December 24, 2024 • 34 mins
Featured during Hour 2 of the Tuesday, December 24, 2024 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Man or Bear & Ape Behaviors...
- Texting Age & Taylor Swift Capitalism...
- The Crisis in America's Government Schools...
- FLQOTD Jim Jones Mailbag Chinese Spies in HI.
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, kadie, have you or any of your female friends
been engaging in this man or bear meme that were
like a month behind on.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Big eye roll, huge eye roll. Okay, I'll set it
up here and then you can you can get into it.
Eye roll followed by the headshake of disgust.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
This is the dumbest thing that's hit the Internet in
a while.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But go ahead, jam.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, we're wait behind, and I apologize if you're like,
that's that's so yesterday's news, because from what I understand,
this has been the hot topic for quite a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
But we're old and slow. So it's a very simple question.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
If you're a woman hiking alone in the woods, would
you rather encounter an unknown man or an unknown bear?
Would you rather encounter a strange a dude you don't know,
or a bear? And depending on which social media venue
you're on, but it ranges from well over majority on
all of them, two thirds to eighty five percent of
the women say absolutely bear, Absolutely bear, I'd rather run
(00:58):
into a bear than a do out in the woods alone.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
First of all, what.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
If you of your friends thought, And then I'll get
into some of the higher level sociology commentary around it.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I have not brought this up to my circle of
friends because the ones that would know about it are
going to be the ones that would say bear. This
is the dumbest thing on the planet. I don't know
why you would want to encounter a bear. I don't
have you not heard of male toxicity? Oh kid, do
you know a break? Really, you would rather encounter a
(01:31):
wild bear while you're out on a hike than passing
some dude you don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
That's where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That is where we are, and I think we actually
are there. Obviously there would be a certain amount of
jerkin with people or pollsters. It's not really a pole,
just a question posted on TikTok or whatever. But people
kind of get a kick out of saying bear. But
the fact that people get a kick out of saying bear,
I find troubling that you just you like this idea
(01:59):
that men are so awful and dangerous that I'd.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Rather be eaten by a bear.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Like a lot of the most common sort of comment
is if a bear eats me, at least it's going
to be quick and easy a man. All the horrible
things a man might do to me, Oh, be much
worse than being eaten by a bear. Is kind of
the common theme among the eighty percent of women who
feel that way.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
My concern is that this might erode bear awareness, but
that's just me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Just let all of the women who said bear encounter
a bear.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That'll be great.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I have had a couple reactions in the last few years, though,
where women in recoiled in horror from the most casual
like approach your conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That didn't used to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I feel like I don't know what's being taught to
young women about how afraid you should be of men
in public or what.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
But you look like a serial killer. That's most of them.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But I've always looked like a serial killer, and I
didn't always get this reaction.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, Joe, just all part one of my answer. Part
two is this. This is the Internet. The Internet is
doing this, the TikTok algorithms, the Instagram algorithms. Anytime you
go on this bear man thing has been all over
the place, and it is it's the This is the
dumbest comparison. I'm my blood pressure is going up if
you can't tell the fact that this is like the
(03:20):
main it was trending on every social media outlet you
can imagine, and the top videos that you clicked on
were all women talking about how they would much rather
encounter a bear, and then firing off all the lists
of reasons why they wouldn't want to encounter a man,
which is stupid. And then you get all the kids
that echo that.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I think, yeah, h.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Just the whole framework where you're you're answering one question
with an answer that's meant to express who you are
and what you're concerned about and how you believe in
toxic masculinity and all. I just if you want to
say something, say something. Yeah, I don't know. Just this
annoys me. It's it's another example of if you're going
(04:04):
to be accepted as an as a progressive, you've got
to hate the United States. You've got to be self hating,
especially if you're white people. That's like your uh, that's
your bona fide. Can you use that in singular? I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's how you prove that you're worthy of respect.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Self hatred and look, I get it as the father
of a couple of daughters that you know there's there's
some risk.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
In encountering a man in the wild. But it's just
a silly question. A bear's a freaking wild piece.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
This seems like a good opportunity for me to express
my disapproval of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That's all this is.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Of course, you got to flip it around for men hiking,
Do you want to encounter a cougar or a cougar? Okay,
your choice of cogar cougar. I'll not go with the
cougar over the cougar any day. I'll tell you that
as dumb as as this, as this texture, I've literally
been chased and nearly attacked by a man in the woods.
The later caught him and arrested him, but it's still
(05:02):
rather run into a man than a bear.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, your experienced hiker.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I used to hike every single day, and I have
passed hundreds, if not thousands, of random men in the woods.
And I can tell you if that number had been
hundreds of thousands of bears, I probably wouldn't be you're
talking to you right now.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, got a lot of texts on this for decades,
the leftist feminized men that strong men are toxic, et cetera,
et cetera. Now women complain there are no strong men
available to hook up with. We've got a lot of
that theme. Hey, there's no wonder nobody's having kids. I
was thinking about somebody we used to work with around here,
talking about why he was still single and didn't date much.
(05:41):
Just the whole women he encountered look at men like
they're all rapists. Like that, that's your starting point and
you have to convince otherwise. Another aspect of this that
bothers me is that whether you're a parent, or a
teacher or even a in some situations, people tend to
(06:04):
they react to they live up to your expectations of them.
And if we are constantly giving the message, sending the
message to young men that men are dangerous, violent and
misogynist beasts, then the young man has the option of
either A being that or B being some sort of
weird reaction to that extra effeminate passive, you know, making
(06:28):
sure they're not right. And you know, I just it's unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Me go ahead, Katie, Oh, I'm just thinking from a
woman's standpoint too. It also says something about our growing
women's security. Because I'm secure enough in myself, like if
I'm out, I'm situationally aware and all of those things.
So I think that if I were to encounter the
bad man on the trail, I would be able to
know at least how to start to protect myself and
(06:53):
handle it. We just have a bunch of really weak,
scared women right now, too, well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We it's the same thing that has been going on
for decade's now around child abduction. We've got to quit
acting like every child gets abducted, every woman gets raped.
These are extraordinary instances. That's why they make the news
the way they do.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
They're not common, right, what's the exceptionality bias or rarity bias?
The point is, uh, And you're probably familiar with this,
but it's worth keeping in mind that things make the
news because they're rare, and then everybody sees them and
becomes convinced they're common. Yeah, it's the very rarest of
things that you hear about the most. Because man goes
(07:34):
to work without incident, Hug's wife, who he loves afterward,
is not gonna make the news. Yeah, and that happens
millions and millions of times every single day.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
If you're lost in the woods and he encountered a man,
ninety nine percent of the time, maybe more the guy's
gonna say, yeah, yeah, you go that way, and that'll
be the.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
End of it, right yep, encounterbear, You're gonna wet your pants.
