This is Democracy – Episode 24: Media Portrayals of the Government Shutdown and Border Wall Debates

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Introductory Voices Together: This is Democracy. A podcast that explores the interracial, intergenerational and intersectional unheard voices living in the world’s most influential democracy.
Jeremi Suri: Welcome to our new episode of “This is Democracy.”. Our topic today is the recent government shutdown and the continuous debates over that and a possible future shutdown as well as the border wall. And we have with us, a returned guest. One of the few people who’s really been so good we wanted to bring him back. My colleague and friend and pioneer of radio, television, and film, Paul Stekler. Welcome Paul.
Paul Stekler: Glad to be here. Good morning.
Jeremi Suri: Good morning. Good to have you on this morning. Before we turn to Paul while he sips his coffee and I sip my coffee, we have Zachary Suri’s poem. Zachary.
Zachary Suri: My poem today is titled “Golden Toilets Sink the Titanic.”
“I woke up in a quarter of everything was closed. Just left in the December snow to rust,
On TV, he bartered and assaulted and cussed,
And people went to sleep peeing their pants for thirty-five days,
And the headlight every morning ran in plain block letters: golden toilets sink the titanic
And all the world went manic, All the shows were spreading panic,
Refreshing CNN every five seconds at school. Soup kitchens filling,
Gloomy miss of bored federal workers spiking porn use in the Greater DC metro,
And yet every refreshed tab reminded us specific to Atlantic
That day that golden toilets sunk the Titanic,
And small allowances of 5.7 billion were demanded
And Nancy, Nancy to him handed cubes of beef bouillon and a BLT sandwich
And SNL that weekend ran a newsreel, a reel from World War II,
Cause everything was too real, the month golden toilets sunk the titanic,
And no one really remembers how it ended, ahead of hollow cave caved
And no one was really surprised
Three weeks, cold cheeks against the winter storm gigantic
But still everyone wondered how golden toilets could sink the titanic”
Jeremi Suri: (laughs) That is wonderful, Zachary. What is the message of your absurdist poem?
Zachary: Well, just how absurd the entire shutdown was. And the way that the media was able to impart to all of us the absurdity in a way that hasn’t before. And it didn’t legitimize the way the others did. And just how the frustration that Trump had with that.
Jeremi Suri: Sure and the frustration we as citizens had, right?
Paul Stekler: Yeah
Jeremi Suri: Well Paul, how do people in the media think about a crazy moment like this? How did they approach this?
Paul: I think they approach it as great story. You know, I get the sense of the media loves this. And it doesn’t make me feel great.
Jeremi Suri: (laughs) Why do they love it?
Paul: Because it’s controversy, it’s conflict, because it’s something to talk about. It has the same people every night on every cable station yakking about stuff and saying the same things. It’s (deep breath) kind of like the campaign, you know, why was Donald Trump on TV every night? You know, no matter what he’s, you know, rambling two hour speeches were like because people were watching. You know, so anything he does, no matter how nutty, you know, draws an audience. You know while so people suffer and the government shuts down. And the two sides plot to be able to win, you know, win the news cycle. The media just loves it. It’s kind of like it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not very positive thing if you look at it overall in terms of health of the country.
Jeremi Suri: Right. It becomes a Nancy versus Trump. Nancy Pelosi vs Trump phenomenon.
Paul Stekler: Yeah and it’s someone winning or losing. We all lost. Yeah, so it’s kind of like, this is very temporal sort of stuff. The Republicans had shut down in 2013, you know, that was roundly criticized and people thought it was terrible, and they went on to win the elections in 2014. So if anybody thinks this particularly has an impact they think is going to have. Maybe or maybe not. You know, whoever wins the news cycle, doesn’t win the next election. It’s, like I said, it’s all depressing.
Jeremi Suri: Yes, yes. Do you think that some of the stories that were done, especially on NPR and throughout the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal of the federal workers themselves? Do you think there was some public enlightenment and understanding that?
