAN KAHN: Oh, yeah. Bill Maher.

[25:28] DANA AUSTIN: Thank you. Yeah, Bill. And, and so he started going through his, his riff on, on cancel culture and, and politics and stuff, and he, and he said basically, and, you know, something about Abe Lincoln, you know, but he's canceled. So him. Yeah, it was a riot. So he's very funny and very on point.

[25:53] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[25:53] ALAN KAHN: I'm a fan of Bill Maher, too. Some of my, my liberal brethren and including my wife are not big fans because they feel like he. He tells me he's an asshole.

[26:06] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[26:07] ALAN KAHN: And he is an asshole, but in a good way. I mean, I think he kind of cuts through the cuts through the BS.

[26:14] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[26:14] DANA AUSTIN: He, he says, this is what you guys are doing wrong. It's as simple as, you know, that's why people are voting with their feet, as he said. And it was going through, you know, California is going to lose some, you know, like three seats and so on, you know, and, you know, and they're going to Red States.

[26:34] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[26:35] DANA AUSTIN: Where they'll gain seats and Yeah, he said, you know, can't you guys see what's going on? Yeah, you're just not meeting, you know, meeting the right people.

[26:46] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[26:47] DANA AUSTIN: And again, I was, I was a Democrat back, back when my wife and I both, and we registered Republican so we could vote against Reagan twice, once in the primary and once in the general. I just never bothered to, never bothered to change, though I think my knees are, are more, I think on the little scale that they did, I was, yeah, just, you know, not halfway between, you know, a right-wing fanatic and a middle of the, you know, middle of the road swing.

[27:25] ALAN KAHN: Yeah.

[27:25] SPEAKER B: So.

[27:27] ALAN KAHN: So you voted against Reagan that first time in 80, right? How about an 84? What'd you vote for?

[27:36] DANA AUSTIN: I was impressed with him personally being well spoken and quite funny, but he had a bunch of really good people supporting him and I ended up voting for him in the second time around.

[27:52] ALAN KAHN: And then from then on, did you kind of stick with the Republicans more or less?

[27:55] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, you know, I'm... well, you've heard there are a lot of things that a lot of conservative people are uncomfortable with. Those aren't, you know, those aren't my things. And nobody, you know, I have this great idea. Let's, you know, put into service in a rotation 2000 lawyers and 500 judges. And they just haven't taken me up on it yet. So.

[28:26] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, lawyers are pretty good at fighting. such things as draft notices.

[28:31] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[28:33] ALAN KAHN: But I like, I like the spirit of it because it needs to get done. I mean, well, we could even pay them.

[28:39] DANA AUSTIN: I mean, you know.

[28:40] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[28:42] DANA AUSTIN: Lawyer makes a million dollars a year. 2000 of them becomes, you know, whatever. We'll pay you your, yeah, you know, your rate.

[28:51] ALAN KAHN: Did you hear how much the, the Marines and the National Guard going into LA cost? it was some absurd number, like 100 million or something like that. And it's just like, man, I think that could have been used in better ways. But, you know, that's only little old me, you know, not a decision maker.

[29:13] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[29:15] ALAN KAHN: So, yeah, you live in a purple state. You kind of sound like a pretty purple person.

[29:19] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[29:20] DANA AUSTIN: I would say I, I don't always vote Republican. And, and one of the other partners I had said, well, I generally vote Democrat, but I'm not always pleased with the person I'm voting for.

[29:34] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, for sure.

[29:36] DANA AUSTIN: And, yeah, that kind of made sense to me. And another one did 20 years in the Dutch Navy.

[29:43] ALAN KAHN: Oh, no kidding.

[29:44] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, no kidding. And, and so I haven't spoken with, with that person yet, but I thought it was, uh, a very interesting. So, you know, I'm looking forward to hearing.

[29:57] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, so maybe what we could do is just sort of like, maybe return to that opening question, which, you know, what is your thought in wanting to do these conversations? And is this your first one?

