Transcript
The Jacobsen Group with Jon Jacobsen · Mon Mar 4, 2024
Hello, this is John Jacobson, and welcome to this podcast of The Jacobson Group.
We're on the radio on News Talk 1540KXEL each weekend, and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the podcasts of the program.
Prepare to be informed, entertained, and amazed right after this.
If you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time too.
You can hear us on the radio, statewide at AM 1540 and in the Cedar Valley at FM 100.5.
We stream live on the web, not only through KXEL.com, but also through our free KXEL mobile app.
And Alexa knows how to find us too.
It's where Iowa comes to talk, News Talk 1540, KXEL.
You are listening to the Jacobson group on KXEL.
John Jacobson here with our award-winning ensemble.
And it is so wonderful to be with you today.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a fantastic show for you coming up.
We've got some wonderful special guests today.
Bruce Crawford.
collaborator with Turner Classic Movies.
Gonna take us on a tour, folks, as you know, 85th anniversary of the debut of The Wizard of Oz.
It's all about Kansas.
And Bruce also will highlight a few upcoming movies of the season.
George Ogle, Ottawa resident, will be on recovery from addiction and how he is building homes.
to effectuate that wonderful program of recovery and Ottawa University's own premier free market economist Dr. Peter Jacobson on freedom in America, supply and demand, the market economy and faith in and also how it intertwines so beautifully with our economic system.
We again want to thank our sponsor, Hames Homes, and Midwest Renewable Energy, LLC.
Ethanol Renewable Fuels for Strong America.
Revenues for our ag families keeping America's food supply safe and owned by Midwest Farm families.
And that's that much less dollars toward Mid-East Terror States.
It's lean as clean as green, Midwest renewable fuel, LLC, and Hames Homes, the Homes people.
Award-winning engineer Mike Shane, the controls with his inimitable ring tone.
Michael, it's so great to have you with us here today.
We thank Brad Howard and all of the outstanding people at K-O-F-O Radio here.
in Ottawa, Kansas.
Guys, on 103.7 FM and 12.20 AM, those two wonderful signals that carry them across the planes here, we are so delighted to be sponsored.
by Midwest Renewable Energy LLC, here on KOFO 103.7 FM, 12.20 AM.
Jim and Cindy Jandren, James and Cindy, here the founders of Midwest Renewable Energy LLC.
Guys, it is lean, clean and green, renewable energy, ethanol, energy for a strong America, undergirding,
revenue streams for our ag families, strengthening the national security by keeping those petrodollars from going to terror states instead harnessing America's grains to help fuel our homes, our economies, and also keeping that food supply in the hands of Americans and not big
corporate entities, Midwest Renewable Energy LLC.
You're listening to the 42-time IBNA award-winning ensemble nominated yet for more such awards.
And we're going to go right into these three great interviews with our Ottawaans and then Mr. Bruce Crawford from up in Omaha.
Got some good ideas for what we could do down here in our wonderful longest running continuous movie theater in the world here in Ottawa.
Don't go away!
Here we roll!
Welcome back to the Jacobson Group on KOFO 103.7 FM 12.20 AM.
Fellow Kansans, 2024 is the 85th anniversary of the debut of a piece of American lore, Americana cinema that redounds to this beautiful sunflower state of Kansas, the Wizard of Oz.
There's no place like home.
And here in studio, we have special guests.
Mr. Bruce Crawford.
Mr. Hollywood himself.
Twice a year in Omaha, just up the interstate.
He brings Hollywood to the Midwest with his classic film events.
And he has screened some of the greatest movies with some of the greatest actors and directors ever.
Bruce is a humble man.
He always gets angry when I say that...
He's been bequeathed by the John Wayne family and Charlton Heston family awards, but Bruce has received an honorary Oscar and American Film Institute Award for Film Preservation.
He is the most cited expert source on the Ben Hur.
DVD Celebration discs along with footage from director William Weiler and George Lucas Bruce is all over that and Bruce is a frequent
collaborator with TCM, Turner Classic Movies, with great friends of Robert Osborne, and a current collaborator with Ben Mankiewicz.
Bruce, welcome to our Kansas audience today.
We want to get you down for a film event in Ottawa, where the Plaza 1907 is the world's longest continuously running
Patron movie theater.
It's amazing on the planet and Bruce 85 years now.
I'm not 85 years old, but I am in my seventh decade.
I've been watching the Wizard of Oz since its CBS originally CBS network television run in the late 60s.
What is it about the Wizard of Oz that perdures and how is it so inextricably intertwined with Kansas?
because the prologue and the epilogue of the story is in Kansas, takes place in Kansas, in black and white sapient, oh no less, which is kind of a slap in the eye because it makes it look like it's dull and boring and listless, but actually it's the whole point of the story is the technicolor beauty of Oz is just a dream, whereas the black and white starkness at the beginning and end of the film is the reality, which she actually chooses to, that's no place like home because she wants to be there, that's where you
I always want to go home, wherever a home is, that's where you want to be.
Bruce, what amazes me, I give this film tremendous credit.