Paul Stekler: I suppose, they were good stories, they were stories that needed to be told. The sense that I get though is the tribal divide we have right now is, you know, really coloring, the way everyone seems to think of this stuff. You know if you hate Trump, you’re listening. If you love Trump, you’re not listening.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul: And saying it doesn’t make any difference. Sure, the stories were great.
[05:00]
You know, they were needed to be said. What they’re larger impact was, you know it’s hard to say, but that’s what the media ought to be doing. You know, doing things where it was the actual impact of these policies.
And it’s the same sort of thing going down to the border, and finding out that the mayor of McAllen says, “We don’t need a wall. Chaos is not happening. There’s not a crime wave down there.” One of the things that I’ve never felt scared when I was down in McAllen. You know I have a feeling that wall supporters don’t, don’t listen. You know, one of the only interesting things that I’ve been hearing post shutdown is that you know, the greatest supporters of the wall are in Wyoming and Michigan. (laughs)
Jeremi Suri: Far away.
Paul Stekler: You know and none of the congressmen on the border actually support the wall.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: So it’s– you know when is this an actual issue on specifics. And when is this an issue on ideology. And it seems like it’s an issue on ideology.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: Right.
Jeremi Suri: So we have a new feature for this podcast. We have a number of students who in anticipation of our discussion have recorded questions for Paul. The first one is from a student of ours named Justin Bindell. And if we could play his question?
Justin Bindell: Major media outlets such as CNN and Fox News displayed the government shutdown timer, which recorded the number of day, hours, minutes, and seconds of the shutdown as lasting. My question is what effect does this have on each outlet’s viewer base? Is it intended to strike fear into the public? Is it meant to represent how long Trump can remain firm to his border control policy? What are the implications of this timer, and what emotions from our society is it intended to arouse?
Jeremi Suri: Paul?
Paul Stekler: None.
Jeremi Suri: None. (laughs)
Paul Stekler: No it’s just a media thing. It’s kind of like, you know like… (chuckles)
I don’t think it has any impact at all. It’s kind of like what’s something clever that a producer puts on–
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: This side of thing. If it’s on Fox it’s, how many days will the democrats, you know, force this on us? If it’s on MSNBC, how many days can the president do this insane thing? And otherwise, does it have any impact? I doubt it.
Jeremi Suri: Yeah. I think for me and some of the people I spoke with, but again we’re coming at this of course with one point of view. It did have this sense of like a Doomsday clock. Did you feel that way Zachary?
Zachary: Yeah well I think also it was meant to just– I think it was interesting yeah how it was used in different outlets. Because I think in some outlets it was like, “Oh well–“, I think on CNN and more liberal news sites it was like, “Look at how crazy it is, it’s 35 days.” And then on others I imagine it wasn’t as prominent.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Zachary: So.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Zachary: I don’t– I don’t really think it had that much of a strong–
Jeremi Suri: Right. Right.
What should the media do Paul? What would you want them to do to better educate the public about the border and about the shutdown.
Paul Stekler: (sighs) You know, in terms of the border I’d like to see more coverage. You know, but like I said it’s, it’s not so much that I have a problem with the media. The media is audience driven. You know it’s interesting I was watching cable a lot, you know, during the shutdown to try to glean you know whatever happened that day. And what I began to notice, I think I was watching MSNBC a lot because I like Brian Williams.
Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
Paul Stekler: You know, he’s one of the few cable people that isn’t yakking and telling me stuff that I already know.
Jeremi Suri: I agree.
Paul Stekler: And I’m talking about both sides. You know (laughs) they have the same people on every night saying the same thing.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: It’s literally the same experts.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: I think they were on call. They were like living in the basement of MSNBC.
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: You know what should the media be doing. The [inaudible 08:39]. It’s not so much what the media should be doing, it’s is anybody listening anymore? I mean I think we talked about this before when I was on the show. You know, Bill Bishop wrote a book called the “Big Sort” back in 2004, which is probably one of the most seminal books on politics.
Jeremi Suri: Yes.