[30:09] DANA AUSTIN: No, no, I've had a couple. One was with an author who wrote a couple of books about what was the title? It was something like a bargain. I've got the book over there. Not kept for black people. And there was another book along the same lines. And we had a really interesting conversation. wheelchair bound. So it was kind of funny. It was a little late getting into the, getting into the conversation.

[30:57] SPEAKER B: And.

[30:59] DANA AUSTIN: You know, we had, we had a good talk because, again, you know, I'm not denying that there are serious still, you know, problems. Yeah, racially, not like maybe it was. Jim Crow days, but no, you know, there are still, and then another, and he was black, another, I listened to the conservative blacks as well. And John McWhorter is, yeah, I just started his book, Woke Racism. and they are, they are generally speaking, they're talking about infantilizing blacks.

[31:51] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[31:51] DANA AUSTIN: And make, you know, sort of well-meaning white people is the way they put it.

[31:58] ALAN KAHN: So interesting.

[31:59] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[32:00] ALAN KAHN: I like his columns. I've never read any of his books, but interesting.

[32:05] DANA AUSTIN: He doesn't write about that sort of thing all the time.

[32:08] ALAN KAHN: You know, yeah, he writes a lot about grammar and language use and things like that. You know, of course, as an English teacher, I find that fascinating.

[32:16] DANA AUSTIN: That was my BA.

[32:19] ALAN KAHN: Oh, no kidding.

[32:21] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[32:23] DANA AUSTIN: I was in the honors program in English at Penn State, and I just happened to hit it just right in terms of the professors who were who were there, one of the editors of the Riverside Shakespeare, a man named Paul West, who one time a reviewer in the Washington Post said, and we shall all despair of ever writing you know, that kind of prose.

[33:04] SPEAKER B: And.

[33:06] DANA AUSTIN: The big scandal was when.

[33:10] SPEAKER B: He.

[33:10] DANA AUSTIN: Was there the first time, he ended up in a relationship with, I think, an undergrad, maybe a grad student, and you probably know this name, Diane Ackerman.

[33:24] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[33:25] DANA AUSTIN: So they were lifelong partners. no, no, just recently, I believe she's still around, so. Yeah, neat. Anyway, so I'm sorry. I I didn't see the questions, so you'll have to.

[33:42] ALAN KAHN: Oh, yeah, they got the questions in a little pain, you know, a little bubble underneath the video on me, but whatever, we can ask them questions or we can talk about whatever we want. I mean.

[33:54] DANA AUSTIN: Oh, I see.

[33:55] ALAN KAHN: Tell me, tell me, I'm curious what, what you think. And again, you know, you're probably not your typical Republican, but what do you think about this whole, like, all the, the cuts that have been done? I mean, you worked in the Postal Service, you know, so you understand, you know, government work and government employee employment and all that, like, all the cuts that have been happening. you live in Virginia, of course, it must really affect a lot of people in that area. What's your take on that, you know, cutting the bureaucracy, the Doge thing and whatnot, and, you know, killing off some of the, gosh, some of the agencies, you know, Department of Education is basically being cut to nothing. And yeah, what's your take on that?

[34:44] DANA AUSTIN: Reagan said the same thing. Yeah, basically it was created by Jimmy Carter and it's never really done any good. It's, you know, the academic prowess has been going down and down and down.

[35:03] SPEAKER B: And.

[35:05] DANA AUSTIN: So the Department of Education is just, you know, is pointless. So they didn't really destroy any of the programs it covered. They moved the food subsidies to.

[35:23] SPEAKER B: Ag.

[35:24] DANA AUSTIN: Ag, yeah. Basically they're still there, but the big thing is returning.

[35:39] SPEAKER B: School.

[35:41] DANA AUSTIN: Public school to the states. And not all states are created equal.

[35:47] ALAN KAHN: So that's for darn sure.

[35:50] SPEAKER B: But.

[35:53] DANA AUSTIN: You know, we'll see what happens, you know, that's all we can do.

