July 31, 2025 • 35 mins
Hour 3 of A&G features...
- The Epstein files, burn bags & monkey crime
- People don't want a clown in their home
- Screen time & how it affects kids
- The FireAid benefit concert funds & where they went.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty arm Strong.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And Jetty and arm Strong and Jetty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I was really proud to join every single one of
my Democratic colleagues on the Homeland Committee in invoking a
century old and little known law known as the rule
of five, to compel the Department of Justice to release
the full and complete Epstein files. Under federal law, when
(00:45):
any five Senators on the Homeland Security Committee call on
the Executive Branch, the executive branch must comply.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right, all right, that's all.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
The most powerful Democrat in America lean in horror into
the Ebstein story.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
He is incapable of shame. Speaking of shame, it would
be a terrible shame if this hour we did not
squeeze in two stories. I demand we talk about these
two stories this hour. Number one, what happened to one
hundred million dollars raised for the Southern California fire victims?
And number two, indonation monk in Goot Take two, Michael,
(01:24):
do we have enough tape? Indonesian monkey gangs? Are you
at risk?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Indonesian monkey gangs?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Stay tuned lest you be molested by Indonesian monkey gangs
or imges, as they're known in law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Also, we've been mentioning that Kamala Harris is running for president.
She's got a book she's putting out. We got her
explaining what's in the book. I guess later this hour.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So that's good. So he's begun already. Yes, it's like Christmas.
So you got Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
He's the biggest deal in all the Democrats, right, He's
the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, most powerful
Democrat in America, saying, got to get the Epstein files.
I've invoked a one hundred year old law to try
to get the Epstein stuff to come out.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
He's not alone. Here's the most powerful Republican short of
Donald Trump. Speaker of the House Johnson being asked about
the Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
I want everything to come out about the Epstein evils
that is possible to be released. We have to do
it in a responsible manner. But look, I'm pushing for
aggressively for the full release of everything that is possible.
And by the way, so is the President. He has
said the same thing. We're using every mechanism within our
power to do that and to do it as quickly
as possible.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I don't understand what is happening here. It just it's easy,
does I think it's fairly easy to understand. Okay, well
what you string for people who are into the thing, Well, okay,
how's it going to end? What's gonna happen? Oh gosh,
I guarantee Johnson is hoping it just peters out.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I think he's hoping an event happens something Russia, just
just some story bumps it and then we all forget
about it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And then like nine months from now, you're saying, hey,
whatever happened to that whole Epstein thing?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, obviously Schumer just wants to prolong it for just
pathetic will be completely unsuccessful, partisan reasons, desperately trying to
have something the Democrats can hang their hat on.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
But it's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Day after day goes by more strong statements and vows
and lies and truths, and the situation remains the same.
Granduary testimony is sealed and the judge is not going
to release sensitive information about victims and witnesses and people
who have.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Not been charged.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Those are like sacred principles of our judicial system. So Posturon,
good buddy Posturon.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
So one of the big stories yesterday was Cash Betel,
guy who runs the FBI, said he found a whole
bunch of burn bags with Russian hoax documents. I'd never
heard that term before. Here's a little report on it
from Hannity last night.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Senator Charles Grassley has been investigating the collusion hoax and
those behind it for years, which is why these burn
bag documents were turned over to him. So the question becomes,
you know who ordered the plan burning, why did they
do it? And it doesn't matter if the material was classified,
(04:21):
you still cannot destroy it if it relates to an investigation.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, well, let's go clear to the top. Trump was
asked about the burn bags.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Tele burn eys and rushing ee materials, and he said,
what rushing eerials.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I don't know. I don't know what you mean by
that statement. Full of rushing burn Bank. So you said,
appointed a been named burned bang ahead.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So he, like the rest of us, had never heard
burn Bag. Oh, he's well known, and Justice Circus says
he's doing great work, Edward burn Bag. So Trump, like
the rest of us, had never heard of burn Bags
had no idea what that hell that story is.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Burn Bag has paid his due time for him to
have the big chair. I think he's earned that. I
think he'd be good on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Next question, So this story is either a hilariously naked
attempt to distract and or come up with something for
the conspiracy world to chew on, or it's completely legit.
I mean, if you and I've got more good stuff
on this, but we'll never find time for it. But
the whole Clapper Brennan call me Russia Gate. The fix
(05:38):
was in, the evidence was fake, the FISA warrants were inaccurate.
Just if you go through all of that and comprehend
it and don't think maybe somebody tried to get a
bunch of get rid of a bunch of incriminating documents,
I think you're a fool.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That doesn't make it true. But it's worth asking the.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Question, Hey, did you take in National Reviews take on
this the other day? I thought that was really interesting.
Particularly Charles C. W. Cook has written about this a lot.
This is a missing element of our politics in the
modern times. For some reason, the idea that there are
political solutions to these things and they often happen and
(06:21):
you should feel like, Okay, it's been taken care of,
because there are a number of things like this where
you feel like justice wasn't done.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
There's a political solution.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
People disliked the Democrats so much in part because of
this this sort of crap. They elected Trump instead of
Biden or Kamala hachieved them out of office. There was
a political solution there. Yeah, that is a good point
sometimes in the.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
In the in the what we're doing, because as anybody
who's ever been involved in a lawsuit can tell you,
or you know, criminal prosecution for that matter, it's really hard.
It takes a really long time, and it's super expensive,
and if it's something that anybody has like decent plausible
denial about, you will never ever get a conviction. So
(07:12):
the political solution is the best one you can hope for.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's a good point.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, and it's a pretty good solution if you're winning
big elections. It might not feel like maybe the same
satisfaction as seeing Clapper in jail. I guess Brennan is
the villain. Brennan in prison. But they lost and they
have the lowest approval rating for their party they've ever had. Yeah,
because of this sort of stuff in the border and
(07:36):
a bunch of other things, or Fauci all of that stuff. Yeah,
people didn't end up in jail, but that party is
dying on the vine. Well, Fauci covered up the murder
of millions and probably facilitated it. But I see your point.
The point remains, Michael. It's like that on that side
was not that there were no repercussions for what they did.
(07:58):
There were great repercussions that you.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Would have thought was unelectable, like Donald Trump beat them.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, yeah, not entirely satisfying. But again it's a good point, Michael.
Do we have any sort of eerie music like scenes
setting me? I should have asked earlier, because I've got
my my eerie voice ready to go, my vaguely threatening
voiceover voice. But at a cliff side temple on the
(08:23):
tropical island of Bali, an unexpected group of criminals is
running one of the world's most sophisticated scam operations. Apparently
we don't have music that fits. I should have asked
for it earlier. An incompetent talk show host blames as
co workers when we all know where the blame lies.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
For lots of planning.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Because he's got the attention span of a moth and
forgot to tell poor Michael this is this is perfect
by the way, Michael job, this is stunning.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Was worth taking the time to find the music? Where
were we all? That's right? In Bally.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Each week they steal dozens of phones, whilets and other
valuables from tourists in broad daylight and exchange.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Them for handsome rewards.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's been going on for decades and nobody can stop it.