Paul Stekler: it’s not specifically about politics it’s about the fracturing of America into niche groups in terms of religion, in terms of marketing, in terms of political beliefs. That was 2004. Is anybody listening anymore, you know across the divide. You know, and if nobody is listening then it doesn’t make much of a difference what the media is doing. You know, so it’s not so much, you know do I love the media? Is it fake media? I mean they’re doing the job that they’re doing. And, you know, more stuff on the border that especially as a Texan, you know, or at least the faux-Texan–
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: You know would be great because–
Jeremi Suri: Yeah.
Paul Stekler: You know I’ve done lots of filming on the border (laughs) and it never felt, you know, like it was really dangerous out there.
Jeremi Suri: You didn’t find caravans of enemies coming at you.
Paul Stekler: No no no. And there were places like over by Big Ben, where exactly would you put this wall?
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, this is all like to a large extent, you know, silliness.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: It’s not so silly because of the implications in our politics. I think the lager problem is, are we ever going to get passed this. You know it’s kind of like, you take a look at the shutdown. And you take a look at our budget process, if there is a process.
[10:02]
Jeremi Suri: Hmm.
And just looking at where this is going and the inability of Congress to do anything, you know besides score political points, where is this going? You know, or is this just rushing us into a, you know, a world where China, you know, employs us to be able to do work for them. I think other countries, you know, that have more of a centralized control (chuckles) or you can call it more of a dictatorial control or whatever, look at us and they go, “Huh?”.
Jeremi Suri: Right. Right.
Paul Stekler: You know it’s kind of like as the West falls apart in terms of politics, you know call it Brexit, call it Yellow Jackets over in France, or whatever, this is really disturbing in terms of what the future is like.
Jeremi Suri: No it’s a good point. I was talking to a group of visiting Chinese officials yesterday and there were making this particular point. On the topic of fake news, which of course is related to this, much of what we hear about from the border and some news outlets [inaudible 10:54] of course fake news.
Paul Stekler: Right.
Jeremi Suri: We have another question. This is from Ally [inaudible 11:00] I believe. I hope I pronounced her name correctly. Ally I apologize if I didn’t pronounce your name correctly. Let’s hear Ally’s question.
Ally: I’ve recently seen a lot of hateful news on social media from both the left wing and the right wing concerning the need for a government shutdown over President Trump’s border wall. Many of the articles I find are full of fake news that are being used by both sides of the argument. So here’s my question to you, does the first amendment’s freedom of speech justify and protect the fake news scene on social media?
Paul Stekler: (sighs) You know… as somebody who doesn’t do social media very much because of this–
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: You know, of course the first amendment protects this. You know, I don’t want to do a both sides sort of thing. Okay Fox News is pathetic.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: Okay I mean I can give you an example of this. Back in 2008, I did a program for FRONTLINE for the about the Obama vs McCain race. It’s a really good, you know, really good program, “The Choice”. I spend a lot of time trying–
Jeremi Suri: I went back and watched it after you mentioned it last time. It was excellent.
Paul Stekler: Yeah (chuckles) and I think I mentioned last time, Fox News did their election special, and half of it was about two guys who went to college at the same time as Obama who were from Indonesia who might have been terrorists. And I’m watching this and I’m going, “What?”.
Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
Paul Stekler: You know this is like crazy.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, now they’re [inaudible 12:17]. You know when we talk about fake news, Fox News is beyond Mars on this. Okay that said, they’re fulfilling their demographic. That’s what they want to hear, whatever that is.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: Okay. And the Republicans have been much worse than the Democrats in terms of this stuff. But the Democrats are following suit. You know it’s kind of like… again I can’t get worked up on this fake news stuff okay. I think it’s fed by people’s ideological tribal instincts so whatever. The bigger problem is what’s going on in society. And quite frankly we are not solving any of our problems.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know this is like, you want to solve the border? Okay, compromise.
Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm.