As a child, of course, I grew up in eastern Iowa, and before the advent of cell phones and cell phone cameras and whatnot, the mystique and the terror of tornadoes in eastern Iowa always hung over me like a wreath.
That is, that was pretty impressive, special effects for how they did that tornado twister scene in that movie.
Still
is probably
the best one I've ever put
on a film.
1939!
1938 actually.
And they did it with some silk stockings?
Uh, I forgot, that wasn't silk, it was uh... I forgot what it was, kinda like a, not...
So it was something similar, but I think it was man-made.
Yeah, so something similar
and the wind turbines and and just frantic with anti.
I'm looking for Dorothy.
She's just late getting into the I've hit root sellers before storm sellers underground and that was how it was done and to this day, of course in Kansas many folks run slab homes do the soil quality.
It's it just it
I love movies that bring climate in and that bring in weather.
And it certainly was a feature of this all the way to the balloon from the said Omaha State Fair Omaha.
It's
actually a minor mistake they made in the story is actually the Trans America Expo in 1898.
Interesting.
This is what
that was supposed to be.
Interesting.
And the L Frank bomb was in Omaha visiting during that trans exposition 1898.
And that's where I got the idea of putting the balloon
that the wizard gave free ride, not free, but he gave rides on his balloon at the exposition in Omaha in 1898.
Okay.
That's how
the balloon came into the story.
Okay.
Frank Morgan with multiple roles in that movie, including Professor Marvel, obviously.
And
the crying gatekeeper.
Yes.
Who had to let down the... He's also the coachman with the horse
of different colors.
He is.
He is.
He's very clever.
But yeah, that's how Omaha got involved because
On the balloon they didn't put it was easy to put on honor than the 1898 trans exposition had be much bigger to put on the balloon Yeah, so that happened Frank Brown was visiting on how he because you know bombs drugstores in Omaha were relations to him
You know you could see some of the austerity in you know, we had come off some dust bowl years and and maybe that's why I
The sapien black-and-white color was so perfect for that.
Well,
it's supposed to story takes place in the late 19th century
Yes,
there's no cars or anything mechanical
exactly
exactly just a We could reach on a bicycle L
Frank bomb wrote
The story originally is a political allegory.
Exactly.
The kind of
Jonathan
Swift, right?
Yes, yes.
The ruby slippers originally were, I believe, were the silver silvers.
Yes, silver.
There were a lot of themes about the gold standard, free silver.
in the movie and the Tin Man was the industrialist and the Scarecrow was the ag man and Was the cowardly lion the politicians
Probably either that of the Scarecrow you have
no brains What what what I love about the theme of that movie is that understated people can be heroes.
Yes, ah
Dorothy, you know, introduce yourself.
I'm Dorothy, the meek and small, you know, and yet she was a heroine in the movie.
And of course, I think the movie plays beautifully on that Midwestern ethos, Bruce, of we have innately within ourselves those heroic virtues needed when the situation arises that everybody has that.
You don't have to have a diploma
You don't have to have a medal of honor for having been in warfare and, you know, so they're, they're looking for their heart.
They're courage.
Courage doesn't mean you don't have fear.
It means you overcome it.
And I think that Midwestern.
Kansas ethos, it resonates with those themes, don't you think?
That's what my, actually, bombers in South Dakota at the time, he wrote the story, but that was still Midwest.
That was his, he chose Kansas because he thought that would represent the best representation of the Midwest when he wrote the story.
And that was the whole connection was actually the ethos of Midwest people, Kansas people, and just that salt of the earth kind of feeling you get of just genuine people.
Nothing phony.
I find it amazing Bruce that there are many music critics More than one numerous That will make an argument that which a tall lineman is the most perfect song ever written which tall lineman by Jimmy Webb It was made most famous by Glenn Campbell a simple love song about a man working as a lineman pining for his
bride and the aching loneliness the longing and you know I can hear you in the whining I can hear you on the lines and just Jimmy Webb was driving through Kansas and that he voked in him passed with the greatest pop song rivals anything that Bach Rock and David did and you know
Definitely a piece of Americana there.
It's really a ballad more than a song you think about it.
Yeah, it's very much a ballad, isn't it?
Yeah, and and even They rushed to get that song into production.
They knew they had a hit Jimmy Webb really never finished the song it leaves that ambiguity out there, you know, but So the Wizard of Oz quite a cast I mean these were vaudevillians that made a transition and Burt Larr
and Jack Haley and Ray Bulger.
Really perfectly.
Movies offer about casting.
Those were perfect casting leads.
Turned out that way.
Actually, originally Buddy Epsom was supposed to be the Tin Man.
He was.
Jed Clampett and yeah.
He would have been
fine, I think.
I think so.
Terrible, ill, hospitalized to the reaction to the silver paint.
It was the silver paint, huh?
What about Margaret Hamilton?
Is there anybody else who could have done that on Myra Gulch?
She was not the first choice either.
Really?
Explain that.
Well, I'm blanking out her name.
She was a popular actress at the time, but she was very attractive.
She made her uglier up.
Sure.
I can't think of the name right now, but sure.