Who are the culprits? Read read read.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Long tailed my cacks.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Set a tourist from London whose sunglasses were stolen by
a monkey during a visit last year. The monkeys have
taken over the temples. They're running a scam. So running
a scam. The monkeys are running a scam. It's a
monkey scams. Where a monkey's taking my phone? It's a
monkey scam.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Bali is at the southern tip of Indonesia, super popular
for tourists, and you got everything from parentesay.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I saw it Twitter post from a woman who looked
like the sort of person would tweet this just got
back from Bali.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
In my life, will never be the same. And I thought, whatever,
all right, shut up, I say, plants, by the way,
get your money's worth.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So you got that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
The beaches and traditional fire dance shows, panoramic views, and
the Balinese Hindu temple sites that date back at least
to the eleventh century. Wow, so fascinating place in a
lot of ways. But there are like six hundred monkeys
that inhabit the temple because, for whatever crazy third world reason,
(10:32):
the monkeys are considered to be the sacred guardians of
the temple in Bali. The sacred cows are actually monkeys.
So the primate researchers have found that these macaque monkeys steal.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
We can't say that on the air, I think I can.
I'm cringing it. I know I love macaques.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
These macaques steel belongings to you is this currency to
trade with humans for food and monkeys to be trained
to differentiate between high value stuff like smartphones, prescription glasses
and wallets and crap like hats or flip flops and
will barter accordingly. So they know that if they take
(11:20):
an iPhone from me, they might get a peach.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, And it's an interesting story about tourism and monkey
crime certainly tells me.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
No, I will not yield to this monkey cord or
whatever this thing. This is not a monkey cord, it
is this is a monkey temple.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There should be a monkey cord. They should all be prosecuted.
Where are you going to try the monkeys if not
a monkey cord? Anyway, according to this university team that's
spent years filming them with cacks and outlining analyzing hundreds
of hours of footage, Katie shakes your head sadly, you
are five other fours.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Tell you what my inner child keeps me saying.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
In other words, the monkeys quote have unprecedented economic decision
making processes, they wrote in an academic.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Paper, differentiate an iPhone from like some other item, as
being more valuable.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Now interestingly, many cases require the help of.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The monkeys' handlers. The temple.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Monkeys' handlers called powang, which is only slightly better than macaque.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh my god, yeah, I think not a bit of it.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Anyway, These powangs negotiate with the furry hostage takers. They
offer fruits such as bananas, mangoes, something I've never heard of,
and something else I've never heard of rambutan and mango steam.
Of course, in exchange to go to the Bali courts
La penis. I only wish Jack, I only wish you child.
(13:06):
And so these guys get get a cut as well,
maybe get a little tip, get a little love.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
I so they're all a scam. There's kind of communicating it.
That does sound like a scam. Yeah, the monkey took
your iPhone. You're gonna have to give him a If
you give me a couple of dollars, I'll have it
and give you your phone back. All right, I see
what's happening there.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, Indonesian monkey gangs.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What next? Next?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Go just when you think you're on top of things, Uh,
screen time the latest division of the social war.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've got going on, class warfare. Stay tuned.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
Armstrong the dentist in a Colorado courtroom, as the judge,
where the jury's verdict, we the jury.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Unioniously and you have a reasonable doubt find the defendant,
James Craig, guilty of murder in the first.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Craig also found guilty of trying to fabricate evidence to
make his wife Angela's death look like suicide, asking others
to lie for him, including one of his own children
and asking a fellow inmate to kill the detective investigating him.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I was not following that story. I kind of wish
I had gotten into it like a lot of you did.
And it's an interesting You know how these court cases
every once in a while catch people's attention and become
a focus enough to make national news, And this was
an interesting one. I don't think it was ever in
doubt that he was guilty. It was just following along
(14:36):
his insane behavior as a dad of sex married for decades,
ends up killing his wife like this, and he's been
cheating the whole marriage, and he tries to get his
kid involved in the cover up. And then you heard
there while he's been in jail this whole time, tried
to get an inmate, tried to hire somebody to kill
the prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Just a nut job, but a successful guy. Yeah. I
gotta be just a sociopath.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I mean, because like, bad judgment and desperation wouldn't take
you that far down that road, would it. You want
to He's got to be a sociopath who passed as
a reasonable person.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Coming up, I want to get into the latest attempt
at class warfare in the New York Times that I
think is it's interesting on several levels. It's all around
screen time. But I just we kind of had this
conversation during the commercial break. We were doing something of
a jocular in nature last segment if you didn't hear it,
about monkey gangs, and Michael referenced a boss of ours
(15:38):
many many many years ago, really nice guy, but he
once said to us about first of all, we had
a different boss. He said, Funny's okay, but not silly,
which I just love.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I just I love that.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
You pretend that you can break down that distinction as
the program director of the radio station, when we're being
funny is silly. And then the other program director, who
would talk to us at length every single day, said,
people do not want to clown in their home, which
is true.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
As far as it goes.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, whether or not you should try to be funny
on the radio is a different question. But do people
actually no, I know, I'd be horrified if they're a
clown at my home right now.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Funny is okay, Silly is not?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
It's so easy to wacky? Is acceptable? Mad cap?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
In the world of show business is a very sort
of thing that David Letterman used to complain about all
the time the bosses who have no idea what humor
is or could craft the sort of thing themselves, stand
outside his studio and judge whether or not he'd done
a good show. Spent your life with an MBA figuring
out finances. This thing a class warfare and screen time.
(17:01):
I think is pretty damned interesting, So I hope you
can stick around for it. We do a lot of
segments and hours that I find interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And weren't that hundred million dollars in LA fire relief money?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Go stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
If you can't stay tuned, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong
You Getty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Singer Katy Perry was spotted on a date with Canada's
former Prime Minister Justin trudeauw I know who knew she
was a lesbian?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Larry's a girl for sure? Wow? Did not see that punchline? Gimming?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well done, Greg, Yeah, And to our previous story, monkey
gangs are a real thing. My wife got her fancy
sunglasses stolen at that temple in Bali and she had
to pay a local man close by to get them back.
No scam here, So they trained the monkeys to steal
(17:58):
the stuff and then say I've got the abil Did
you get that back from the monkey?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And you'd think, well, I don't know, I don't know.
The monkey ain't gonna come to me right right? How
do you break up the gang? The monkeys aren't talking.
Joe's important story coming up next segment.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Where'd that one hundred million dollars for the Southern California
wildfire victims?