Paul Stekler: Okay there’s plenty of agreement in terms of need for security. You know, needs for more judges down there. Needs for more facilities so you know the kids are not put in cages. Okay. You know and needs for border patrols. Okay this is all agreed by people. Okay, and nobody can sit down and think about this because it’s like who’s going to win the news cycle? Who’s going to win the next election?
Jeremi Suri: It does seem to me Paul, that as historians right, both you and I recognize I think that we’ve gone through these kinds of rough media moments throughout our history. The late 19th, early 20th century, if you think about what urban media looked like with viral newspapers run by parties. And it does seem to me that the solution is not of course restricting the media, just the opposite. But the solution is, when members of the public, particularly a new generation–
Paul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
Jeremi Suri: Look for an alternative source that actually provides good problem solving news.
Paul Stekler: Right.
Jeremi Suri: Do you see that happening?
Paul Stekler: Um. Can I continue my doom and gloom?
Jeremi Suri: (laughs) You can!
Paul Stekler: You know, as newspapers begin to go out of business. You know, as people begin to cut down the people who are actually covering policy, you know, is this getting better or is this getting a lot worse? I mean I would fear that in the future, unless all you’re doing is reading the New York Times and the Washington Post and listening to NPR I guess, you know who exactly is doing in depth news? I mean we live in Austin, Texas you know look at the coverage of the legislature you know compared to what it was 20 years ago, in terms of the bureaus. You know, is the only solution The Texas Tribune? You know, it does a pretty good job. Okay, but is that the solution to this? Having you know–
Jeremi Suri: But that’s what I was thinking about. The Texas Tribune, which is a non-profit that provides, I think even those who have a different set of politics would say, you know pretty in depth fair coverage of what’s going on. And you think of what NPR does–
Paul Stekler: Sure.
[15:00]
Jeremi Suri: And the way NPR subscriber base has increased quite a lot actually in the last few years. Those seem to be good signs to me.
Paul Stekler: And what if you live in Kansas? I mean what if you live in Wyoming? I mean we’re not liable to have Texas Tribunes in those places. You know we have a, you know, this is Austin, Texas. We have people with a lot of money, you know who are willing to back something like this up. You know, there’s a difference between Austin and most parts of the country. Our public radio and public TV stations are supported to a much larger extent here you know, then other parts of the country. You know so sure, we’re living in a bubble over here which is great. What do you do if you’re in Lubbock?
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know? At least you’re in Texas and you get some of this stuff. So I think this is again– you know I used to live in New Orleans where I started making films and where I did politics. You know The Times-Picayune is down to three days.
Jeremi Suri: Yeah.
Paul Stekler: And it’s fairly pathetic. And you know a lot of the people who work there ended up working in that paper that comes out of Baton Rouge that tries to pick up, you know the slack. But I mean, what it leads to is less coverage. How much coverage is there about what our legislature does?
Jeremi Suri: Mm-mm.
Paul Stekler: You know not that much considering how important it is. You know and we have lots of coverage on fake news and the border and all this stuff but quite frankly what’s going to affect your life in a much greater extent is are we actually going to fund public education?
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, you want to lower property taxes, you know but not increase the money that goes into public education guess what’s going to happen?
Jeremi Suri: Right, right. Well what about though, what we did see in the early 20th century and again in the mid-20th century, public efforts to create public funding for these organizations.
Paul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
Jeremi Suri: I mean, NPR and PBS are not that old in fact right.
Paul Stekler: Sure.
Jeremi Suri: And in the early 20th century there was the effort through the city manager system through urban reform to create, again, factual news sites for people.
Paul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
Jeremi Suri: And it’s actually not that expensive right. If states wanted to fund this they could couldn’t they?
Paul Stekler: Sure. (sighs) Yeah but I guess again this goes back to the whole fracturing of American society. You know, public television you know as the product of the great society.
Jeremi Suri: Right. Lyndon Johnson.