[36:02] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. and how about the cuts of like, you know, the PEPFAR program? Well, I guess they maybe have saved that, but, you know, the foreign relief programs and the, and, you know, the diplomats around the world, I guess they, they sent a whole bunch of people home, like 1400 or something like that, Personnel from overseas and. you know, do you think that those kind of cuts are, you know, good or not? I'm just curious what you think about that.

[36:38] DANA AUSTIN: Well, of course, the embassies are rife with CIA. So I don't know whom he's sending home. I, and I doubt we'll ever be privy to that information. The diplomacy in the Trump administration is interesting. I just, you know, I don't know what to Make of it. I'm not privy to, you know, the the thinking. I mean, he does have some decent advisors until they say something bad about him and they get fired.

[37:28] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, but.

[37:32] DANA AUSTIN: Yeah, I. One of my. My songs. Are you familiar with the style invitational? Used to be in the Washington Post. Oh, okay. Well, it gets quoted every once in a while incorrectly about, you know, the. people making all these jokes about, you know, they're given subjects and then you have to make up something silly. But I wrote a song, sort of a protest song, after the first Trump's first presidency.

[38:09] SPEAKER B: And.

[38:11] DANA AUSTIN: The funny thing is, that people on the left side of the spectrum thought I was making fun of the Republicans and people on the right side of the spectrum thought I was making fun of the Democrats.

[38:24] ALAN KAHN: That means you're doing the right thing. Yeah.

[38:28] SPEAKER B: So.

[38:29] DANA AUSTIN: And, you know, it was, it was meant to be humorous, of course. But anyway, I, every once in a while, style invitational would have a, you know, basically take a popular song, change the words and and here's your subject.

[38:43] ALAN KAHN: Fun.

[38:44] DANA AUSTIN: And the woman who was in charge, the Empress at that point, was what she was called Jean Weingarten, was the first person who ran that. Anyway, she said, this is the first time I've ever given ink to an original song. So that was kind of cool.

[39:06] SPEAKER B: Fun.

[39:06] ALAN KAHN: Fun. So, do you have any questions for me or anything else you'd like to talk about? We got about 10 minutes left, so.

[39:15] DANA AUSTIN: Well, let's see. I did find the thing at the bottom, so it says next. Okay, well, this one is, you know, was there a moment you witnessed or experienced that most influenced your political beliefs?

[39:33] ALAN KAHN: That'S fascinating to think about. You know, I would say my political beliefs were founded very much on my parents' experience in the depression. So, you know, my, my mom's parents were refugees from Russia and Romania that came in the early part of the 20th century. And, you know, my grandfather was a, was a pharmacist and managed to Make it through the depression, you know, being a pharmacist in, in the Bronx in New York. And, you know, so fortunately, they did not have to live in the, the kind of poverty that people had to live back in those these days because of the Dust Bowl and, of course, the market crashing and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, I really am a believer in, you know, that I disagree with, with Ronald Reagan's idea that, you know, the worst, the worst thing you can hear is I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Yeah, I think that the government, government can do an awful lot of good and you know, this idea that Grover Norquist had that government should be reduced to the point that you can drown it in a bathtub. I, I really, really disagree with that. I think government has a lot of good to do. So as far as, you know, personal experiences, I would say, you know, you know, I, you know, I was in college in the 80s, and, you know, I witnessed and to some degree took part in, uh, kind of protests on the college campus back then against South Africa, against the apartheid regime there. And to me, you know, that had a righteousness to it because I felt like, you know, there's a country where 10% of, you know, the population is, you know, savagely oppressing the 90%. and that's not right. And, you know, things should be reversed. And what do you know, things did peaceably reverse. And Nelson Mandela came into power and, you know, that seemed to have a happy ending. So in, in general, I believe in peaceful protests and I believe in, you know, economic. Pro, you know, you know, forces being applied to be able to make changes to to foreign and domestic policy. I do, you know, struggle a bit with some of the college protests that have been happening today. Obviously, I've got a dog in that fight being having family in Israel and feeling somewhat defensive of their position. But I do feel like kids have the right to protest and and, and, and stay, say stupid stuff or say stuff that is just comes from a righteousness that you have when you're young and you think you know everything and you see the world in absolutes and you see an oppressed people and you want to protect them, even though you don't know crap about them. But I feel like, gosh, the way that they've come down on some of these universities, I'm, I I think it's terrible because They're ending up taking money away from those universities that needs to be used for cancer research and whatnot. And they're calling it in the name of anti-Semitism, which I think is a thing, but not a reason to take $200 million away from Columbia University. And so, I would say, I believe in free speech. you know, cancel culture is one thing, but cancel culture is nothing like what's being done to these universities right now and to these, to these, you know, to CBS News, you know, the Paramount and all that kind of stuff. I feel like what's happening right now is just so well beyond anything you could tag on cancel culture that it's really bordering on autocratic, so. You know, I wouldn't say I have one experience, but I just, you know, I've been fortunate enough to live a pretty, pretty easy life in comparison to anything my parents went through. So I feel like I kind of took their experiences and added on a little bit of my own eyewitness stuff. But, you know, how about you? Did you feel like you have a an experience that kind of sent you on a political path?