It's scary.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I had a guy get a coyote away from me
one time on a hike. He didn't know him for anything. There,
you go help me out.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It didn't. This meme didn't start with a woman in
the woods. It started with would you rather have your
child wandering the woods and come across a bear or
a man? In that case, definitely a man. I mean,
are you kidding me? That's just idiotic.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
But again, that is the the knee jerk need of
the progressive is to hate men, hate white people, hate
the United States, whatever, self hatred.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I've got another great example of that coming up. I
have one more text on this, and this is the
good closing text. Bear a man on a hiking trail.
How did you know it was a man if you
haven't confirmed his self identities, his pronoms, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
The idea that you just assumed it was a man.
Bad on you, boy.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
What if it's a man that identifies as.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
A bear, then you're yeah, wait a mood? Yeah, guy
in a bear suit. I don't even know what you do.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Would you say bear or would you say what a
bears do in the woods? Yeah? A person who ases
in the woods like a birthing person or you know
what I'm saying. Yeah, come up with some elaborate woke term.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Joe jackasses a woods sen beast.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yes, ignore them completely and DEI programs where they exist immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Jack Armstrong and Joe the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Everyone that's using swipe to text most likely millennial, possibly
gen z piping fast and accurately with two thumbs again,
probably mid twenties, mid thirties. Even you will kind of
stay at this thumb tapping age until probably about i'd
say fifties. Then you're going to start adding in your
your index finger unnecessarily.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Aged sixty five plus is where.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You start doing the one finger tap, holding with your
left hand or your right hand.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You're getting up there when you're doing that. I just
don't think that's true.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I think the one hand or two hands depends on
the size of your phone, because I've had the smaller
phone where I can reach everything with my thumb, and
then I've had the bigger phone where I got to
use both thumbs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I see young people.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I've sat next to lots of young people on planes
or whatever, and they're they're using both thumbs. Go, they
can go faster than me.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Definitely. My youngest who enjoys teasing me. At one point,
I'm voice texting and she says, oh, that is so boomer. Really,
I'm like, honey, it's saving me time.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Really, So young people don't voice text almost exclusively voice text.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I've not had that substantiated by like a committee of
youthful people.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
But she's, you know, she probably knows. But that's interesting
to me that they don't voice text.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They see it as faster to use your thumbs, Katie
or cooler. Voice texting when not in.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
The car or through your Apple Watch is a little
it's boomer.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Huh. It's a little little boomer if you're among people,
is that what you mean?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, I mean if you're standing in a group of
people when you pull out your phone and you start
firing off a text, you know, text to voice.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, oh you I don't care if I'm a boomer.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Actually I'm a gen z. But as gen X said,
but as a friend, I'm not gen Z a gen X,
but as a friend said to me, but you present Boomer,
I do a fair enough Okay anyway, a different consumer issue.
I found this so interesting. Taylor Swift among she is, yes, skinny,
(11:25):
blondeheaded dating a football guy.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes, Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
She is a talented songstress, no doubt, whether you're like
your music or not, there's no denying that people really
dig her tunes. But she is also an absolutely savage
and effective capitalist in ways that I think are underappreciated
because everybody's busy swooning over her legs and her concerts.
I've got a friend who's in the concert business. I
(11:50):
can't get too specific, but he's pointed out to me
that she is a voracious capitalist. She one tour, your
place in line to buy tickets was determined by how
much merchandise you bought. You spend one hundred bucks on
merch you're like fourth in line, you spend three hundred
bucks on merch step right up by your concert ticket.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Well, then that whole selling tickets to just being the
parking lot like my niece did, making lots of money
off of that parking lot tickets, or opening the t
shirt shops and everything like they did in San Francisco
three days before the concert, and having lines around the
block right now. Yeah, and a lot of the talk
of hey man, they're selling owed in the sixties and
(12:33):
seventies was idiotic, As Pete Townsend to the who once
put it, and I thought this was pretty persuasive. He said, no,
if I let Chevy use my song for their trucks
for six months, that allows me to finance all these
projects I want to do that are not going to
make any money, but I really enjoy. Well, that's so
perfectly that if you need to make that reason, I
don't care if your reason is I want to buy
(12:54):
a yacht. Who freaking cares is my song? The weight
with Warbler can do whatever she wants with her songs.
Back to the Wayfish Warbler herself. So, oh, that's right,
the whole selling out thing. She has so much money
and employs so many people. It's just interesting to see
(13:16):
that she is obviously as motivated as the guy who
you know came up as Steve Jobs was with Apple
to build a giant conglomerate. Because she doesn't need the money.
I mean, it's not even close. But for instance, she
her new Albumney.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yes, that is true, she does not need the money.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
But so why would she? For instance, her new album
is called Midnights. She has put out six different funky
like colored vinyl albums, discs, records. She puts out these
collectiable vinyl additions in a bunch of weird, funky colors,
(13:57):
and people are buying all of them.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Do so a physical album? Do people have record players?
All these people?
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, a lot of people don't. How would I know?
I haven't ask them.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
But there's the collectibles. You hang them on your wall
or they actually spin them. That's an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
But this one dude who's and he's a dude who's
a big Taylor Swift fan, has spent about one thousand
dollars in the process of buying all six of the
different colored vinyls. Although streaming remains the dominant musical format,
physical media has been a growing niche where the industry
can cater to so called super fans who express their
dedication by shelling out big bucks for collectible versions of
(14:38):
new releases, sometimes in multiple quantities.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
A lot of your K pop bands are like this too.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
They have elaborate CD packages offering often featuring goodies like
postcards and photo booklets, which helped the boy band repeatedly
go to number one.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Taylor Swift has put.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Out special edition like CD packages, even cassettes with bonus tracks.
Certain deluxe editions sold through her website have trinkets like
Magnet's photo cards and engraved bookmarks, and my favorite, Swift's
site offered a limited run of autographed LPs for fifty dollars,
and then she had one special edition thing which featured
(15:15):
entries from her journal or her diary or something like
that that the completest fan would have to collect. So
you weren't here the day we talked about the leggy
La La Lauer and her making the Billionaire List for
the first time. She is so the billionaire entertainers. She
(15:36):
just made the list this year. There are fourteen billionaire entertainers.
She's the only one on there, including jay Z, Rihanna,
a bunch of different people. She's the only one on
there that's made the money primarily offer music. The other
ones have makeup or jay Z's got tequila or whatever.
He's got brand, He's got some sort of boost. She's
(15:58):
the only one that has done a music but she's
found a whole bunch of different avenues.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
For the music avenue of it, we'll write music and
music adjacent like merch.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But yeah, but I understand the distinction.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
T shirts is closer to your music than you got
a booze now.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah, especially because you can't make
money on the music. Really, in the world of streaming,
artists make nothing. You got to sell tickets and merch.