Speaker 8 (18:18):
Go?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think this is damned interesting. This is from the
New York Times.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
I'm going to read their piece about their essay, but
there's there's a lot here. I think one of the
promises of technology was that it would democratize knowledge. With
Project Gutenberg, for instance, which I've used online before, I
don't know if you have, you don't need to. You
don't need access to a physical library to read Gulliver's Travels.
(18:41):
Like any book or anything written that is in the
public domain, you can go to the Project Gutenberg online
and read and so that's anything from before nineteen twenty five.
At this point, with Wikipedia, you don't need to set
a bulky expensive reference books to learn about King Louis
the fourteen ain't do you remember Mook's massive open online
(19:03):
courses in theory that meant that you don't need a
Harvard acceptance letter to learn programming from a Harvard computer scientist.
But in a guest essay this week, Mary Harrington argues
that more often today digital technologies, especially our smartphones, are
actually doing the opposite. They are drivers of a growing
cognitive inequality. Only the New York Times could turn this
(19:26):
into a class thing.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It's true, but I.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Just anyway, we'll discuss that after As scrolling in short
form videos crowd out long form reading has for me, unfortunately,
as notifications and tabs mold our minds for distraction, what
scholars call deep literacy, and through it critical thinking and
rational capacity are becoming luxury goods, available only to those
(19:50):
who have the time and resources to consciously, determinedly prioritize them.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
That last part is a real stretch. I mean, the
first part about how you know. I was going to say,
wait a minute, bad stuff isn't crowding out good stuff,
But then I saw their point. It kind of does,
because the best minds of our generation are tempting us
into doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
But that last part, Okay, the ascetic approach to cognitive fitness.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
There's a sentence you only get in the New York
Times is still niche and concentrated among the wealthy, writes Harrington. Indeed,
poor kids in America spend about two more hours per
day on screens than richer ones, according to the twenty
nineteen study.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, so, okay, you could.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Have written that story two hundred or four hundred years ago.
Only the rich have the time to study Latin and
Greek and Pythagoras. The rest of us are scratching out
a living off the land, which is why Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln was so miraculous a person. He was so determined
to learn, he surmounted all of that.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, but this is the opposite. This is saying that.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
They're spending more time, more free time. I guess pork
kids are spending more free time scrolling, and that's somehow
a problem.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That needs to be overcome.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So people that they just said that only rich people
have the time to do like deep reading. No, what
they're suggesting is only rich people have the time to
enforce rules on their kids.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I guess that don't allow them to scroll. I just
I think it's interesting because it's clearly the whole.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
What do they call it.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
That's a good term, and a deep literacy. Like I
mentioned the other day, I've started reading Ulysses. I'm committed
this time to getting through that damn book. I've gotten
further than I've ever gotten before. But I've been reading
every night, long form reading of a specific piece of
difficult literature, and I'm enjoying it so much. It's like,
it's just it's amazing the feeling gives me versus the
(22:01):
just scrolling through crap.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Before I go to bed and it says you're rich.
It's still something. According to the New York Times, it's.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Like the difference between eating a healthy smoothie or you know,
junk food.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I mean, it's just it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But anyway, the whole deep literacy and our minds are
trained to not do that anymore. Oh one hundred percent
true and a huge problem. And it might do mankind
and it might do me.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But the idea that there, we're now there's now a
break between the rich and the poor, and you're insinuating
they never get to this point. But they're insinuating it's
somebody's fault.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I mean, do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
In your family regardless of your income, on how much
time you let your kids scroll crap or how much
time you scroll crap. It's got nothing to do with
how much money you have, if you have a phone,
how much time you spend scrolling crap versus you know,
reading literature. That's completely up to you, right nobody else.
(23:03):
I find myself wondering what it's like to go through
every single day desperately looking for some sort of haves
and have nots narrative tied to everything, and then desperately
trying to demonstrate to everyone that you're on the right
side of it, that those two things animate your every day.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What's it like?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
The title is tiring and no kidding, the title is
thinking is becoming a luxury good? That is one of
the most stupid effing things I've ever heard, Ironically, what
a dangerous way to look at the world. So, if
you have a family where the kids play dumb games
on their tablet all the time, you have a family
(23:41):
where the kids are you know, not doing that or
reading or you're reading or whatever it's got to do
with wealth, well there's probably a correlation between those things.
Just like well, let me read this other part. This
is from the guy who actually wrote the essay, So
that was someone writing in the New York Times about
the essay.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
In the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
This is from the actual essay. Think of this by
comparison with patterns of junk food consumption. As ultra processed
snacks have grown more available and inventively addictive, developed societies
have seen a gulf emerge between those with the social
and economic resources what are social resources, the social and
economic resources to sustain a healthy lifestyle, and those more
(24:24):
vulnerable to the obzogenetic food culture.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I don't know what that word is.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
This bifurcation is strongly class inflected across the developed tou s.
Obesity has become a strongly correlated with poverty. I fear
that so too will be the tide of post literacy.
First of all, I got to look up that word
obesogenetic tending to cause obesity. Okay, you could have just
(24:52):
town that obesa genetic, obesa genetic. Okay, But first of all,
I've never even bought the food one. Really, the idea
that if you're on the poor end where people tend
to be more overweight, it's because you're forced into it.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
No, I mean, there's been studies on that.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
There's all kinds of healthy food you can buy that's
not super expensive. There's healthy food that is expensive, but.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You can get bananas and vegetables and lettuce and stuff
like that for the same price as oreos.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
And you know, ice cream or crap. And I tend
toward the ladder of eating. I eat more crap than
I should. But it's not a cost thing that has
been debunked, the food desert, that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But this person is.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Now trying to apply that to screen time, which seems
nuts to me.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, that's an incredible stretch.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
What a dangerous way though, to look at the world,
and for that to be you know, a New York
Times worthy.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Essay. Oh, you're right, the poor too much green? Whose
fault is that well?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the fact that they tied themselves into knots and
made an enormous reach to an incredibly questionable conclusion when
the problem that they kind of tip their cap to
that all of us, regardless.
Speaker 8 (26:09):
Of social status, economic status, all of us are are
getting the whole foods of learning shoved out of our
diet by the doom scrolling video watching crap that mark
Zuckerberg and the greatest minds of our generation have put
in front of us.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
That's so much bigger problem than that ridiculous New York
Times the effort to be enlightened.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Shut up.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, the assumption there is that the downtrodden even have that.
You have the screen, So you've got the screens and
apparently the Wi Fi and the ability to access this stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So we're just assuming everybody's got that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
So at that point, if you've got that, I was
just talking about the Gutenberg Project. All the greatest things
ever written are available to you for free. You could
look at those, your kids could look at those. If
you're choosing not to, that's on you. I don't know
where you come up with this whole class warfare thing around.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It as really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But society has conspired to keep that knowledge away from
those people. I refer to it as a Gutenberg desert, right,
So what is that thing?