[44:21] DANA AUSTIN: I really don't have an event.

[44:28] SPEAKER B: That.

[44:28] DANA AUSTIN: Set me on a path. There was a lot of contact with a lot of World War II veterans in my family, the same way they you know, lived through the stock crash and the depression.

[44:51] SPEAKER B: And.

[44:55] DANA AUSTIN: They didn't, they didn't waste anything. I was working with a man around our house. We were doing stuff for, you know, upkeep, basically. And we came inside, had a glass of orange juice.

[45:12] SPEAKER B: And.

[45:13] DANA AUSTIN: He put his glass under the tap after he finished it just to make sure there was no orange juice wasted. You know what I mean? It was sort of interesting. Was that a. Was that a. That buzzer? A warning or a. Yeah, it's a.

[45:29] ALAN KAHN: Five minutes left thing.

[45:31] DANA AUSTIN: Okay.

[45:31] ALAN KAHN: And then after the time elapses, they give you basically 10 minutes of thank you time. So we still got at least five minutes of recorded. Well, for four minutes.

[45:41] DANA AUSTIN: I'd best tell you about my father's World War II experience. My parents were both musicians. My mother, piano forte at the New England Conservatory. And my father was opera. And so when World War II started, they said, well, you know, with your opera experience, you probably could learn Italian easily. They put them in an Italian language program so he could be an interpreter. But before you know, he finished that program, Italy conceded basically. They said, what in the heck are we gonna do with you now? And well, you know, any music major has to learn keyboards. so he ended up spending the rest of World War II Island hopping, but not in the combat way. He was accompanying famous singers who would, you know, go up for the troops and, yeah, I was never issued any ammunition, so he was out there with some, you know, some sort of pump thing, you know, with keyboard fun.

[47:08] ALAN KAHN: Wow.

[47:09] DANA AUSTIN: So if you're gonna do World War II, that's probably the way to do it, you know?

[47:13] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[47:16] ALAN KAHN: So it was he doing, like, USO tours or.

[47:19] DANA AUSTIN: I I got the impression that it was more smaller. units who were, you know, off the, off the front lines, R&R or whatever. It wasn't like one of those huge things with Bob Hope and.

[47:39] ALAN KAHN: Right, right, right.

[47:40] DANA AUSTIN: It was a little more intimate than that, you know, company Battalion and something, you know, they were, you know, not actually engaged in combat at that point.

[47:54] SPEAKER B: Yeah. Yeah.

[47:56] DANA AUSTIN: And, you know, and then his dad was a sooner. He was a lad. He was born late 1800s, so, you know, ####. He was on one side of the Arkansas River and. they could actually hear the indigenous people, you know, music and drums and whatnot on the other side. And he'd tell these stories about, you know, everything that happened. And he'd always finish them with, you know, well, I guess it was history, but we never really thought about it at the time. It always cracked me up, so.