As I've heard said many times, you want to support
an artist by merch.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And the blonde Bellower is only thirty four.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
She's got along apparently, Apparently your trove of these phrases
is unending.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
She's got a long way to go.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
She could end up with many, many billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I can't go on with this discussion. It's funny. I've
wanted to bring this up for a while.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
The real crisis in America's government schools, and I don't
want to be the cliched. Everything is going to hell
all the time.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Person like, that's what I am, because that's my brand,
because we already have one of them. No, but I
was thinking about it, and it goes back to our
discussion of the natural state of things. Is chaos and
poverty and violence. And if you have a civilization, the
(17:24):
challenge of preserving that civilization never ends. And everything isn't
necessarily going to hell, but everything will go to hell
if you don't stop it.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Going to hell needs to be maintained.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yes, in short, So, anyway, I think one of the
things in another principle before we get into specific so
you've quoted George will As saying one of the essential,
you know, elements of being a conservative is you have
to deal with reality, recognize what is right. You can't
be a utopian, unicorn riding wisher of fond wishes and
(18:05):
call yourself a conservative.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
It's just it doesn't fit.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
So anyway, I think we have an enormous crisis with
America's government schools right now. I don't think there's any
doubt of that. I think it would be a four
alarm panic going on in America right now if it
were not for two things. Number One, a lot of
(18:30):
parents think schools are still what they went to, what
they grew up with, and the distraction of the golden
Bachelor and the golden Bachelor. And there are three things
now that I think about it, and the other one
is that there are some schools. It's actually four things,
including the Golden Bachelor. There are some schools that are
(18:51):
still doing a good job. They're fighting hard, they're in
conservative areas, the teachers and administrators are not fully so
people think our schools seem to be fine, and maybe
they are. But the fourth thing, obviously, is that the
dominant media do not talk about this much at all
(19:12):
because it's extremely uncomfortable for them because they are progressive,
they are woke, they are pro union, and.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The heavyweights had their kids in private schools, so they
wouldn't know anyway.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
That's a good point. That is a good point in
the middle eights too, anyway. So a couple of exhibits
in the prosecution of America's government schools. One that you've
probably heard similar fare before, but this is a bit
of an update. Between two thousand, year two thousand and
the year twenty twenty two, the number of students in
(19:45):
Marcus schools rose by five percent.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Five percent.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
The number of teachers rose by ten percent, which is interesting. Yeah,
the number of principles and assistant principles rose by forty percent.
Whoa what who had their kid in school in the
year two thousand thought, you know, this is going well,
it'd be a lot better though if we had like
(20:11):
eight more principles.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Who the hell ought that right?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And then again, keeping in mind that the increase in
students is five percent, the increase in administrative staff is
ninety five percent.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
There you go, Samans with universities. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Now, some we've talked about this in the past, and
some folks have said, yeah, the uh the government mandates
on schools is so cumbersome. Now the federal and state mandates.
You have to have compliance staff, Oh my god, that
spend their whole days issuing reports and filling out forms
(20:47):
that say you've conformed to all of the demands of
the centralized government.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
There are so many forms. So I have been through
a lot of this and super nice people. I'm not
complaining about any of these people. What I was one
meeting that has like fifteen people in it about my son,
and they kept using the word rubric. Well, this, this
fits the rubric, and it doesn't fit the rubric. And
we've looked at the rubric everythink, like I said, I
(21:10):
think I said out loud, I think I cannot hear
the word rubric another time, just we gotta.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I don't even know what that is. We got to
stop saying the word rubric.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Please. If we do nothing else here, it's refrain from
singing rubric.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So it was a paperwork thing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It was just all kinds of different layers of paperwork.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
So you have this from Jason Riley, who's a great
writer and thinker. Biden and Harris worked to crush school competition.
He is more opposed to charter schools than any president
in recent history. And Kamala has spoken enthusiastically about how
wonderful teachers unions are and that everything that tends to
(21:52):
take money and influence away from the teachers unions is
an attack on public schools. That would be bad enough
were it not for the numbers involved. Again, this is
fairly oh you know, the National Review actually touched on
the fact that the left is now trying to promote
or I'm sorry to indict school choice movements as an
(22:13):
effort a secret plot to promote Christian nationalism. All right,
that's one of the attacks.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I assume you're about to get to some of the
results we're getting out of the schools. Yeah, okay, but
even without that, even if it had maintained what public
schools were from the past. Why would you need to
increase administration by ninety percent and think that that was
a good idea even if we had maintained the same quality.
(22:43):
It's like, well, why are we spending all this money?
Was working fine before? Right?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, And I'm looking at the clock. I think maybe
we take a break and then come back with some
of the results stuff. But the other thing I wanted
to get to, and we have a lot of great
teachers who listen to the show and communicate to us
and blow the whistle on some of the more insane
progressive things that are taking the place of math and
(23:08):
reading in our schools. The genderbread person, which I'm always
hammering about because you know, California is a particular interest
because that's where the show is based, and the perversity
in California schools is just it's heartbreaking. But anyway, Wall
Street Journal with a big piece. Teachers are burning out
on the job, and the subhead is student behavior and
(23:30):
mediocre pay are taking their toll from lefty media.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It's always about the pay.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
It's always about money, and there's such a lack of
understanding and wisdom. Maybe it's that progressives so fill the
newsrooms that that's the only point of view. And a
lot of journalists are young these days because it doesn't
pay very well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But there is such a lack of wisdom. If I
have a.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Fun, rewarding, joyful job and I get the summer off,
I would accept that rate of pay at X. If
I have a miserable, discouraging, heartbreaking job.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm not gonna work for that low level pay. I'm
gonna want a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
More to keep showing up very good point, student behavior problems,
cell phones in class, anemic pay that's not really true,
and artificial intelligence powered cheating are taking their toll on
America's roughly three point eight million teachers on top of
the bruising pandemic years.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
The sheriff teachers who say the stress.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And disappointments of the job are worth it has fallen
twenty one points in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I don't doubt that.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
As recently as twenty eighteen, over seventy percent of teachers
said the stress was worth it. Now it's forty two.
In surveys and interviews, teachers are most es any place you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Work, is they layered in more administration to wherever you work.
Did that make things more enjoyable or less enjoyable where
you work well?
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And we're going to get to the you know, it's
more than frustration, it's being physically at risk. In surveys
and interviews, teachers are most often pointing to a startling
rise in students' mental health challenges and misbehavior as the
biggest drivers of burnout. In the Rand Corporation survey, student
behavior was the top source of teachers' job stress.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
A lot of that, I guarantee you, is that whole
restorative justice thing where they have no ability to deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's the next sentence.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You're absolutely right to quote a high school math teacher
who says he saw student behavior deteriorate seriously, let yet
his school drew more lenient in administrating administering consequences.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
How is the country not aware of what a failure
this restorative justice thing is?
Speaker 4 (25:58):
I know, because nobody talks about it in the media.