Speaker 4 (27:13):
This was about the food the gulf between those with
the social and economic resources. What are the social resources
to eat better or worse?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I don't know. Education. Who hates to repeat myself, but
shut up, who doesn't know? Let us is better for
you than oreos need education for that not much.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, where did all that money go that was supposed
to help out the fire victims?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Joe's got that next, among other things. Stay here.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Ask me later about cultural differences in.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Deadlines that I learned about in the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Fits in with the whole tariff thing, like tomorrow's the
tariff deadline for a bunch of countries and Trump got
one done with South Korea late last night.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Interesting O.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Their cultures have a completely different way of looking at
deadlines than we do in the United States.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Wow, Wow, Okay, intriguing. We'll get to that hour four
of the show. If you don't get out of the four,
subscribe our four of the show subscribed to the podcast
Armstrong and Getty on demand. So I had heard earlier
in the week that zero dollars of the one hundred
million that were raised for the La Area fire victims
had been distributed to those victims. We're talking about the
(28:30):
fire aid benefit concert that made a big deal organized
by former ticketmaster and music mogul Irving Azoff and his
wife blah blah blah, one hundred million dollars. Billie Eilish,
Lady Gaga, Alanis Morris said, Joni Mitchell and others blah
blah blah.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Yeah, I remember that it was a big deal, including
a whole bunch of people who had lost their own
homes stars, because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
You know, it's a lot of the wealthy and famous
who lost stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Well right, And I found that the idea that no
money had gotten to the victims both horrible and hard
to believe, given you know how important the entertainment industry
too is to l A and how it's all local
and all.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I'm surprised at zero, but it's not. That's not true,
is one of the points that about to make. Okay,
we'll let you make your point first.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well so, and and in the Free Press they quote
a couple of folks who say, who are residents of
the area of victims, We haven't seen any Palisades organizations
benefit from the fire aid funds.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And he points out the area is often.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Misperceived as this very exclusive, affluent enclave.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Not always the case.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You got rent control departments, people inherited homes they never
could have bought or were under ensured. Let's see, here's
another gal who runs a local news blog. She found
out the money was being distributed into various nonprofit groups
instead of directly to fire victims. Even though the verbiage
around the fund raiser had said it would be quote
(30:04):
direct relief to victims and communities, the reality is a
little complicated. Fire Aid has distributed half of the hundred
million dollars to more than one hundred and twenty nonprofits
and community groups in a first round of disbursements. They
also chose sixty eight recipients for twenty five million dollars
(30:26):
in a second round. Applications for the last twenty five
million dollars are being accepted through a Google form on
fire Aid's website.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
How careful were they, I hope with what organizations they
gave money to?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, A spokesperson told the Free Press and answer that
very question that because fire Aid was a newly formed
five oh one C three organization, it was never the
plan to distribute funds directly to wildfire victims. An advisory
committee made recommendations to fire Aid's board, so I would
guess it is a very very mixed bag. It gave
out five hundred in cash to outdoor workers like street vendors, landscapers,
(31:03):
and recyclers who are in trouble cause of the fire.
The Filipino Workers Center received an undisclosed sum for supporting
workers displaced by the fires. Money went to the California
Native Vote Project.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I'm pretty cynical about these kind of fundraisers, just you know,
from life experience of seeing this happen a whole bunch
of times. We've been involved with the number of really
really good charities, but man, it's it's they're few and
far between, the ones that are really good. And you
need like an infrastructure and and honest people, I mean
you need. It takes a lot to pull it off right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And as you mentioned the other day, something we've we've
touched on through the years is that the phrase nonprofit
might be the most misleading phrase in the English language.
This simple illustration being Jack and I come up with
the fun for human beings, and we raise a bunch
of money. We raise a million dollars a year. My
(31:59):
sell he is four hundred and seventy five grand a year.
Jack salaries four hundred and seventy five grand a year,
and we give away fifty thousand dollars a year of
what's left. We show no profit though our our balance
sheet shows zero profit.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
No yeah, or we or our salaries list. But we
each have a car. I mean we have to drive
as part of our job. And what you know, we
don't get to drive, and you know, we have to
travel around and talk to smart people so we raise money.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I needed to go to New York and talk to
some man.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
And what am I supposed to stay in a Super eight?
I stayed in a decent hotel.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I have to go to simposia several times a year.
Notice my use of the term symposia has a little much,
but the point is made.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, I wish everybody understood the whole nonprofit scam. So
final note on this top and it's not necessarily scam.
I think if and when a serious audit of those
funds is done, you'll find some very well spent dollars.
You'll find some it's a pretty good idea, but dollars.
(33:00):
Then you'll find some dollars that were stolen or given
a crony's or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
My first lesson in this got how many years ago
did I read the book about JD. Rockefeller? Wow, giant
biography of JD. Rockefeller, who was maybe the richest man
who's ever lived, in America a justed for inflation. But
he retired very very early as the richest man in
the world at the time, and dedicated his life to philanthropy.
(33:30):
And it was a harder job than his job a
running standard oil to make all his money in the
first place, to try to stay on top of that
money and make sure it was spent well. He realized
how difficult it is to be involved in charities and
give out money without it being wasted or stolen.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Very very very hard. Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Most rich people or company foundations are. There companies that
spend all their time figuring out who to give money to,
and in due course they make some money. I'm not
saying that's wrong, but it's you know, it's it's a
big business. Speaking of which, my final note on this topic,
then you might find it helpful. Slash slash troubling. There's
(34:11):
a Twitter account and I just retweeted this. If you
follow us on Twitter, you'll see it. If you don't,
you probably should. I still call X Twitter because X
is a letter of the alphabet. Anyway, it is an infographic.
It's a chart of the five oh one C three
grant network for the Barack Obama Foundation, and he writes,
(34:35):
but it could be almost any major nonprofit. They all
look like this, and it is the main foundation, and
then then organizations they deal with, and organizations they deal with,
and then the endpoint of the money and the lines
between illustrating the cash flows between those organizations. It reminds
me a little bit of the Biden family twenty four LLCs.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
It is a a graphic full of absolutely incomprehensible intercrossing
lines of money flowing back and forth. It is completely
incomprehensible who is getting that money and why, And as
he said, it could be any major nonprofit.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
They all look like this.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
If the LA thing qualifies as a scandal, then the
entire nonprofit sector is a scandal.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty arm Strong.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
And Jetty and arm Strong and Jetty.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I was really proud to join every single one of
my Democratic colleagues on the Homeland Committee in invoking a
century old and little known law known as the rule
of five, to compel the Department of Justice to release
the full and complete Epstein files. Under federal law, when
(00:45):
any five Senators on the Homeland Security Committee call on
the Executive Branch, the executive branch must comply.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
All right, all right, that's all.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
The most powerful Democrat in America lean in horror into
the Ebstein story.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
He is incapable of shame. Speaking of shame, it would
be a terrible shame if this hour we did not
squeeze in two stories. I demand we talk about these
two stories this hour. Number one, what happened to one
hundred million dollars raised for the Southern California fire victims?