[48:43] SPEAKER B: Well.

[48:47] DANA AUSTIN: Let's find a question. Spiritual beliefs. You mentioned that you're not particularly religious. I'm kind of spiritual.

[49:00] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[49:02] ALAN KAHN: Well, that's a big question. That's more than a one minute conversation or so. But maybe we could just say, you know, kind of have open an open conversation. We don't need to go with the cute ones. But gosh, so just tell me, you know, do you find yourself supporting what President Trump is up to or do you find yourself kind of uneasy or where are you at with him? Just curious.

[49:32] DANA AUSTIN: Hmm. I think, you know, I'm, he doesn't scare me as much as Harris. I couldn't vote for either of them. I voted for the libertarian candidate, Oliver Chase Oliver, because I just saw them in different ways as, you know, sort of clear and present danger. Harris was on record as planning to violate the First and Fourth Amendments. And, you know, we know how she feels about second.

[50:13] SPEAKER B: And.

[50:16] DANA AUSTIN: Trump was, is just such a despicable human being, you know, so I did, I just didn't know what would happen. One side of me said, okay, well, you know, well, I'll, you know, eat my popcorn and watch, you know, and the other, my wife can't stand to read the news. She's, she's very liberal. And she just says, you know, if I'm going to read the news, it'll be first thing in the morning. If I read it in the evening, I'm too upset to sleep.

[50:46] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[50:48] ALAN KAHN: And my wife said something pretty similar just, just, just yesterday, in fact.

[50:53] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[50:53] ALAN KAHN: It is pretty upsetting. Yeah, not too much good happening. Yeah, so it's interesting, you know, voting for third parties, gosh.

[51:03] DANA AUSTIN: We need one.

[51:05] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, yeah. But you know, which one would it be, right? You know, the libertarians or the Green Party or, you know, there's always, you know, a few other people, constitutional party or.

[51:21] DANA AUSTIN: It'll be interesting to see what Evan does with the American party, if he can.

[51:27] ALAN KAHN: Would you vote for such a thing?

[51:31] DANA AUSTIN: I have not heard enough about it.

[51:35] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[51:36] ALAN KAHN: What do you think of him?

[51:37] DANA AUSTIN: To have an opinion. I think it's a kind of a shame that he and Trump had that big falling out. But, you know, as the record shows, all you have to do is say something a bit negative about Trump and it's retribution.

[51:53] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, you kind of got a sense it might have gotten personal and that I guess Trump decided not to take Elon's guy as the head of NASA because he had been given to Democrats before. So he said, no, you know, that's a deal breaker. And then so Elon's guy wasn't the head of NASA anymore, so wasn't going to be able to be, you know, working hand in glove with him. and then of course, you know, it disintegrated from there. And at the point, at that time, you know, Elon said, oh, he's in the Epstein files. And everybody said, oh, yeah, okay, sure.

[52:26] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[52:27] ALAN KAHN: But then it became a big thing recently. I don't know. What's your take on that whole Epstein file thing? You know, they even convened Congress to send them home for summer rather than have them possibly vote on that. What's your thoughts on that?

[52:44] DANA AUSTIN: Well, I'm absolutely convinced that he didn't commit suicide, that, you know, he wasn't in fact murdered.

[52:54] SPEAKER B: I.

[52:57] DANA AUSTIN: Until we know more about the list and what it can. I mean, you know, somebody said, well, just because you're on the list doesn't mean that you were a pervert.

[53:06] ALAN KAHN: Yeah, but.

[53:08] DANA AUSTIN: It'S being suppressed and that, you know, that, that sort of proves that they're protecting people and up to and including possibly President Trump. I don't know.