And this poor son of a gun, So he's dealing
with all this frustration and then his district, Kansas City
Public Schools, shout out Kansas City. The Great cities were
a privileged to be on. They rolled out a new
policy last year teachers could not give students a zero
for an assignment even if they didn't turn it in
(26:21):
and didn't make any effort to.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It is to laugh. I mean, that is so funny.
It is funny, It is hilarious. So say that again.
You can't get a zero.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Even if even if you say, not only did I
not do the assignment, mister Gerald, you should shove it
up your armors. He cannot give you a zero for
that assignment. You got to get at least like a
c one of the things I got when I got
into teaching. My one thing was about learning and love
(26:54):
of learning, he says. In the end, it was less
about the learning and more about babysitting. He left teaching
this summer. Oh yeah, yeah. And they go into a
great deal of detail, with many, many examples of classroom
stress and violence, lack of consequences for bad behavior, a
stort of justice.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I mean, look it up, well, don't look it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Up, because their description of it won't be accurate as
to what actually happens.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It is the recipe for no discipline and a bullies paradise.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It is it is.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
It is tragic for the children and the teachers, and
it's part of Oh yeah, absolutely true, and it's one
hundred percent part of the neo Marxist We're going to
break the system. We're going to call everything racist until
we control it. And they do control the schools to
a large extent now, and anybody who stands in our
way will call them a racist until we have imposed
(27:43):
our philosophy on whatever institution you're talking about, from public
schools to corporations, to the United States government to the
military for instance.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
By the way, in Kansas City, we're on FM, so
people can really enjoy our pipes.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I have nothing to add to that, you know, And
I don't know. I'm looking at the clock.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I came across another account a number of school districts
in oh it was Virginia and one other state in
which far fewer than half of the children were at
the minimum level in English, and it was less than
(28:27):
a third in district after district were not at the
minimum level for math. We sometimes talk about proficiency. This
was the well the minimum and the vast majority of
kids are nowhere near it. And if you say I
got to get my kid out of this school.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
The forces of the left from Joe Biden, Kamala Harrison
down will tell you you're a racist for some reason.
Be you're attacking public schools, trying to take recent versus away.
You're a bad person and a bad parent. It's crazier
that this isn't a bigger issue. It is, It absolutely is.
(29:10):
We got this text out of nowhere. Do you know
why hippies were Petulia oil? So blind people can hate
them too. Wow, that's beautiful. Here's your freedom loving quote
of the day. One of our beloved listeners sent this
to us next to a big picture of Captain America,
(29:34):
and it was Captain America saying this, And I understand
this is a speech he gives to buck up Spider
Man at one point during the movies.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And I thought, boy, this is really eloquent for one
of your comic book movies. Did the script write or
write this? And I did a little digging and no,
it's actually a very very close paraphrase. Was something Mark
Twain said. Interesting, But I liked it so much I
posted it up in the studio so I could glance
at it now. And again I will give you the
(30:03):
Twain version, which is only subtly different as opposed to
Captain America.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Okay, do just lend them a little more gravitas.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Well, unless you're fighting off a mob, then I'd rather
have the Captain on my side than the scribe. Honestly
love Captain America kicks ass, Twain incredibly eloquent. Captain America
definitely stronger on the whoop ass front. If you're fighting
the Winter Soldier, you want Captain America, not Mark Twain.
I agree completely. Anyway, here's what Twain said. It's a
(30:32):
little long, but I love it so much. Maybe we
can work in a little email later on. Let men
label you as they may. If you alone, of all
the nation, decide one way, and that way be the
right way. By your convictions of the right, You've done
your duty, by yourself and by your country, holding up
your head, for you have nothing to be ashamed of.
It doesn't matter what the press says. It doesn't matter
what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn't matter
(30:54):
if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.
Republics are founded on one prince above all else, the
requirement that we stand up for what we believe in,
no matter the odds or the consequences when the mob
and the press and the whole world tell you to move.
Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside
the river of truth and tell the whole world, no,
(31:15):
you move.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Mark fing Twain, that's people understand, that's his middle name.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
That's really good stuff if it's the right cause or thing.
Interestingly enough, and maybe I'll explain later why this happened.
I was listening to a speech last night, FBI recordings
of Jim Jones down Guyana, before he had all those
people kill themselves, the Jim Jones cult, that whole thing.
(31:44):
He gave a very similar speech there, as he had
convinced all those numb nuts that the world was out
to get them and they were doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I'm very similar speech. I had no idea you'd heard that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I knew in my heart of hearts you would come
up with some counter argument against that thought.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm not it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It just you just have to have you just have
to just you know, it works when the cause is right.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
But that's irrelevant as an as an observation of society.
It's one hundred percent correct as a principle that some
people employ it wrongly is irrelevant?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You're right. I think it's a moral principle. Both are true.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Isn't that a head scratcher? It is anyway? Mailbag drops
now what's your mail bag? At Armstrong and Giddy dot com.
Oh Mad in Honolulu with a really interesting note about
the Honolulu getaway pad that those Chinese spies who infiltrated
New York's government pad. But his sign off is he says,
(32:49):
our one more thing yesterday on price controls and gouging
should be mandatory listening to graduate from high school.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Thank you for the kind words.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
You can grab that wherever you like to get podcasts
Armstrong and Getty One more thing, you know, listen to
it out again, speaking of counterintuitive price gouging is a
good thing and that and it makes perfect economic sense.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Listen to the One More Thing.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Podcast and it's the best thing that can happen for
poor people. Yeah, let's see. Wow, what a contrast, writes
Joe and Ventura, California. Notice this on my local free
way off ramp, winner and loser.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
There is a young man appears to be of immigrants,
stock selling bouquets of flowers to cars whoever want some.
Flowers on the way home, and there's a scumbag junkie begging.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Right right, that's a good one. That's a good one.
You got people there on the corner. This happens driving
out to the farm. When I go home, sometimes you
got people on the corner selling strawberries, usually a whole
family in the hot sun, set up their table, got
their you know, station wagon there selling strawberries. You got
people just baking on the street.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's all. I see.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
How much the people that are working their ass off
sitting there in the sun selling the strawberries can't have
much respect for the beggar on.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The street, he says.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Wouldn't it be ironic if this was a planned social
science experiments to see what kind of reactions could be
elicited from the drivers? I admit I was guilty of
making my opinion known. A big thumbs up to the
winner and down to the loser. Care to put your
own caption on this photo? Well, thanks, Joe. That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
It's also interesting that if you ask Alexa about Kamala
Harris you get a much different answer than when you
ask about Donald Trump. Quick question for you, what if
you happen to miss this unbelievable radio program. The answer
is easy, friends, just download our podcast, Armstrong and Getty
on Demand. It's the podcast version of the podcast show,
available anytime, any day, every single podcast platform known demand.