Hamilton actually got singed with a little fire trying to go down the shoot the Underneath of the ground had a like a hatch deployment there
There's there's actually a copper base to some of the green grease paint she had on and it was easy it was easily Inflammable, I guess and she she it was minor, but
sure
bad enough and she didn't want to go through that again Sure, sure thankfully for her
sure um
85 years and that's still on network television.
TCM and TNT run it four or five times a year at least.
It's just, when you sit on the big screen or on Blu-ray or DVD, without commercials, it flows.
You're so used to the commercial breaks all your
life.
I know.
It's a
totally different.
Presentation
that that's why it should be watched uninterrupted.
It should be seen on a big screen I did get the opportunity my wife I take my kids I
did the movie then honoring it.
Yes, you guys need to have the
last much connector back Jerry Marin was
isn't that a
while?
Yes,
Bruce.
We'll just tease your next event What is the date up in Omaha for your next event Friday May 17th guys?
I can't tell but I know the movie he's screening who he's bringing in and
It is worthy for your 50th.
Yes, I thought so.
50th classic film.
Not
50 years, 50th of it.
I didn't start when I
was in grade school, you
know.
Hey, Bruce, while we're at it, we are heading into Passover and Easter season.
Let's cue up the Ben Hur music intro for again, ladies and gentlemen, we're here with Bruce Crawford on KOFO and folks, Bruce is
Mr. Hollywood, the TCM collaborator, Turner Classic Movies, American Film Institute awardee for film preservation.
He is considered America's foremost expert on the motion picture, Ben Hur, the most decorated movie of all time, 1959, 12 Oscars.
On which DVD version is it that you are the commentator?
With the
most recent DVD and Blu-ray, there's a
Multiple disc version, which is the best they have a documentary the epic that changed cinema.
It's about an hour and 20 minutes long Yes, I flew out to California to be interviewed I was on I'm on camera alongside George Lucas and Ridley Scott Michael Douglas Wow, many other people
use they use you more than anybody and of
course, yes, they
did amazingly you know me You're you've also got a
incredibly successful public radio series on the film scores of Bernard Herman documentary documentary this this movie I love what me close Rosa did I love all of his work whether it's Green Berets or else said you name it but we're listening now to the mother's theme but we heard the intro and and Bruce
I think the musical score, Ben Her, is part of what makes it so excellent, but we got a lot of Kansans with young families.
Some have never seen these classic great movies.
I'm going to argue, and I'm just going to flat out say it, I'll argue that Ben Her, A Tale of the Christ, the definitive 1959 version that won the 12 Academy Awards directed by William Weiler, starring Charles Heston,
I'll argue that it's the greatest motion picture of all time, prove me wrong.
Yes, probably.
At the very least, I modestly say, it's certainly one of the greatest movies in an ever been made period.
At least one of the greatest films of all time, yes.
What made it so great, Bruce?
Well, William Wiley, that's why.
The director.
Because people are used to DeMille-style epics, which are about two inches deep for depth of the story, but a mile wide and spectacle.
Whereas, Ben-Hur had a mile-wide spectacle and probably 30 feet deep in story.
Emotionally
resonant relationships.
Almost
too intense for some people
actually.
Well, yeah, the conflicted relationship between Ben-Hur and Masala, Charlton-Hesitant Stephen Boyd.
That's the hardest story there is.
From fraternity to fratricide almost.
And then the devotion to his mother and his sister, we hear the theme right now, the mother's theme.
The mother's love, yes.
The parade of the charioteers, the competitiveness with Hugh Griffith as a friend of Charlton Heston.
Yes, the Muslim Arab.
And Jack Hawkins as his mentor, surrogate father whose life
The Ben Hur character saved it at sea in the Roman galley as a slave then liberated.
We're going to pray to the charioteers here.
Probably the greatest special effect non-CGI in history.
Talk about this.
It's still considered the greatest action scene we've ever put on a film.
Yakima Kanat was helping on that.
He
designed all the stunts and Andrew Martone was the second unit director who actually does films all.
But, uh, row well and live.
See the sea battle, you know.
Rowing of the galley slaves.
Yeah, it's just magnificent.
It's the also also with with Esther
his love interest how you how to read who's who has a Jewish actress from Israel who had bore strong resemblance to Sophia Loren Yes, she did.
Yes, she
did.
There seemed to be a
chemistry between the two
today.
Everybody the whole film had chemistry.
It was a perfectly cast again Originally Hester was the first choice is they had looked between Burt Lancaster Paul Newman and Rock Hudson believe it or
not Wow,
but she can't imagine those people playing
that.
No, no, I can't
Chuck Bert Lake has would have been a good choice though.
Now you knew the actor who played Jesus Christ in the movie.
Tell that vignette if you would.
Well Claude Heeter, he was actually an opera singer, him and his wife were opera singers and taught opera singing at USC.
Wow.
For many years.
They happened to be in Rome at a conference on opera singing and William Wiley Syme met him.
Yeah, because he was in Rome shooting Ben Hur.
Chantuchita Studios met him.
He was so struck by his... He was a really handsome guy as well as a great singer.
His wife is a beautiful woman.
And he saw his hands.