Paul Stekler: Well you know, a lot of the reforms that you’re talking about in the early 20th century are the product of the progressive movement. Okay, do you see anything in the United States right now that would indicate to you that there is any kind of unanimity possible to be able to do these kinds of initiatives, at least publicly? You know, I don’t. And–
Jeremi Suri: Hmm.
Paul Stekler: You know, it’s kind of… you know I keep thinking what exactly would it take for somebody to get elected that could actually be a unifier? Is unification even possible anymore?
Jeremi Suri: Hmm.
Paul Stekler: You know, maybe it’ll take some type of catastrophe, you know, where all of a sudden people would stop thinking about, you know, why they hate each other. And figure out that, you know, if they don’t like each other we don’t do some things specifically, you know, together. You know, then doom and gloom is really going to happen. A Great Depression or a World War II.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: And I don’t wish that or anything.
Jeremi Suri: Right, of course.
Paul Stekler: So sure those things are great Jeremi but are they liable to happen, you know, from a public entity when a public entity doesn’t have that kind of–
You know you take a look at our government right now, it’s– as long as you’ve got one more vote than someone else, you can force through things.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, like Obamacare came through without a single Republican vote.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, the tax cuts came through, I don’t think with what, two or three Democratic votes?
Jeremi Suri: That’s right.
Paul Stekler: And what’s going on with the courts right now you know, is like antithetical to the way the court system has worked in the past. Forcing all these people through on party align votes, on Supreme Court votes. You know, where there’s almost no crossing. This is not healthy for Democracy.
Jeremi Suri: I guess what I’m trying to get at Paul is, how do we get beyond this division at the surface when we also know there is a lot of unity beyond that right? Most Americans believe that climate change is a problem now.
Paul Stekler: Right.
Jeremi Suri: Not that representatives don’t believe that, they believe that. The vast majority of Americans wanted the government open. In fact, the Senate voted 100 to 0 open before Trump decided to change his mind, based on what he saw on right wing television and radio.
Paul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
Jeremi Suri: So it’s not that there isn’t a consensus out there, and I’m not sure if the consensus out there is any less strong than what it was 40 years ago. It’s a problem of people in the media, your world, not getting that story out and not bringing people together around that.
Paul Stekler: You know, but again I agree that most people believe in climate change. Most people believe we shouldn’t have had a shutdown. Okay, but if you actually took a look at what’s important to people–
Jeremi Suri: Hmm.
Paul Stekler: Especially for Republican voters, they might have tended toward that but they didn’t want to vote that way.
Jeremi Suri: Right. Why not? Why not?
Paul Stekler: Because I think the partisan tribalism is more important than the specific issue. You know, the truism you know when I was in graduate school learning about you know, political participation and political behavior, was that if I liked Jeremi then I assume that Jeremi’s positions are closer than mine. Okay, that’s more important than my issue positions.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: And I think that, you know, as we split and my partisan leanings are based a lot on the fact that I hate you, then I’m against whatever you are for.
[20:03]
Jeremi Suri: Right, right.
Paul Stekler: So how do you actually get any kind of consensus on issues where people actually genuinely agree? You know, I don’t know. I just don’t know.
Jeremi Suri: Right, it sounds like you need a figure that people like, even if that figure is not in their tribe.
Paul Stekler: Yeah, some sort of a transformational figure. You know… and if I had to invent that in a laboratory right now, I’m just not that quite sure who that would be. What that would be.
Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Zachary what do you think about this?
Zachary: I think there needs to be more young people in politics and in the media. And that’s one of the important parts that’s being left behind in politics today. That they’re focusing on what’s going on right now in Washington and when people butt heads, its big stories, but I think it’s more important to focus on educating young people on how media covers things and on fake news. But also on how they can get engaged in politics and the media.
Jeremi Suri: Mm-hmm. Paul on that point, do you see a difference on how young people consume media versus how middle aged and older voters consume media. Besides obviously the young people use more social media.
Paul Stekler: (laughs)
Jeremi Suri: But do you see them– does the evidence so far show that the young people are as tribal as the older consumers?