(34:50):
Download it now, Armstrong and Getty on Demand
So, kadie, have you or any of your female friends
been engaging in this man or bear meme that were
like a month behind on.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Big eye roll, huge eye roll. Okay, I'll set it
up here and then you can you can get into it.
Eye roll followed by the headshake of disgust.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
This is the dumbest thing that's hit the Internet in
a while.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
But go ahead, jam.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Well, we're wait behind, and I apologize if you're like,
that's that's so yesterday's news, because from what I understand,
this has been the hot topic for quite a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
But we're old and slow. So it's a very simple question.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
If you're a woman hiking alone in the woods, would
you rather encounter an unknown man or an unknown bear?
Would you rather encounter a strange a dude you don't know,
or a bear? And depending on which social media venue
you're on, but it ranges from well over majority on
all of them, two thirds to eighty five percent of
the women say absolutely bear, Absolutely bear, I'd rather run
(00:58):
into a bear than a do out in the woods alone.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
First of all, what.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
If you of your friends thought, And then I'll get
into some of the higher level sociology commentary around it.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I have not brought this up to my circle of
friends because the ones that would know about it are
going to be the ones that would say bear. This
is the dumbest thing on the planet. I don't know
why you would want to encounter a bear. I don't
have you not heard of male toxicity? Oh kid, do
you know a break? Really, you would rather encounter a
(01:31):
wild bear while you're out on a hike than passing
some dude you don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
That's where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That is where we are, and I think we actually
are there. Obviously there would be a certain amount of
jerkin with people or pollsters. It's not really a pole,
just a question posted on TikTok or whatever. But people
kind of get a kick out of saying bear. But
the fact that people get a kick out of saying bear,
I find troubling that you just you like this idea
(01:59):
that men are so awful and dangerous that I'd.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Rather be eaten by a bear.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Like a lot of the most common sort of comment
is if a bear eats me, at least it's going
to be quick and easy a man. All the horrible
things a man might do to me, Oh, be much
worse than being eaten by a bear. Is kind of
the common theme among the eighty percent of women who
feel that way.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
My concern is that this might erode bear awareness, but
that's just me.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Just let all of the women who said bear encounter
a bear.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That'll be great.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I have had a couple reactions in the last few years, though,
where women in recoiled in horror from the most casual
like approach your conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
That didn't used to happen.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I feel like I don't know what's being taught to
young women about how afraid you should be of men
in public or what.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
But you look like a serial killer. That's most of them.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
But I've always looked like a serial killer, and I
didn't always get this reaction.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, Joe, just all part one of my answer. Part
two is this. This is the Internet. The Internet is
doing this, the TikTok algorithms, the Instagram algorithms. Anytime you
go on this bear man thing has been all over
the place, and it is it's the This is the
dumbest comparison. I'm my blood pressure is going up if
you can't tell the fact that this is like the
(03:20):
main it was trending on every social media outlet you
can imagine, and the top videos that you clicked on
were all women talking about how they would much rather
encounter a bear, and then firing off all the lists
of reasons why they wouldn't want to encounter a man,
which is stupid. And then you get all the kids
that echo that.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I think, yeah, h.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Just the whole framework where you're you're answering one question
with an answer that's meant to express who you are
and what you're concerned about and how you believe in
toxic masculinity and all. I just if you want to
say something, say something. Yeah, I don't know. Just this
annoys me. It's it's another example of if you're going
(04:04):
to be accepted as an as a progressive, you've got
to hate the United States. You've got to be self hating,
especially if you're white people. That's like your uh, that's
your bona fide. Can you use that in singular? I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
That's how you prove that you're worthy of respect.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Self hatred and look, I get it as the father
of a couple of daughters that you know there's there's
some risk.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
In encountering a man in the wild. But it's just
a silly question. A bear's a freaking wild piece.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
This seems like a good opportunity for me to express
my disapproval of toxic masculinity.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
That's all this is.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Of course, you got to flip it around for men hiking,
Do you want to encounter a cougar or a cougar? Okay,
your choice of cogar cougar. I'll not go with the
cougar over the cougar any day. I'll tell you that
as dumb as as this, as this texture, I've literally
been chased and nearly attacked by a man in the woods.
The later caught him and arrested him, but it's still
(05:02):
rather run into a man than a bear.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yes, your experienced hiker.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I used to hike every single day, and I have
passed hundreds, if not thousands, of random men in the woods.
And I can tell you if that number had been
hundreds of thousands of bears, I probably wouldn't be you're
talking to you right now.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, got a lot of texts on this for decades,
the leftist feminized men that strong men are toxic, et cetera,
et cetera. Now women complain there are no strong men
available to hook up with. We've got a lot of
that theme. Hey, there's no wonder nobody's having kids. I
was thinking about somebody we used to work with around here,
talking about why he was still single and didn't date much.
(05:41):
Just the whole women he encountered look at men like
they're all rapists. Like that, that's your starting point and
you have to convince otherwise. Another aspect of this that
bothers me is that whether you're a parent, or a
teacher or even a in some situations, people tend to
(06:04):
they react to they live up to your expectations of them.
And if we are constantly giving the message, sending the
message to young men that men are dangerous, violent and
misogynist beasts, then the young man has the option of
either A being that or B being some sort of
weird reaction to that extra effeminate passive, you know, making
(06:28):
sure they're not right. And you know, I just it's unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Me go ahead, Katie, Oh, I'm just thinking from a
woman's standpoint too. It also says something about our growing
women's security. Because I'm secure enough in myself, like if
I'm out, I'm situationally aware and all of those things.
So I think that if I were to encounter the
bad man on the trail, I would be able to
know at least how to start to protect myself and
(06:53):
handle it. We just have a bunch of really weak,
scared women right now, too, well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We it's the same thing that has been going on
for decade's now around child abduction. We've got to quit
acting like every child gets abducted, every woman gets raped.
These are extraordinary instances. That's why they make the news
the way they do.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
They're not common, right, what's the exceptionality bias or rarity bias?
The point is, uh, And you're probably familiar with this,
but it's worth keeping in mind that things make the
news because they're rare, and then everybody sees them and
becomes convinced they're common. Yeah, it's the very rarest of
things that you hear about the most. Because man goes
(07:34):
to work without incident, Hug's wife, who he loves afterward,
is not gonna make the news. Yeah, and that happens
millions and millions of times every single day.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
If you're lost in the woods and he encountered a man,
ninety nine percent of the time, maybe more the guy's
gonna say, yeah, yeah, you go that way, and that'll
be the.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
End of it, right yep, encounterbear, You're gonna wet your pants.
It's scary.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I had a guy get a coyote away from me
one time on a hike. He didn't know him for anything. There,
you go help me out.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
It didn't. This meme didn't start with a woman in
the woods. It started with would you rather have your
child wandering the woods and come across a bear or
a man? In that case, definitely a man. I mean,
are you kidding me? That's just idiotic.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
But again, that is the the knee jerk need of
the progressive is to hate men, hate white people, hate
the United States, whatever, self hatred.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I've got another great example of that coming up. I
have one more text on this, and this is the
good closing text. Bear a man on a hiking trail.