His hands were the most perfect bone structure of a hand he ever saw in his life.
Because the hands are what you see the most in the movie of Jesus.
You see the back of him and you see his hands.
You do.
That's about it.
And so he said, you want to hear him know, you want to play Jesus Christ and...
Banner, the biggest movie at that time ever made, basically the most expensive film in history.
And Clark Hughes said, absolutely.
He knew what he had to do.
He knows all the story ends.
So yes, he played Christ.
And he said it's a very profound effect on his life obviously.
Wow.
He was a really humble, nice man.
And interesting, they originally did record some audio tracks, decided
to leave the mystique.
They actually shot him, his face, talking to Jude.
Really?
Really.
They tested it, and my wife said, no, this doesn't work.
We want you to think you saw him and heard him when you really didn't.
Not people to think they did.
He thought he gave a greater mystique.
It's an impossible role to play, although some actors have done a good job.
It's really impossible to play Christ.
It's impossible to play that.
As Wyler said, he's the most well-known man who ever lived.
So how can you portray him, you know, accurately?
I was touched by the performance of Finley Curry as Baltazar.
It seemed to be the continuity factor because it starts out as a Christmas
movie, does it not?
It's the first nativity, but the first Christmas.
He is, you know, the story arc follows him.
He is the linchpin to every aspect of the movie from the
beginning to the
middle and the end.
Yes.
Yes.
As Baltazar, that's how Louis Wallace wrote the story in the
book.
Give us a little background on how Ben Hur has permeated our history way before Two-motion pictures going back to the 19th century as a play across the United
States.
There's a 1907 there was the first one real film version of it.
This is the chair races really really and Multiple showings on Broadway not to the world on stage is a stage play around the world for decades
That's an amazing thing.
How could you put that on a play?
Wow.
But
they did it, though.
Very, very successful.
Wow.
I just, that whole cast and crew was just absolutely fantastic.
It was Hollywood at its zenith, actually.
Who played Maimonides, the
father
of?
Simonides?
Simonides.
That was a legendary actor.
He also played in The Day There's to Soil.
He played the Einstein figure.
Sam Jaffe.
Sam Jaffe, yeah.
Sam Jaffe touched me greatly in his role.
We will laugh again, Judah Ben-Hur.
He was a very devoted servant.
Yes.
He was the father of
Esther.
So
basically he was like the accountant for their wealth.
Right,
right.
Exactly.
And he invested their money, invested in buying things for them.
You know, he was the...
Ran there ran their fortune for them
Martha Scott played his mother both and been her and in the Ten Commandments She was not that much older than
five years of parts all they were but but she looked She they made her up.
She did look older.
Yeah, she actually resembled my mother a lot believe it or not really a lot of people told me
that
And then, uh, who played his sister tears?
Uh, she did a beautiful job.
She did a
William Wiler's
sister-in-law.
Interesting.
Robert
Wiler.
They were married to each other.
His brother Robert Wiley,
who's also a producer.
So Bruce, you're going to come down to Ottawa.
We're going to do a film event one of these days down there.
And we'll, we'll have a nice Kansas tie in there.
But, uh, so guys, uh,
Wizard of Oz, reacquaint you new young families with your young children.
Reacquaint them with that
movie, right, Bruce?
Absolutely.
And TCM will be running Ben Hur in prime time sometime in March.
It'll be on Saturday night.
Wonderful gift for your family to
watch.
Both for the Oscar season and for the holiday Easter season.
So Kansas families, this is great.
Get your kids a Wizard of Oz, even if it's on DVD.
Get a big screen.
That was meant to be on a big screen too.
Ben Hur is a must for Easter
season.
Is a
must.
Because the Ten Commandments is not an Easter film.
Because Easter and Passover overlap each other.
Yes, that's true.
It's not on for Easter.
Jesus does not make an appearance in the
Ten Commandments.
That's true.
So Ben Hur is our Passover.
Yeah, Ben Hur is our ultimate Easter.
resurrection sunday take a message of Passover film all right guys well hey we love it studio audience on their feet for Bruce Crawford we're gonna have him down in Ottawa doing some special film stuff too always for good charities Bruce is up he is a worthy custodial fiduciary
for America's contribution to the arts specifically in cinema and no less than the John Wayne family, the Charlton Heston family, and Tom Hanks on behalf of the American Film Institute are there the same as Bruce Will sometimes even lug around that honorary Oscar.
Thanks, Bruce, for joining us in studio.
Great to be here.
Mike Shane, let's go out with your inimitable bumper music.
If you're enjoying this KXEL podcast, then we invite you to listen to KXEL's great programming in real time too.
You can hear us on the radio, statewide at AM 1540 and in the Cedar Valley at FM 100.5.
We stream live on the web, not only through KXEL.com, but also through our free KXEL mobile app.
And Alexa knows how to find us too.
It's where Iowa comes to talk, News Talk 1540, KXEL.
Well Mike, Shane here at the controls, John Jacobson with Scott Corey, throughout the planes here on KOFO, 103, 7 FM, 12, 20 AM.
Your great best country music across the planes.