And number two, indonation monk in Goot Take two, Michael,
(01:24):
do we have enough tape? Indonesian monkey gangs? Are you
at risk?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Indonesian monkey gangs?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Stay tuned lest you be molested by Indonesian monkey gangs
or imges, as they're known in law enforcement.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Also, we've been mentioning that Kamala Harris is running for president.
She's got a book she's putting out. We got her
explaining what's in the book. I guess later this hour.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
So that's good. So he's begun already. Yes, it's like Christmas.
So you got Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
He's the biggest deal in all the Democrats, right, He's
the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, most powerful
Democrat in America, saying, got to get the Epstein files.
I've invoked a one hundred year old law to try
to get the Epstein stuff to come out.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
He's not alone. Here's the most powerful Republican short of
Donald Trump. Speaker of the House Johnson being asked about
the Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
I want everything to come out about the Epstein evils
that is possible to be released. We have to do
it in a responsible manner. But look, I'm pushing for
aggressively for the full release of everything that is possible.
And by the way, so is the President. He has
said the same thing. We're using every mechanism within our
power to do that and to do it as quickly
as possible.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I don't understand what is happening here. It just it's easy,
does I think it's fairly easy to understand. Okay, well
what you string for people who are into the thing, Well, okay,
how's it going to end? What's gonna happen? Oh gosh,
I guarantee Johnson is hoping it just peters out.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I think he's hoping an event happens something Russia, just
just some story bumps it and then we all forget
about it.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And then like nine months from now, you're saying, hey,
whatever happened to that whole Epstein thing?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, obviously Schumer just wants to prolong it for just
pathetic will be completely unsuccessful, partisan reasons, desperately trying to
have something the Democrats can hang their hat on.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
But it's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Day after day goes by more strong statements and vows
and lies and truths, and the situation remains the same.
Granduary testimony is sealed and the judge is not going
to release sensitive information about victims and witnesses and people
who have.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Not been charged.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Those are like sacred principles of our judicial system. So Posturon,
good buddy Posturon.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
So one of the big stories yesterday was Cash Betel,
guy who runs the FBI, said he found a whole
bunch of burn bags with Russian hoax documents. I'd never
heard that term before. Here's a little report on it
from Hannity last night.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
Senator Charles Grassley has been investigating the collusion hoax and
those behind it for years, which is why these burn
bag documents were turned over to him. So the question becomes,
you know who ordered the plan burning, why did they
do it? And it doesn't matter if the material was classified,
(04:21):
you still cannot destroy it if it relates to an investigation.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, well, let's go clear to the top. Trump was
asked about the burn bags.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Tele burn eys and rushing ee materials, and he said,
what rushing eerials.
Speaker 7 (04:42):
I don't know that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I don't know. I don't know what you mean by
that statement. Full of rushing burn Bank. So you said,
appointed a been named burned bang ahead.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So he, like the rest of us, had never heard
burn Bag. Oh, he's well known, and Justice Circus says
he's doing great work, Edward burn Bag. So Trump, like
the rest of us, had never heard of burn Bags
had no idea what that hell that story is.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Burn Bag has paid his due time for him to
have the big chair. I think he's earned that. I
think he'd be good on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Next question, So this story is either a hilariously naked
attempt to distract and or come up with something for
the conspiracy world to chew on, or it's completely legit.
I mean, if you and I've got more good stuff
on this, but we'll never find time for it. But
the whole Clapper Brennan call me Russia Gate. The fix
(05:38):
was in, the evidence was fake, the FISA warrants were inaccurate.
Just if you go through all of that and comprehend
it and don't think maybe somebody tried to get a
bunch of get rid of a bunch of incriminating documents,
I think you're a fool.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
That doesn't make it true. But it's worth asking the.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Question, Hey, did you take in National Reviews take on
this the other day? I thought that was really interesting.
Particularly Charles C. W. Cook has written about this a lot.
This is a missing element of our politics in the
modern times. For some reason, the idea that there are
political solutions to these things and they often happen and
(06:21):
you should feel like, Okay, it's been taken care of,
because there are a number of things like this where
you feel like justice wasn't done.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
There's a political solution.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
People disliked the Democrats so much in part because of
this this sort of crap. They elected Trump instead of
Biden or Kamala hachieved them out of office. There was
a political solution there. Yeah, that is a good point
sometimes in the.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
In the in the what we're doing, because as anybody
who's ever been involved in a lawsuit can tell you,
or you know, criminal prosecution for that matter, it's really hard.
It takes a really long time, and it's super expensive,
and if it's something that anybody has like decent plausible
denial about, you will never ever get a conviction. So
(07:12):
the political solution is the best one you can hope for.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
It's a good point.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Well, and it's a pretty good solution if you're winning
big elections. It might not feel like maybe the same
satisfaction as seeing Clapper in jail. I guess Brennan is
the villain. Brennan in prison. But they lost and they
have the lowest approval rating for their party they've ever had. Yeah,
because of this sort of stuff in the border and
(07:36):
a bunch of other things, or Fauci all of that stuff. Yeah,
people didn't end up in jail, but that party is
dying on the vine. Well, Fauci covered up the murder
of millions and probably facilitated it. But I see your point.
The point remains, Michael. It's like that on that side
was not that there were no repercussions for what they did.
(07:58):
There were great repercussions that you.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Would have thought was unelectable, like Donald Trump beat them.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, yeah, not entirely satisfying. But again it's a good point, Michael.
Do we have any sort of eerie music like scenes
setting me? I should have asked earlier, because I've got
my my eerie voice ready to go, my vaguely threatening
voiceover voice. But at a cliff side temple on the
(08:23):
tropical island of Bali, an unexpected group of criminals is
running one of the world's most sophisticated scam operations. Apparently
we don't have music that fits. I should have asked
for it earlier. An incompetent talk show host blames as
co workers when we all know where the blame lies.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
For lots of planning.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Because he's got the attention span of a moth and
forgot to tell poor Michael this is this is perfect
by the way, Michael job, this is stunning.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Was worth taking the time to find the music? Where
were we all? That's right? In Bally.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Each week they steal dozens of phones, whilets and other
valuables from tourists in broad daylight and exchange.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Them for handsome rewards.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
It's been going on for decades and nobody can stop it.