How did you know it was a man if you
haven't confirmed his self identities, his pronoms, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
The idea that you just assumed it was a man.
Bad on you, boy.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
What if it's a man that identifies as.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
A bear, then you're yeah, wait a mood? Yeah, guy
in a bear suit. I don't even know what you do.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Would you say bear or would you say what a
bears do in the woods? Yeah? A person who ases
in the woods like a birthing person or you know
what I'm saying. Yeah, come up with some elaborate woke term.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Joe jackasses a woods sen beast.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Yes, ignore them completely and DEI programs where they exist immediately.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Jack Armstrong and Joe the Armstrong and Getty show.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Everyone that's using swipe to text most likely millennial, possibly
gen z piping fast and accurately with two thumbs again,
probably mid twenties, mid thirties. Even you will kind of
stay at this thumb tapping age until probably about i'd
say fifties. Then you're going to start adding in your
your index finger unnecessarily.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Aged sixty five plus is where.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You start doing the one finger tap, holding with your
left hand or your right hand.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
You're getting up there when you're doing that. I just
don't think that's true.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
I think the one hand or two hands depends on
the size of your phone, because I've had the smaller
phone where I can reach everything with my thumb, and
then I've had the bigger phone where I got to
use both thumbs.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I see young people.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I've sat next to lots of young people on planes
or whatever, and they're they're using both thumbs. Go, they
can go faster than me.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Definitely. My youngest who enjoys teasing me. At one point,
I'm voice texting and she says, oh, that is so boomer. Really,
I'm like, honey, it's saving me time.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Really, So young people don't voice text almost exclusively voice text.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I've not had that substantiated by like a committee of
youthful people.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
But she's, you know, she probably knows. But that's interesting
to me that they don't voice text.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
They see it as faster to use your thumbs, Katie
or cooler. Voice texting when not in.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
The car or through your Apple Watch is a little
it's boomer.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Huh. It's a little little boomer if you're among people,
is that what you mean?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, I mean if you're standing in a group of
people when you pull out your phone and you start
firing off a text, you know, text to voice.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, oh you I don't care if I'm a boomer.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Actually I'm a gen z. But as gen X said,
but as a friend, I'm not gen Z a gen X,
but as a friend said to me, but you present Boomer,
I do a fair enough Okay anyway, a different consumer issue.
I found this so interesting. Taylor Swift among she is, yes, skinny,
(11:25):
blondeheaded dating a football guy.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yes, Taylor Swift.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
She is a talented songstress, no doubt, whether you're like
your music or not, there's no denying that people really
dig her tunes. But she is also an absolutely savage
and effective capitalist in ways that I think are underappreciated
because everybody's busy swooning over her legs and her concerts.
I've got a friend who's in the concert business. I
(11:50):
can't get too specific, but he's pointed out to me
that she is a voracious capitalist. She one tour, your
place in line to buy tickets was determined by how
much merchandise you bought. You spend one hundred bucks on
merch you're like fourth in line, you spend three hundred
bucks on merch step right up by your concert ticket.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Well, then that whole selling tickets to just being the
parking lot like my niece did, making lots of money
off of that parking lot tickets, or opening the t
shirt shops and everything like they did in San Francisco
three days before the concert, and having lines around the
block right now. Yeah, and a lot of the talk
of hey man, they're selling owed in the sixties and
(12:33):
seventies was idiotic, As Pete Townsend to the who once
put it, and I thought this was pretty persuasive. He said, no,
if I let Chevy use my song for their trucks
for six months, that allows me to finance all these
projects I want to do that are not going to
make any money, but I really enjoy. Well, that's so
perfectly that if you need to make that reason, I
don't care if your reason is I want to buy
(12:54):
a yacht. Who freaking cares is my song? The weight
with Warbler can do whatever she wants with her songs.
Back to the Wayfish Warbler herself. So, oh, that's right,
the whole selling out thing. She has so much money
and employs so many people. It's just interesting to see
(13:16):
that she is obviously as motivated as the guy who
you know came up as Steve Jobs was with Apple
to build a giant conglomerate. Because she doesn't need the money.
I mean, it's not even close. But for instance, she
her new Albumney.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yes, that is true, she does not need the money.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
But so why would she? For instance, her new album
is called Midnights. She has put out six different funky
like colored vinyl albums, discs, records. She puts out these
collectiable vinyl additions in a bunch of weird, funky colors,
(13:57):
and people are buying all of them.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Do so a physical album? Do people have record players?
All these people?
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, a lot of people don't. How would I know?
I haven't ask them.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
But there's the collectibles. You hang them on your wall
or they actually spin them. That's an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
But this one dude who's and he's a dude who's
a big Taylor Swift fan, has spent about one thousand
dollars in the process of buying all six of the
different colored vinyls. Although streaming remains the dominant musical format,
physical media has been a growing niche where the industry
can cater to so called super fans who express their
dedication by shelling out big bucks for collectible versions of
(14:38):
new releases, sometimes in multiple quantities.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
A lot of your K pop bands are like this too.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
They have elaborate CD packages offering often featuring goodies like
postcards and photo booklets, which helped the boy band repeatedly
go to number one.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Taylor Swift has put.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Out special edition like CD packages, even cassettes with bonus tracks.
Certain deluxe editions sold through her website have trinkets like
Magnet's photo cards and engraved bookmarks, and my favorite, Swift's
site offered a limited run of autographed LPs for fifty dollars,
and then she had one special edition thing which featured
(15:15):
entries from her journal or her diary or something like
that that the completest fan would have to collect. So
you weren't here the day we talked about the leggy
La La Lauer and her making the Billionaire List for
the first time. She is so the billionaire entertainers. She
(15:36):
just made the list this year. There are fourteen billionaire entertainers.
She's the only one on there, including jay Z, Rihanna,
a bunch of different people. She's the only one on
there that's made the money primarily offer music. The other
ones have makeup or jay Z's got tequila or whatever.
He's got brand, He's got some sort of boost. She's
(15:58):
the only one that has done a music but she's
found a whole bunch of different avenues.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
For the music avenue of it, we'll write music and
music adjacent like merch.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
But yeah, but I understand the distinction.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
T shirts is closer to your music than you got
a booze now.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Oh, one hundred percent. Yeah, especially because you can't make
money on the music. Really, in the world of streaming,
artists make nothing. You got to sell tickets and merch.