And we're here with George Ogle from Legacy Homes.
excellent building contractor in the Ottawa Olathe, Kansas City area and George is a great community servant Scott Corey and he's been very integral in the construction and opening of in Ottawa there the Oxford house there are many Oxford houses in Kansas and across the United States and they've been so instrumental
in helping those dealing with drug and alcohol addiction, and those dealing with homelessness.
We salute folks like George Ogle.
George, welcome to the program today.
How you doing, John?
Great, George.
George, talk a little bit about this project.
You've got one there in Ottawa.
This really builds hope for people across the plains, doesn't it?
This Oxford house...
I bought the house in last April and then we opened it this last May.
I saw a year and a month from the time I purchased the house and redid it to be able to open it.
The first one in Ottawa, I've already purchased another one and we're going to try to do a women's house and we want to get people to know about it so we can get it filled up.
This is really excellent.
For folks that don't know, the term Oxford House refers to any house operating under the Oxford House model.
It's Scott's community-based approach to addiction recovery.
It provides independent, supportive, and sober living environments.
Today there are nearly 3,000 Oxford houses.
in the United States and in other countries.
And George, I'm curious, we understand that there are three rules upon which each house is based.
No use of drugs or alcohol and no disruption.
The house must be run democratically and they must pair the equal expense shared cost of any fees.
So for instance, they divide up utility costs.
Is that a good explanation for how the model runs?
Correct.
This is not a state run program or a city or county or anything other than the people living there.
It's done off replication.
This is not people using, this is people that have been cleaned for, I believe it's 30 days, and then they actually interview with the other people living there.
And
the other people living there decide whether or not they feel that that person living in the same house as them would be safe for them.
to avoid relapse and confrontation.
And it's not just those staying off drugs and alcohol.
They have weekly meetings and monthly meetings with each house and the chapters, which is three houses or more in 100 mile radius.
And they learn how to budget, they learn how to listen and talk and make decisions that are better than the ones they've been making previously.
Well this is excellent, that idea.
Scott, financial literacy and budgeting and of course what makes these types of things affordable is people like George Ogle from Legacy Homes who can get a structure built literally
to house this kind of excellent operation.
George, I know you're a great builder.
You built that beautiful church that we drove by in Ottawa and I love this business meeting model, Scott.
They have business meetings weekly.
They're mandatory and they discuss any issues of the house that may be facing.
Scott, this is a nice model and can you believe that it was
The first one was open in Silver Springs, Maryland in 1975 by Paul Malloy.
He had been a Senate committee staff member in the late 60s and early 70s, and he sought treatment for his alcoholism in a halfway house in 1975.
Then later that year, the halfway house had to close due to financial difficulty, and Malloy and the other residents took over the lease
They chose the name Oxford House in recognition of Oxford Group, a religious organization that influenced the founders of AA.
Sounds like a great model, Scott.
Any questions or comments for George Ogle of Ottawa?
You know, George, talk to us just a little bit.
How did you get involved with this group?
And also, you know, in the last few years in society, we're seeing that more of the stigma of people that are suffering from mental illness or addiction.
It's more common to talk about
it now where there feel not so much in the shadows anymore, but we're we're as a society we're dealing more and more with it.
I'd like to get your thoughts on both of those.
Well, I personally never had the opportunity to live in a Knox house, but I did have the the the addiction problem myself years ago.
And I after getting clean and get my life together, I went to a narcotics anonymous.
And while there
You know, we see a lot of people come in and out of the rooms and a lot of people stayed in Oxford houses and watching their growth out, outdid the growth of the people who were not in Oxford houses.
Not always, but the percentage of length of recovery seemed to be quite a bit more for people who had that help from Oxford.
And talk just just a little bit too about the stigma too is like I mentioned, you know in the 70s and 80s It was it was kind of a black eye so to speak on that family and on that person if they were suffering from addiction But now we are more willing to talk about it as a society and make sure that these people get help and they are You know basically trying to be pillars of society in their own way
Yeah, the the black sheep and all that until people realize that everybody knows somebody addicted to drugs
or come in contact with them.
It's just us, everybody being honest with themselves that we have a problem.
And especially with the homeless problem, homeless, I mean, people get homeless, they're beat down.
Drugs and alcohol is just a given.
People don't know what else to do.
So they turn to drugs and alcohol and then they haven't had a way to get out of it.
And Oxford Health provides that.
It's not somebody
a probation officer or parole officer over there, standing over them or telling them they're worthless all the time.
They get into a new living environment, a safe living environment where they don't have to worry about somebody knocking on the door and trying to get them to do something wrong.
Everybody looks out for each other.
Any two members that they think another member has used alcohol or drugs can give them a urine test on the spot.
If they test dirty, they have one hour to leave the house.
And that's law enforcement will help that happen.
So it's a very safe environment.
And yeah, I mean, people that still act like it didn't happen, I feel sorry for them.
Yeah, exactly.
Here with George Ogil, O-G-L-E, Ottawa, Kansas, Oxford House builder.
And George, I'm going to second your notion there.
I think Scott and Mike, everybody has an aspect of an addictive personality.