Who are the culprits? Read read read.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Long tailed my cacks.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Set a tourist from London whose sunglasses were stolen by
a monkey during a visit last year. The monkeys have
taken over the temples. They're running a scam. So running
a scam. The monkeys are running a scam. It's a
monkey scams. Where a monkey's taking my phone? It's a
monkey scam.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Bali is at the southern tip of Indonesia, super popular
for tourists, and you got everything from parentesay.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
I saw it Twitter post from a woman who looked
like the sort of person would tweet this just got
back from Bali.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
In my life, will never be the same. And I thought, whatever,
all right, shut up, I say, plants, by the way,
get your money's worth.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So you got that.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
The beaches and traditional fire dance shows, panoramic views, and
the Balinese Hindu temple sites that date back at least
to the eleventh century. Wow, so fascinating place in a
lot of ways. But there are like six hundred monkeys
that inhabit the temple because, for whatever crazy third world reason,
(10:32):
the monkeys are considered to be the sacred guardians of
the temple in Bali. The sacred cows are actually monkeys.
So the primate researchers have found that these macaque monkeys steal.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
We can't say that on the air, I think I can.
I'm cringing it. I know I love macaques.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
These macaques steel belongings to you is this currency to
trade with humans for food and monkeys to be trained
to differentiate between high value stuff like smartphones, prescription glasses
and wallets and crap like hats or flip flops and
will barter accordingly. So they know that if they take
(11:20):
an iPhone from me, they might get a peach.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yes, indeed.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, And it's an interesting story about tourism and monkey
crime certainly tells me.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
No, I will not yield to this monkey cord or
whatever this thing. This is not a monkey cord, it
is this is a monkey temple.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
There should be a monkey cord. They should all be prosecuted.
Where are you going to try the monkeys if not
a monkey cord? Anyway, according to this university team that's
spent years filming them with cacks and outlining analyzing hundreds
of hours of footage, Katie shakes your head sadly, you
are five other fours.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Tell you what my inner child keeps me saying.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
In other words, the monkeys quote have unprecedented economic decision
making processes, they wrote in an academic.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Paper, differentiate an iPhone from like some other item, as
being more valuable.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Now interestingly, many cases require the help of.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
The monkeys' handlers. The temple.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Monkeys' handlers called powang, which is only slightly better than macaque.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Oh my god, yeah, I think not a bit of it.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Anyway, These powangs negotiate with the furry hostage takers. They
offer fruits such as bananas, mangoes, something I've never heard of,
and something else I've never heard of rambutan and mango steam.
Of course, in exchange to go to the Bali courts
La penis. I only wish Jack, I only wish you child.
(13:06):
And so these guys get get a cut as well,
maybe get a little tip, get a little love.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
I so they're all a scam. There's kind of communicating it.
That does sound like a scam. Yeah, the monkey took
your iPhone. You're gonna have to give him a If
you give me a couple of dollars, I'll have it
and give you your phone back. All right, I see
what's happening there.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, Indonesian monkey gangs.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
What next? Next?
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Go just when you think you're on top of things, Uh,
screen time the latest division of the social war.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
We've got going on, class warfare. Stay tuned.
Speaker 7 (13:45):
Armstrong the dentist in a Colorado courtroom, as the judge,
where the jury's verdict, we the jury.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Unioniously and you have a reasonable doubt find the defendant,
James Craig, guilty of murder in the first.
Speaker 7 (14:00):
Craig also found guilty of trying to fabricate evidence to
make his wife Angela's death look like suicide, asking others
to lie for him, including one of his own children
and asking a fellow inmate to kill the detective investigating him.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I was not following that story. I kind of wish
I had gotten into it like a lot of you did.
And it's an interesting You know how these court cases
every once in a while catch people's attention and become
a focus enough to make national news, And this was
an interesting one. I don't think it was ever in
doubt that he was guilty. It was just following along
(14:36):
his insane behavior as a dad of sex married for decades,
ends up killing his wife like this, and he's been
cheating the whole marriage, and he tries to get his
kid involved in the cover up. And then you heard
there while he's been in jail this whole time, tried
to get an inmate, tried to hire somebody to kill
the prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Just a nut job, but a successful guy. Yeah. I
gotta be just a sociopath.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
I mean, because like, bad judgment and desperation wouldn't take
you that far down that road, would it. You want
to He's got to be a sociopath who passed as
a reasonable person.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Coming up, I want to get into the latest attempt
at class warfare in the New York Times that I
think is it's interesting on several levels. It's all around
screen time. But I just we kind of had this
conversation during the commercial break. We were doing something of
a jocular in nature last segment if you didn't hear it,
about monkey gangs, and Michael referenced a boss of ours
(15:38):
many many many years ago, really nice guy, but he
once said to us about first of all, we had
a different boss. He said, Funny's okay, but not silly,
which I just love.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
I just I love that.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
You pretend that you can break down that distinction as
the program director of the radio station, when we're being
funny is silly. And then the other program director, who
would talk to us at length every single day, said,
people do not want to clown in their home, which
is true.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
As far as it goes.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, whether or not you should try to be funny
on the radio is a different question. But do people
actually no, I know, I'd be horrified if they're a
clown at my home right now.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Funny is okay, Silly is not?
Speaker 1 (16:28):
It's so easy to wacky? Is acceptable? Mad cap?
Speaker 3 (16:32):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
In the world of show business is a very sort
of thing that David Letterman used to complain about all
the time the bosses who have no idea what humor
is or could craft the sort of thing themselves, stand
outside his studio and judge whether or not he'd done
a good show. Spent your life with an MBA figuring
out finances. This thing a class warfare and screen time.
(17:01):
I think is pretty damned interesting, So I hope you
can stick around for it. We do a lot of
segments and hours that I find interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
And weren't that hundred million dollars in LA fire relief money?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Go stay tuned.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
If you can't stay tuned, subscribe to the podcast Armstrong
You Getty on demand.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Singer Katy Perry was spotted on a date with Canada's
former Prime Minister Justin trudeauw I know who knew she
was a lesbian?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Larry's a girl for sure? Wow? Did not see that punchline? Gimming?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well done, Greg, Yeah, And to our previous story, monkey
gangs are a real thing. My wife got her fancy
sunglasses stolen at that temple in Bali and she had
to pay a local man close by to get them back.
No scam here, So they trained the monkeys to steal
(17:58):
the stuff and then say I've got the abil Did
you get that back from the monkey?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And you'd think, well, I don't know, I don't know.
The monkey ain't gonna come to me right right? How
do you break up the gang? The monkeys aren't talking.
Joe's important story coming up next segment.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Where'd that one hundred million dollars for the Southern California
wildfire victims?