As I've heard said many times, you want to support
an artist by merch.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And the blonde Bellower is only thirty four.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
She's got along apparently, Apparently your trove of these phrases
is unending.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
She's got a long way to go.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
She could end up with many, many billions of dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
I can't go on with this discussion. It's funny. I've
wanted to bring this up for a while.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
The real crisis in America's government schools, and I don't
want to be the cliched. Everything is going to hell
all the time.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Person like, that's what I am, because that's my brand,
because we already have one of them. No, but I
was thinking about it, and it goes back to our
discussion of the natural state of things. Is chaos and
poverty and violence. And if you have a civilization, the
(17:24):
challenge of preserving that civilization never ends. And everything isn't
necessarily going to hell, but everything will go to hell
if you don't stop it.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Going to hell needs to be maintained.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
Yes, in short, So, anyway, I think one of the
things in another principle before we get into specific so
you've quoted George will As saying one of the essential,
you know, elements of being a conservative is you have
to deal with reality, recognize what is right. You can't
be a utopian, unicorn riding wisher of fond wishes and
(18:05):
call yourself a conservative.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
It's just it doesn't fit.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
So anyway, I think we have an enormous crisis with
America's government schools right now. I don't think there's any
doubt of that. I think it would be a four
alarm panic going on in America right now if it
were not for two things. Number One, a lot of
(18:30):
parents think schools are still what they went to, what
they grew up with, and the distraction of the golden
Bachelor and the golden Bachelor. And there are three things
now that I think about it, and the other one
is that there are some schools. It's actually four things,
including the Golden Bachelor. There are some schools that are
(18:51):
still doing a good job. They're fighting hard, they're in
conservative areas, the teachers and administrators are not fully so
people think our schools seem to be fine, and maybe
they are. But the fourth thing, obviously, is that the
dominant media do not talk about this much at all
(19:12):
because it's extremely uncomfortable for them because they are progressive,
they are woke, they are pro union, and.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
The heavyweights had their kids in private schools, so they
wouldn't know anyway.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
That's a good point. That is a good point in
the middle eights too, anyway. So a couple of exhibits
in the prosecution of America's government schools. One that you've
probably heard similar fare before, but this is a bit
of an update. Between two thousand, year two thousand and
the year twenty twenty two, the number of students in
(19:45):
Marcus schools rose by five percent.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Five percent.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
The number of teachers rose by ten percent, which is interesting. Yeah,
the number of principles and assistant principles rose by forty percent.
Whoa what who had their kid in school in the
year two thousand thought, you know, this is going well,
it'd be a lot better though if we had like
(20:11):
eight more principles.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Who the hell ought that right?
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And then again, keeping in mind that the increase in
students is five percent, the increase in administrative staff is
ninety five percent.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
There you go, Samans with universities. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Now, some we've talked about this in the past, and
some folks have said, yeah, the uh the government mandates
on schools is so cumbersome. Now the federal and state mandates.
You have to have compliance staff, Oh my god, that
spend their whole days issuing reports and filling out forms
(20:47):
that say you've conformed to all of the demands of
the centralized government.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
There are so many forms. So I have been through
a lot of this and super nice people. I'm not
complaining about any of these people. What I was one
meeting that has like fifteen people in it about my son,
and they kept using the word rubric. Well, this, this
fits the rubric, and it doesn't fit the rubric. And
we've looked at the rubric everythink, like I said, I
(21:10):
think I said out loud, I think I cannot hear
the word rubric another time, just we gotta.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
I don't even know what that is. We got to
stop saying the word rubric.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Please. If we do nothing else here, it's refrain from
singing rubric.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
So it was a paperwork thing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
It was just all kinds of different layers of paperwork.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
So you have this from Jason Riley, who's a great
writer and thinker. Biden and Harris worked to crush school competition.
He is more opposed to charter schools than any president
in recent history. And Kamala has spoken enthusiastically about how
wonderful teachers unions are and that everything that tends to
(21:52):
take money and influence away from the teachers unions is
an attack on public schools. That would be bad enough
were it not for the numbers involved. Again, this is
fairly oh you know, the National Review actually touched on
the fact that the left is now trying to promote
or I'm sorry to indict school choice movements as an
(22:13):
effort a secret plot to promote Christian nationalism. All right,
that's one of the attacks.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I assume you're about to get to some of the
results we're getting out of the schools. Yeah, okay, but
even without that, even if it had maintained what public
schools were from the past. Why would you need to
increase administration by ninety percent and think that that was
a good idea even if we had maintained the same quality.
(22:43):
It's like, well, why are we spending all this money?
Was working fine before? Right?
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, And I'm looking at the clock. I think maybe
we take a break and then come back with some
of the results stuff. But the other thing I wanted
to get to, and we have a lot of great
teachers who listen to the show and communicate to us
and blow the whistle on some of the more insane
progressive things that are taking the place of math and
(23:08):
reading in our schools. The genderbread person, which I'm always
hammering about because you know, California is a particular interest
because that's where the show is based, and the perversity
in California schools is just it's heartbreaking. But anyway, Wall
Street Journal with a big piece. Teachers are burning out
on the job, and the subhead is student behavior and
(23:30):
mediocre pay are taking their toll from lefty media.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
It's always about the pay.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
It's always about money, and there's such a lack of
understanding and wisdom. Maybe it's that progressives so fill the
newsrooms that that's the only point of view. And a
lot of journalists are young these days because it doesn't
pay very well.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But there is such a lack of wisdom. If I
have a.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Fun, rewarding, joyful job and I get the summer off,
I would accept that rate of pay at X. If
I have a miserable, discouraging, heartbreaking job.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm not gonna work for that low level pay. I'm
gonna want a hell of a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
More to keep showing up very good point, student behavior problems,
cell phones in class, anemic pay that's not really true,
and artificial intelligence powered cheating are taking their toll on
America's roughly three point eight million teachers on top of
the bruising pandemic years.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
The sheriff teachers who say the stress.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And disappointments of the job are worth it has fallen
twenty one points in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I don't doubt that.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
As recently as twenty eighteen, over seventy percent of teachers
said the stress was worth it. Now it's forty two.
In surveys and interviews, teachers are most es any place you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Work, is they layered in more administration to wherever you work.
Did that make things more enjoyable or less enjoyable where
you work well?
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And we're going to get to the you know, it's
more than frustration, it's being physically at risk. In surveys
and interviews, teachers are most often pointing to a startling
rise in students' mental health challenges and misbehavior as the
biggest drivers of burnout. In the Rand Corporation survey, student
behavior was the top source of teachers' job stress.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
A lot of that, I guarantee you, is that whole
restorative justice thing where they have no ability to deal
with it.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's the next sentence.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
You're absolutely right to quote a high school math teacher
who says he saw student behavior deteriorate seriously, let yet
his school drew more lenient in administrating administering consequences.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
How is the country not aware of what a failure
this restorative justice thing is?
Speaker 4 (25:58):
I know, because nobody talks about it in the media.