As a recovering elected politician, Scotty, I can tell you, I was surrounded by people.
If they weren't addicted to drugs and alcohol, they were addicted to power or fame or money.
or women, you name it.
There is that element.
It's just part of the
human condition, Scott.
It sure is.
And, you know, John, it's very heartening, too, that we're seeing people like George step up and actually fill the void where, like you mentioned earlier, that the government-assisted agents and things like that just cannot fill that void in our communities.
And George, talk to us real quickly, too.
What is the best way if somebody wants to get involved with your program?
Is there a website or a telephone number they can reach out to?
There's a group.
called FORA, F-O-R-A, Friends of Recovery, some association, I think.
DJ is, I can't remember his title, but he, they help open Oxford houses across the immediate area.
And they help put the chapters with the new houses and things like that.
They help find furniture.
They're a nonprofit that do a lot to keep the,
Oxford House is going and opening and replicating.
Here with George Ogle, you know Scott, what I love about this as we wrap up here this first segment with George is that all houses are run on a democratic basis.
You've got officers who are elected.
You have regular business meetings.
All decisions are made based upon a vote by all the members of the House.
You've got oftentimes elected positions within the House, such as a
president and a treasurer, a comptroller, a chore coordinator, and a secretary.
And of course, paying the bills and doing the chores.
George, I love that business meeting operation.
It's almost like they're running a small business out of the home there.
Correct.
They learn a lot of things.
They learn how to be accountable to one another and to manage other people.
And like I said in the ribbon cutting of this other one,
We need to not turn our backs on them or look at them.
When people drive by the house and you see somebody coming in or out of the house, say hi to them, help them, you know, partner with them on things.
I myself was addicted to drugs for about eight years.
And I've come out the other side smelling pretty great because I had good health.
I didn't have an Oxford house.
If I'd had the Oxford house, I think I would have probably done better a lot earlier.
George, we're going to give you the last word here.
You're a stand-up guy for joining us on our segment.
Last word before we go to our break.
I just want people to know.
The house now, I think, has three people in it.
It can hold eight.
And like I said, hopefully by the first of the year, we get a Wimps house open,
and
it also will house eight women.
So if you know anybody, just get with us.
Guys, our salute to George Ogle of Legacy Homes, O-G-L-E, our Kansas Citizen of the Week.
You're listening on K-O-F-O.
George, thanks for joining us today.
God bless you.
Thank you for what you're doing, and let's get this women's home up and breathe with both lungs, my friend.
Thank you, John.
Midwest Renewable Energy, LLC.
Clean, lean, and...
Green, thanks to Jim and Cindy Jandren.
Well, let's cue up Henry Mancini here for our next special guest.
Welcome to the program, Dr. Peter Jacobson, Professor Jacobson, the Courtney Professor of Economics at Ottawa University in Kansas.
formerly the Mercatus Institute and now writing for fee the free enterprise think tank has his podcast faith in economics and has been published in national review real clear markets the christian post welcome to show professor Jacobson thank you so much for having me it's good to be here
Dr. Jacobson, what's fascinating to me is you are going up against these Malthusian nightmarists where all of these so-called elites are pressing for population control.
You're following along the lines of the great Julian Simon.
You've done a lot of research and published it proclaiming the exact opposite that people are good, necessary, needed.
We need more people and we need freedom and economics.
And on our show here with our
awesome audience.
We've got a lot of Christian home schoolers listening and a lot of families.
Tell us a little bit about what you found through your research Dr. Jacobson.
I think it gives
heart to a lot of us that want to have families is we've got the the jones kids in the studio right now pastor sam jones uh... peter you would have some uh... theological kinship with him uh... and uh... take away pete and i know pastor sam will want to visit with you scott kory
yeah well uh... just uh... you know it and building off the uh... the shoulders of giants to a certain extent there's a lot of good research in this field but uh... you're right that uh... a lot of uh...
We could call them kind of engineers of humanity, are really bothered by the fact that people can kind of choose to have the number of kids they want to have.
You occasionally hear things like this out of people's mouth.
They'll say like, oh, I can't believe we just let anybody have kids or be parents for all this stuff, which might sound not so alarming if you're not paying attention.
But then if you think a little bit about what that means, the idea that we should have some sort of say over if a person has a child.
someone other than us, is really kind of a scary thought or idea.
And it's had bad ramifications.
So in the 70s, this overpopulation fears were at their highest.
A lot of scientists were really focused on this idea that the world was going to be overpopulated.
Famously, an ecologist, it's very frequently ecologists who have this worry, Paul Ehrlich.
made a lot of due to state predictions, including that England wouldn't be a country by the year 2000 because of, you know, population would starve them all.
And of course none of these predictions came true, but unfortunately, it's not like they just fell dead and didn't have any impact.
There's a significant amount of research showing that some of the work done by, for example, the Club of Rome was one of these groups who was worried about overpopulation.
There's some reason to believe that this sort of thinking inspired countries like China
to adopt these coercive policies like the one child policy that have done so much damage and so much harm to so many people permanently.
And so, you know, these fears have been longstanding and they're without merit.
None of these predictions come true.