Paul Stekler: Well as a decidedly un-young person–
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: I have no idea. And I think that you know, obviously the numbers show that fewer people are watching you know, the old mainstream ways of being able to do the news.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: (sighs) And they’re using more social media. I was thinking about this in terms of unification, and I’m not going to use Beto O’Rourke as sort of like the model for the future okay, but he was able to you know, increase youth turnout.
Jeremi Suri: Yes. Yes.
Paul Stekler: Okay now, at the same time not doing much in terms of like Latino turnouts and having a game plan for traditional, you know, democratic constituencies. Okay, why was he able to do that? It was partially social media, and partially, you know, personality driven. You know, if you actually ask, you know, people, you know, what does Beto O’Rourke stand for? Good luck. He stands for, “Wow I really like him.”
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, now is that the model for young people in the future? Someone who seems positive, who looks good, you know and can feel your pain in a way that is a little less fake than President Clinton.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, I don’t know. Now that may be the way of the future, which is not issue driven at all.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: Okay and somehow they go, “Can’t we reason this out?”
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: I don’t know. You know, in terms of young voters, you know, it was nice to be able to see, you know, young voters actually voting in numbers closer to their numbers in society in Texas in the last election. You know, will they make a big difference in politics in the future? I mean people are tending to say that younger voters are more liberal than voters in general. You know, that they have much more liberal social views. You know, so I guess if you are a Democrat that makes you happy. I don’t know what that means in terms of actual specifics, in terms of harder issues because not everything is a social issue.
Jeremi Suri: But I wonder how different that is, and maybe this is a good historical and optimistic question to close on. It does seem what you’re describing–
Paul Stekler: Mm-hmm.
Jeremi Suri: Sounds a lot like people who were drawn to Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century. Or Franklin Roosevelt. There are a large number of people who know this literature well. Who said, you know, I like Franklin or I like Theodore, I don’t always like their policy but I like them. And then I think of someone who you’ve covered better than anyone else, Ann Richards. It strikes me, a lot of people who liked Ann Richards didn’t actually know what her policies were.
Paul Stekler: Right.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: You know, I suppose. I mean Ann got elected in part because Clayton Williams blew the race. I mean if Clayton had actually left the State for the last month he probably would have won. You know, and they liked her a whole lot and she lost to George W. Bush who was also a very likable candidate.
Jeremi Suri: But she did serve, you know, full term as governor of Texas.
Paul Stekler: She did. She did. You know it seems like sort of, you know, the [inaudible 23:57] you know, your politics.
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: You know, now that it gets further and further away. You know, Teddy Roosevelt was, you know, president during a Republican dominated period of time. You know Republicans wanted no part of him and they put him on the Vice Presidential thing. And then all of a sudden got their worst nightmare when McKinley got killed.
Jeremi Suri: Right.
Paul Stekler: And you know, Roosevelt came in because of the Great Depression. You know so, a lot of times people are brought in, you know, in different reasons and they rise to the moment. You know so, again who know? It’s kind of like, anything can happen. You know, like the South Pole might melt tomorrow and all of a sudden the United States is underwater. And we have to all, you know, get together over in Kansas, you know, under a unifying leader.
Jeremi Suri: (laughs)
Paul Stekler: I don’t know.
Jeremi Suri: (continues laughing) Well I think Paul, in your inimical way (laughs)
Paul Stekler: (laughs)
Jeremi Suri: You’ve given us (laughs)
Paul Stekler: Hope for the future. (laughs)
Jeremi Suri: A lot to worry about, but also a sense that things are going to change. I do think what you captured so well, and you always do, are the ways in which it’s really not about the media, it’s about all of us as consumers of the media.
Paul Stekler: The media is a reflection of who we are.
[25:00]
You know, as I think the other way around, so.
Jeremi Suri: Absolutely. Well Paul thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us all of you listeners for this episode of “This is Democracy”.
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Speaker 4: This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.
Speaker 5: The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison [Lum-kee 25:26]. And you can find his music at Harrison[Lum-kee 25:29].com
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