And this poor son of a gun, So he's dealing
with all this frustration and then his district, Kansas City
Public Schools, shout out Kansas City. The Great cities were
a privileged to be on. They rolled out a new
policy last year teachers could not give students a zero
for an assignment even if they didn't turn it in
(26:21):
and didn't make any effort to.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It is to laugh. I mean, that is so funny.
It is funny, It is hilarious. So say that again.
You can't get a zero.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
Even if even if you say, not only did I
not do the assignment, mister Gerald, you should shove it
up your armors. He cannot give you a zero for
that assignment. You got to get at least like a
c one of the things I got when I got
into teaching. My one thing was about learning and love
(26:54):
of learning, he says. In the end, it was less
about the learning and more about babysitting. He left teaching
this summer. Oh yeah, yeah. And they go into a
great deal of detail, with many, many examples of classroom
stress and violence, lack of consequences for bad behavior, a
stort of justice.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
I mean, look it up, well, don't look it.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Up, because their description of it won't be accurate as
to what actually happens.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
It is.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
It is the recipe for no discipline and a bullies paradise.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
It is it is.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
It is tragic for the children and the teachers, and
it's part of Oh yeah, absolutely true, and it's one
hundred percent part of the neo Marxist We're going to
break the system. We're going to call everything racist until
we control it. And they do control the schools to
a large extent now, and anybody who stands in our
way will call them a racist until we have imposed
(27:43):
our philosophy on whatever institution you're talking about, from public
schools to corporations, to the United States government to the
military for instance.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
By the way, in Kansas City, we're on FM, so
people can really enjoy our pipes.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
I have nothing to add to that, you know, And
I don't know. I'm looking at the clock.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
I came across another account a number of school districts
in oh it was Virginia and one other state in
which far fewer than half of the children were at
the minimum level in English, and it was less than
(28:27):
a third in district after district were not at the
minimum level for math. We sometimes talk about proficiency. This
was the well the minimum and the vast majority of
kids are nowhere near it. And if you say I
got to get my kid out of this school.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
The forces of the left from Joe Biden, Kamala Harrison
down will tell you you're a racist for some reason.
Be you're attacking public schools, trying to take recent versus away.
You're a bad person and a bad parent. It's crazier
that this isn't a bigger issue. It is, It absolutely is.
(29:10):
We got this text out of nowhere. Do you know
why hippies were Petulia oil? So blind people can hate
them too. Wow, that's beautiful. Here's your freedom loving quote
of the day. One of our beloved listeners sent this
to us next to a big picture of Captain America,
(29:34):
and it was Captain America saying this, And I understand
this is a speech he gives to buck up Spider
Man at one point during the movies.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
And I thought, boy, this is really eloquent for one
of your comic book movies. Did the script write or
write this? And I did a little digging and no,
it's actually a very very close paraphrase. Was something Mark
Twain said. Interesting, But I liked it so much I
posted it up in the studio so I could glance
at it now. And again I will give you the
(30:03):
Twain version, which is only subtly different as opposed to
Captain America.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Okay, do just lend them a little more gravitas.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Well, unless you're fighting off a mob, then I'd rather
have the Captain on my side than the scribe. Honestly
love Captain America kicks ass, Twain incredibly eloquent. Captain America
definitely stronger on the whoop ass front. If you're fighting
the Winter Soldier, you want Captain America, not Mark Twain.
I agree completely. Anyway, here's what Twain said. It's a
(30:32):
little long, but I love it so much. Maybe we
can work in a little email later on. Let men
label you as they may. If you alone, of all
the nation, decide one way, and that way be the
right way. By your convictions of the right, You've done
your duty, by yourself and by your country, holding up
your head, for you have nothing to be ashamed of.
It doesn't matter what the press says. It doesn't matter
what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn't matter
(30:54):
if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.
Republics are founded on one prince above all else, the
requirement that we stand up for what we believe in,
no matter the odds or the consequences when the mob
and the press and the whole world tell you to move.
Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside
the river of truth and tell the whole world, no,
(31:15):
you move.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Mark fing Twain, that's people understand, that's his middle name.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
That's really good stuff if it's the right cause or thing.
Interestingly enough, and maybe I'll explain later why this happened.
I was listening to a speech last night, FBI recordings
of Jim Jones down Guyana, before he had all those
people kill themselves, the Jim Jones cult, that whole thing.
(31:44):
He gave a very similar speech there, as he had
convinced all those numb nuts that the world was out
to get them and they were doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I'm very similar speech. I had no idea you'd heard that.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
I knew in my heart of hearts you would come
up with some counter argument against that thought.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm not it.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
It just you just have to have you just have
to just you know, it works when the cause is right.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
But that's irrelevant as an as an observation of society.
It's one hundred percent correct as a principle that some
people employ it wrongly is irrelevant?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You're right. I think it's a moral principle. Both are true.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Isn't that a head scratcher? It is anyway? Mailbag drops
now what's your mail bag? At Armstrong and Giddy dot com.
Oh Mad in Honolulu with a really interesting note about
the Honolulu getaway pad that those Chinese spies who infiltrated
New York's government pad. But his sign off is he says,
(32:49):
our one more thing yesterday on price controls and gouging
should be mandatory listening to graduate from high school.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Thank you for the kind words.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
You can grab that wherever you like to get podcasts
Armstrong and Getty One more thing, you know, listen to
it out again, speaking of counterintuitive price gouging is a
good thing and that and it makes perfect economic sense.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Listen to the One More Thing.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Podcast and it's the best thing that can happen for
poor people. Yeah, let's see. Wow, what a contrast, writes
Joe and Ventura, California. Notice this on my local free
way off ramp, winner and loser.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
There is a young man appears to be of immigrants,
stock selling bouquets of flowers to cars whoever want some.
Flowers on the way home, and there's a scumbag junkie begging.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Right right, that's a good one. That's a good one.
You got people there on the corner. This happens driving
out to the farm. When I go home, sometimes you
got people on the corner selling strawberries, usually a whole
family in the hot sun, set up their table, got
their you know, station wagon there selling strawberries. You got
people just baking on the street.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's all. I see.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
How much the people that are working their ass off
sitting there in the sun selling the strawberries can't have
much respect for the beggar on.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
The street, he says.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Wouldn't it be ironic if this was a planned social
science experiments to see what kind of reactions could be
elicited from the drivers? I admit I was guilty of
making my opinion known. A big thumbs up to the
winner and down to the loser. Care to put your
own caption on this photo? Well, thanks, Joe. That's interesting.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
It's also interesting that if you ask Alexa about Kamala
Harris you get a much different answer than when you
ask about Donald Trump. Quick question for you, what if
you happen to miss this unbelievable radio program. The answer
is easy, friends, just download our podcast, Armstrong and Getty
on Demand. It's the podcast version of the podcast show,
available anytime, any day, every single podcast platform known demand.
(34:50):
Download it now, Armstrong and Getty on Demand
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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