In fact, if you look at people's actual contribution, people are not on net takers.
They're on net makers.
They on net make the world a better place.
We are now richer than we've ever been in human history.
We live longer than we ever have in human history.
We have access to more commodities than a royalty did 300 years ago, 400 years ago.
It's just a false alarm all around.
In fact, it may be the opposite of what the truth is.
Here with Dr. Peter Jacobson, a Guartney Professor of Economics at Ottawa University in Kansas, writes for Phi, the free enterprise think tank, also has his podcast, Faith in Economics.
Dr. Jacobson, let me ask you this here.
You've also talked about the necessity of free markets.
There's such a Marxist trend going on academia today, socialist trend, and there's almost a denigration.
of free markets and capitalism, some of your writings show the exact opposite that for even third world development, you've been to Africa, you argue that people and freedom are the necessary elements for economic growth.
Elaborate a little bit and extend, then we'll go into some questions.
Yeah, well these two things are actually kind of fundamentally linked to markets and population growth and that the critics of both of them Basically their argument is well, there's no way this is gonna work We can't let this the people manage themselves if we do all sorts of bad things are gonna happen So there's like an overriding paternalistic Opposition to both allowing people to have the number of kids they want to have allowing the population to grow at the rate that it's gonna grow
And there's the same paternalistic opposition to allowing people to buy and sell what they want to sell.
There's this fear that people are going to be tricked into buying things by advertisers, and they're going to ruin their lives.
And how are they going to handle the fact that there's 12 different brands of toothpaste?
These are actually fears that are brought up by different Marxist scholars throughout history.
And behind both of them is ultimately just the belief that people are incapable of managing their own affairs and that
the world without some sort of, you know, person, totalitarian really, in charge who, you know, whether they have a lot of scientific knowledge or whatever, are, you know, planning and tinkering to make things better and better.
And my position is that we need to be a lot more humble with our belief about the world.
And we can actually trust that people are going to manage their own things.
And that's what, you know, Adam Smith going way back to the founding of economics.
created this idea or coins the term, the invisible hand of the market.
Sometimes order can arise without one person controlling it.
This is true of language, for instance.
This is true of walking paths, all sorts of things in life.
Order can arise just by normal people doing things in their everyday lives.
You don't need one person in charge of something in order to have order for it.
And so this is true in the realm of demographics.
It's true in the realm of
the economy that people are usually best when they're left to their own devices and when they're able to plan things for themselves and their families.
Here with Dr. Peter Jacobson from the University, Ottawa University in Kansas.
He has a great podcast, Faith in Economics and Rights for Fee, the Free Enterprise Think Tank, formerly Mercatus Institute, studying at the great Dr. Walter Williams, the late great Walter Williams who was Rush Limbaugh's first substitute guest host.
Thanks to Dr. Williams, I always remember to get my wife a new vacuum cleaner every Christmas.
I'm a romantic, aren't I, Dr. Jacobson?
Something like that.
Now, we've got a quite nice eclectic group here.
I'm Catholic Christian, Scotty's Missouri Synod Lutheran, Pastor Sam, I think it's first a more of a Baptist tradition.
Peter, are you more of a Calvinist or how do we describe you?
I love Jesus.
That's how I describe myself.
I guess people signing labels to me might say that I have like a reformed take on satiriology.
But apart from that, in general, I try to avoid assigning too many words to myself because people tend to have different beliefs about what those labels mean than they actually mean.
So I kind of just answer on an issue by issue basis.
Well, let me let me bring in Pastor Sam.
Let me bring in some Baptist and Lutheran folks here because we're very ecumenical show here.
Pastor Sam, any questions or comments for Dr. Peter Jacobson?
Yeah, well, first of all, John, let me just say that I get a little bit nervous when either one of you guys, when either you or Scott have a cup of water, I think I'm about to be baptized sometimes.
You know, Dr. Jacobson, when I was listening to what you're saying, it sounds like what you're trying to say is that God is given in a personal government, different forms of government.
There's civil government, of course, but it doesn't always go to civil government.
Sometimes God gives us some.
things in self and family government uh... in the civil government ought to stay out of those uh... those uh... areas of government is that is that one of the things that you're kind of getting at
yeah definitely well that and the catholics kind of point this term of subsidiarity which i think is uh... valuable uh... think keep in mind that
And this idea is pervasive.
I mean, this is even true and my wife has done work in geriatric care.
And this is true of geriatric care, where if someone can do something, you allow them to do that thing.
And there's a lot of reasons for that.
One of them is just on the basis of dignity.
But also, people have knowledge that's really hard to access by outsiders.
And so letting them act on that knowledge rather than assuming you know more is valuable.
So yeah.
uh... have uh... you know the ability to have uh... government will call it uh... at both informally but also at local levels culturally there's all sorts of ways that we can have good governance without resorting to the government uh... oftentimes uh... you know we we think about king david and of course king david a man after god don't heart and a great man but it is important to remember that uh... the people of israel are the ones who requested that there be a king
God did not impose the king upon the people of Israel.
They clamored for it.
They asked for it.