Speaker 8 (18:18):
Go?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I think this is damned interesting. This is from the
New York Times.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
I'm going to read their piece about their essay, but
there's there's a lot here. I think one of the
promises of technology was that it would democratize knowledge. With
Project Gutenberg, for instance, which I've used online before, I
don't know if you have, you don't need to. You
don't need access to a physical library to read Gulliver's Travels.
(18:41):
Like any book or anything written that is in the
public domain, you can go to the Project Gutenberg online
and read and so that's anything from before nineteen twenty five.
At this point, with Wikipedia, you don't need to set
a bulky expensive reference books to learn about King Louis
the fourteen ain't do you remember Mook's massive open online
(19:03):
courses in theory that meant that you don't need a
Harvard acceptance letter to learn programming from a Harvard computer scientist.
But in a guest essay this week, Mary Harrington argues
that more often today digital technologies, especially our smartphones, are
actually doing the opposite. They are drivers of a growing
cognitive inequality. Only the New York Times could turn this
(19:26):
into a class thing.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
It's true, but I.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
Just anyway, we'll discuss that after As scrolling in short
form videos crowd out long form reading has for me, unfortunately,
as notifications and tabs mold our minds for distraction, what
scholars call deep literacy, and through it critical thinking and
rational capacity are becoming luxury goods, available only to those
(19:50):
who have the time and resources to consciously, determinedly prioritize them.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
That last part is a real stretch. I mean, the
first part about how you know. I was going to say,
wait a minute, bad stuff isn't crowding out good stuff,
But then I saw their point. It kind of does,
because the best minds of our generation are tempting us
into doing it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
But that last part, Okay, the ascetic approach to cognitive fitness.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
There's a sentence you only get in the New York
Times is still niche and concentrated among the wealthy, writes Harrington. Indeed,
poor kids in America spend about two more hours per
day on screens than richer ones, according to the twenty
nineteen study.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, so, okay, you could.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Have written that story two hundred or four hundred years ago.
Only the rich have the time to study Latin and
Greek and Pythagoras. The rest of us are scratching out
a living off the land, which is why Lincoln, Abraham
Lincoln was so miraculous a person. He was so determined
to learn, he surmounted all of that.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, but this is the opposite. This is saying that.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
They're spending more time, more free time. I guess pork
kids are spending more free time scrolling, and that's somehow
a problem.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
That needs to be overcome.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So people that they just said that only rich people
have the time to do like deep reading. No, what
they're suggesting is only rich people have the time to
enforce rules on their kids.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
I guess that don't allow them to scroll. I just
I think it's interesting because it's clearly the whole.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
What do they call it.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
That's a good term, and a deep literacy. Like I
mentioned the other day, I've started reading Ulysses. I'm committed
this time to getting through that damn book. I've gotten
further than I've ever gotten before. But I've been reading
every night, long form reading of a specific piece of
difficult literature, and I'm enjoying it so much. It's like,
it's just it's amazing the feeling gives me versus the
(22:01):
just scrolling through crap.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Before I go to bed and it says you're rich.
It's still something. According to the New York Times, it's.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Like the difference between eating a healthy smoothie or you know,
junk food.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I mean, it's just it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But anyway, the whole deep literacy and our minds are
trained to not do that anymore. Oh one hundred percent
true and a huge problem. And it might do mankind
and it might do me.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
But the idea that there, we're now there's now a
break between the rich and the poor, and you're insinuating
they never get to this point. But they're insinuating it's
somebody's fault.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I mean, do whatever you want.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
In your family regardless of your income, on how much
time you let your kids scroll crap or how much
time you scroll crap. It's got nothing to do with
how much money you have, if you have a phone,
how much time you spend scrolling crap versus you know,
reading literature. That's completely up to you, right nobody else.
(23:03):
I find myself wondering what it's like to go through
every single day desperately looking for some sort of haves
and have nots narrative tied to everything, and then desperately
trying to demonstrate to everyone that you're on the right
side of it, that those two things animate your every day.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What's it like?
Speaker 4 (23:21):
The title is tiring and no kidding, the title is
thinking is becoming a luxury good? That is one of
the most stupid effing things I've ever heard, Ironically, what
a dangerous way to look at the world. So, if
you have a family where the kids play dumb games
on their tablet all the time, you have a family
(23:41):
where the kids are you know, not doing that or
reading or you're reading or whatever it's got to do
with wealth, well there's probably a correlation between those things.
Just like well, let me read this other part. This
is from the guy who actually wrote the essay, So
that was someone writing in the New York Times about
the essay.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
In the New York Times.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
This is from the actual essay. Think of this by
comparison with patterns of junk food consumption. As ultra processed
snacks have grown more available and inventively addictive, developed societies
have seen a gulf emerge between those with the social
and economic resources what are social resources, the social and
economic resources to sustain a healthy lifestyle, and those more
(24:24):
vulnerable to the obzogenetic food culture.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
I don't know what that word is.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
This bifurcation is strongly class inflected across the developed tou s.
Obesity has become a strongly correlated with poverty. I fear
that so too will be the tide of post literacy.
First of all, I got to look up that word
obesogenetic tending to cause obesity. Okay, you could have just
(24:52):
town that obesa genetic, obesa genetic. Okay, But first of all,
I've never even bought the food one. Really, the idea
that if you're on the poor end where people tend
to be more overweight, it's because you're forced into it.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
No, I mean, there's been studies on that.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
There's all kinds of healthy food you can buy that's
not super expensive. There's healthy food that is expensive, but.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You can get bananas and vegetables and lettuce and stuff
like that for the same price as oreos.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
And you know, ice cream or crap. And I tend
toward the ladder of eating. I eat more crap than
I should. But it's not a cost thing that has
been debunked, the food desert, that whole thing.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But this person is.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Now trying to apply that to screen time, which seems
nuts to me.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Yeah, that's an incredible stretch.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
What a dangerous way though, to look at the world,
and for that to be you know, a New York
Times worthy.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Essay. Oh, you're right, the poor too much green? Whose
fault is that well?
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the fact that they tied themselves into knots and
made an enormous reach to an incredibly questionable conclusion when
the problem that they kind of tip their cap to
that all of us, regardless.
Speaker 8 (26:09):
Of social status, economic status, all of us are are
getting the whole foods of learning shoved out of our
diet by the doom scrolling video watching crap that mark
Zuckerberg and the greatest minds of our generation have put
in front of us.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
That's so much bigger problem than that ridiculous New York
Times the effort to be enlightened.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Shut up.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Well, the assumption there is that the downtrodden even have that.
You have the screen, So you've got the screens and
apparently the Wi Fi and the ability to access this stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
So we're just assuming everybody's got that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
So at that point, if you've got that, I was
just talking about the Gutenberg Project. All the greatest things
ever written are available to you for free. You could
look at those, your kids could look at those. If
you're choosing not to, that's on you. I don't know
where you come up with this whole class warfare thing around.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It as really interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
But society has conspired to keep that knowledge away from
those people. I refer to it as a Gutenberg desert, right,
So what is that thing?