[53:27] ALAN KAHN: So, so do you think that the, the whole idea of, of sending the house home for summer and bringing them back in September or whatever. Will that work as far as putting people off this trail of the whole Epstein thing? Or do you think that that's just a delaying tactic?

[53:51] DANA AUSTIN: I had not heard about that in that way. So I'm gonna have to do a little reading catch up.

[53:58] ALAN KAHN: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you sent him home with three days left. of legislation, legislative work, you know, that they could have done, but they said, no, we're done because they were voting on whether to, I think, subpoena the files or, or, you know, to force a release. And I get Democrats and Republicans were getting together on that one. And, and, yeah, both sides of the.

[54:24] DANA AUSTIN: Spectrum is like, you know, come do, you know, give us what are you hiding? You know?

[54:31] ALAN KAHN: Yeah. So, yeah, it is fascinating and messy. All right, Dana. Well, we should probably wrap things up. Any last minute thoughts or things you want to talk about?

[54:49] DANA AUSTIN: No, it was. It was great speaking with you, Alan.

[54:54] SPEAKER B: I.

[54:55] DANA AUSTIN: I didn't really mean to surprise you with some of my views, but.

[55:00] ALAN KAHN: Oh, no, no, not at all. I mean, that's the whole point. You know, I want to talk to different people. I mean, in the only, the year, my second one, the first one I talked to was a, a really, really conservative person who's, you know, abortion was her number one issue. She was super religious, whatnot, and, you know, I don't get to talk to people like that too often. I don't get to talk to, you know, purple state, you know, you know, friendly to gay and trans Republican voting people either. So, you know, it's just like opening up my mind to those different points of view is good and to really understand why people choose the way they do. It helps to humanize, you know, my fellow Americans because, gosh, you can get to the demonizing real quick. And so, yeah. And, you know, I just have to say, you know, one reason we're having this conversation is basically because of public radio, right? I mean, StoryCorps, what an amazing, amazing thing that they have done. for so many years there. And the idea that they cut that funding for NPR and PBS, to me, it's just terrible.

[56:21] DANA AUSTIN: Well, and the first thing I did was send a recurring donation to StoryCorps.

[56:26] ALAN KAHN: That's great. That's great. They deserve it.

[56:29] DANA AUSTIN: Okay, let me try to leave you with a laugh. Okay?

[56:32] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[56:32] DANA AUSTIN: Okay, good. You may have noticed that I have braces.

[56:36] ALAN KAHN: Oh, no, I didn't notice.

[56:37] DANA AUSTIN: Oh, okay. well, I got races now, you know, so what are you doing at the time of the age of 68, getting braces? And I said, well, I'm, I'm going to live to be 101. How do you know that? Well, we don't say Gypsy anymore. It's Romani. So a Romani fortune teller told me that I, I would die on my 101st birthday. So I figure I'm going to get more than 30 years out of, you know, straight teeth, so. Yeah, that's kind of cool. And then she said, Do you want to know the cause of death?

[57:12] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[57:12] DANA AUSTIN: And I had to think about that. And I said, yeah, yeah, I'm interested. Well, it'd be another 20 bucks. Okay, you know, whatever. And she said, well, you're going to be shot in the back three times by a jealous husband as you crash naked through the glass of a fifth floor window and impale yourself on the wrought iron fence below. cause of death, the coroner says, well, D, all of the above. I don't know.

[57:39] ALAN KAHN: So anyway, at 101. Wow.

[57:44] SPEAKER B: Yeah.

[57:45] ALAN KAHN: You really. You're really gonna be keeping it all up?

[57:48] DANA AUSTIN: I guess so. My wife hates it when I say a jealous husband.

[57:53] ALAN KAHN: I bet.

[57:54] DANA AUSTIN: But, you know, it's. one of my jokes.

[57:57] ALAN KAHN: So, anyway, take care.

[57:59] DANA AUSTIN: I enjoy speaking with you and nice meeting you, too.

[58:03] ALAN KAHN: Bye.

[58:03] DANA AUSTIN: Bye. Take care.