To some extent, this was viewed as a disobedient request because God was the king of Israel.
The Israelites weren't happy with this, so they asked for a humanist king.
I think we can even see biblically that there are certainly times and realms for governance that is not part of government.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And then also the other thing that really came to my mind while listening to what you're talking about is this whole idea of population control.
And it really reminded me kind of a play-doh with his idea of eugenics.
And do you think there's some correlation with that and that type of philosophy that's really come in, unfortunately, even to the Christian realm in some aspects?
Yeah, no, there certainly is.
Historically, it becomes more clear.
And so you can see for, you know, they're famously Margaret Sanger, for example, kind of ran around in the eugenics circles and also then went on to kind of found Plants Parent.
A lot of these early population control supporters were people who thought, well, not only should we have a smaller population, but it should look a particular way, which, of course, a very evil idea in its root.
And yeah, certainly insofar as that leaks into any Christian circles, that's a problem.
One thing that I was kind of thinking about this morning is we need to keep straight that what gives people value is not their intelligence, it's their humanity.
And this causes all sorts of problems for modern thinkers.
You get this with a lot of like,
people are concerned about what sort of meat we should eat, not eat, and what they're referencing is intelligence.
How intelligent is this animal?
One thing we need to be careful of is what that kind of does is it almost gives us the idea that intelligence is the base of our value.
And that's certainly not true.
There's a lot of humans who by no measure are intelligent, are probably challenged in several different ways, mentally or otherwise.
but they have no less dignity than someone who is smarter by some measure.
I think it leads to great evil to suggest otherwise.
We've got about two minutes left.
Scotty, any question or comment for Dr. Peter Jacobson?
Just a quick two-point question here.
First, Christianity and capitalism do go hand-in-hand.
In my opinion, I'd like to get your thoughts on it too, and also along those lines,
How have you noticed capitalism and generosity in John compared to a father as he is towards your kids as a grandfather?
I'm guessing being a grandfather, he's a little more generous than he was when he was your dad.
Now you're right on the money.
Somehow my kids end up with 50 presidents under the Christmas tree.
Christmas time.
We only have two bedrooms in this house, so I'm not quite sure.
I think we're gonna start putting things under the crawl space or something.
So exceedingly generous to the grandkids.
It's hard to blame them and hard to be mad, but exceedingly generous.
In terms of capitalism and Christianity, I do think that the Bible is pretty clear about having a particular amount of deference to
the governmental structure, even to our own detriment to a certain extent.
You get this in Peter's epistles, for example.
But I do think there are certain principles we can look at in Psalms and Proverbs about what makes someone a wise user of resources.
And those are certainly compatible with this idea of capitalism.
Saving is highly praised as a wise thing to do, or a wise thing to do rather in the Bible.
This is fundamentally
uh... kind of capitalistic uh... idea this idea that you know we we should uh... in order to grow our own wealth we would be wise to save uh... so i i i i certainly think that the case uh... man did there's no no incompatibility of course uh... at the time of jesus the economic system of capitalism hadn't yet been invented but even in his ministry you see uh... a lot of what he was criticizing was uh... kind of this relationship between governing authorities and cronyistic
practices that were going on in the temple, for example.
As far as I can tell, free markets are the system that has the least tension biblically.
Well guys, this has been just such a fast pace hour here.
Pastor Sam, Peter Jacobson will stay with us here.
Let's close out the show before we go to our theme music.
We've got a minute.
Can you give a benediction or prayer for our folks listening and our families?
Take it away and
pray, Pastor Sam.
Absolutely.
And it was just a privilege to have Dr. Jacobson with us, but let's pray here.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do just thank you for this day and thank you for the opportunity to come and to discuss our faith in the public square and Lord, we would just
pray, Father, that that be reflected in everything we do, whether that's with our family, whether that's individually, but also Lord, of course, with how we engage with politics.
And Father would just pray that we would take your standard and that we would hold it up and Lord that we would really go and love others by loving you best and by agreeing with you.
And in Jesus' name, we pray.
Amen.
We
again want to thank our sponsor, Hames Homes.
and Midwest Renewable Energy LLC.
Ethanol Renewable Fuels for Strong America.
Revenues for our ag families keeping America's food supply safe and owned by Midwest Farm Families.
And that's that much less dollars toward Mid-East Terror States.
It's lean as clean as green, Midwest Renewable Fuel.
L, L, C, and Hames Holmes, the Holmes people.
Guys, thanks for tuning in another great episode.
Thanks to Cindy and Jim Jandren, Midwestern Renewable Energy, LLC.
Thanks to Scott Corey, the Jones family, Pastor Sam, and Sarah and the two boys and our special guest, Dr. Peter Jacobson.
Until next week, be safe, be smart, be good, be strong.
Love Jesus Christ.
God blesses everyone.
Bye-bye.
Thanks for listening to this podcast of The Jacobson Group.
As heard, weekends on the radio on News Talk, 1540 KXEL.
For more about the show, go to kxel.com slash Jacobson, J-A-C-O-B-S-E-N.
And subscribe right here so you don't miss a single weekly episode of this podcast.
Until next time, bye-bye.