Speaker 4 (27:13):
This was about the food the gulf between those with
the social and economic resources. What are the social resources
to eat better or worse?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I don't know. Education. Who hates to repeat myself, but
shut up, who doesn't know? Let us is better for
you than oreos need education for that not much.
Speaker 4 (27:33):
Okay, where did all that money go that was supposed
to help out the fire victims?
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Joe's got that next, among other things. Stay here.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Ask me later about cultural differences in.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Deadlines that I learned about in the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Fits in with the whole tariff thing, like tomorrow's the
tariff deadline for a bunch of countries and Trump got
one done with South Korea late last night.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Interesting O.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
Their cultures have a completely different way of looking at
deadlines than we do in the United States.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Wow, Wow, Okay, intriguing. We'll get to that hour four
of the show. If you don't get out of the four,
subscribe our four of the show subscribed to the podcast
Armstrong and Getty on demand. So I had heard earlier
in the week that zero dollars of the one hundred
million that were raised for the La Area fire victims
had been distributed to those victims. We're talking about the
(28:30):
fire aid benefit concert that made a big deal organized
by former ticketmaster and music mogul Irving Azoff and his
wife blah blah blah, one hundred million dollars. Billie Eilish,
Lady Gaga, Alanis Morris said, Joni Mitchell and others blah
blah blah.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
Yeah, I remember that it was a big deal, including
a whole bunch of people who had lost their own
homes stars, because.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
You know, it's a lot of the wealthy and famous
who lost stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Well right, And I found that the idea that no
money had gotten to the victims both horrible and hard
to believe, given you know how important the entertainment industry
too is to l A and how it's all local
and all.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I'm surprised at zero, but it's not. That's not true,
is one of the points that about to make. Okay,
we'll let you make your point first.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well so, and and in the Free Press they quote
a couple of folks who say, who are residents of
the area of victims, We haven't seen any Palisades organizations
benefit from the fire aid funds.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
And he points out the area is often.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Misperceived as this very exclusive, affluent enclave.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Not always the case.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
You got rent control departments, people inherited homes they never
could have bought or were under ensured. Let's see, here's
another gal who runs a local news blog. She found
out the money was being distributed into various nonprofit groups
instead of directly to fire victims. Even though the verbiage
around the fund raiser had said it would be quote
(30:04):
direct relief to victims and communities, the reality is a
little complicated. Fire Aid has distributed half of the hundred
million dollars to more than one hundred and twenty nonprofits
and community groups in a first round of disbursements. They
also chose sixty eight recipients for twenty five million dollars
(30:26):
in a second round. Applications for the last twenty five
million dollars are being accepted through a Google form on
fire Aid's website.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
How careful were they, I hope with what organizations they
gave money to?
Speaker 1 (30:39):
Well, A spokesperson told the Free Press and answer that
very question that because fire Aid was a newly formed
five oh one C three organization, it was never the
plan to distribute funds directly to wildfire victims. An advisory
committee made recommendations to fire Aid's board, so I would
guess it is a very very mixed bag. It gave
out five hundred in cash to outdoor workers like street vendors, landscapers,
(31:03):
and recyclers who are in trouble cause of the fire.
The Filipino Workers Center received an undisclosed sum for supporting
workers displaced by the fires. Money went to the California
Native Vote Project.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
I'm pretty cynical about these kind of fundraisers, just you know,
from life experience of seeing this happen a whole bunch
of times. We've been involved with the number of really
really good charities, but man, it's it's they're few and
far between, the ones that are really good. And you
need like an infrastructure and and honest people, I mean
you need. It takes a lot to pull it off right.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
And as you mentioned the other day, something we've we've
touched on through the years is that the phrase nonprofit
might be the most misleading phrase in the English language.
This simple illustration being Jack and I come up with
the fun for human beings, and we raise a bunch
of money. We raise a million dollars a year. My
(31:59):
sell he is four hundred and seventy five grand a year.
Jack salaries four hundred and seventy five grand a year,
and we give away fifty thousand dollars a year of
what's left. We show no profit though our our balance
sheet shows zero profit.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
No yeah, or we or our salaries list. But we
each have a car. I mean we have to drive
as part of our job. And what you know, we
don't get to drive, and you know, we have to
travel around and talk to smart people so we raise money.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I needed to go to New York and talk to
some man.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
And what am I supposed to stay in a Super eight?
I stayed in a decent hotel.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I have to go to simposia several times a year.
Notice my use of the term symposia has a little much,
but the point is made.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, I wish everybody understood the whole nonprofit scam. So
final note on this top and it's not necessarily scam.
I think if and when a serious audit of those
funds is done, you'll find some very well spent dollars.
You'll find some it's a pretty good idea, but dollars.
(33:00):
Then you'll find some dollars that were stolen or given
a crony's or whatever.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
It's a mixed bag.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
My first lesson in this got how many years ago
did I read the book about JD. Rockefeller? Wow, giant
biography of JD. Rockefeller, who was maybe the richest man
who's ever lived, in America a justed for inflation. But
he retired very very early as the richest man in
the world at the time, and dedicated his life to philanthropy.
(33:30):
And it was a harder job than his job a
running standard oil to make all his money in the
first place, to try to stay on top of that
money and make sure it was spent well. He realized
how difficult it is to be involved in charities and
give out money without it being wasted or stolen.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Very very very hard. Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Most rich people or company foundations are. There companies that
spend all their time figuring out who to give money to,
and in due course they make some money. I'm not
saying that's wrong, but it's you know, it's it's a
big business. Speaking of which, my final note on this topic,
then you might find it helpful. Slash slash troubling. There's
(34:11):
a Twitter account and I just retweeted this. If you
follow us on Twitter, you'll see it. If you don't,
you probably should. I still call X Twitter because X
is a letter of the alphabet. Anyway, it is an infographic.
It's a chart of the five oh one C three
grant network for the Barack Obama Foundation, and he writes,
(34:35):
but it could be almost any major nonprofit. They all
look like this, and it is the main foundation, and
then then organizations they deal with, and organizations they deal with,
and then the endpoint of the money and the lines
between illustrating the cash flows between those organizations. It reminds
me a little bit of the Biden family twenty four LLCs.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Or whatever it is.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
It is a a graphic full of absolutely incomprehensible intercrossing
lines of money flowing back and forth. It is completely
incomprehensible who is getting that money and why, And as
he said, it could be any major nonprofit.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
They all look like this.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
If the LA thing qualifies as a scandal, then the
entire nonprofit sector is a scandal.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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