July 22, 2026 • 17 mins
First, Jack expresses his deep regret about an interaction with a bank teller. Next, Joe details the new Texas state school required book list.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm already proud and prejudiced. Why would I want to
read that crap. It's one more thing I'm a reference,
of course to Jane Austen is pride and prejudice, which
I believe is a guidebook to get you better at
those two qualities.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah I uh, I'm going to say this on the
air so that it kind of backs me into having
to do it. Oh boy, this is not a good
story about me, or maybe it is, depends on how
you look at it. I have to go to apologize
to a bank teller today, oh boy, because yesterday I
(00:42):
was doing something and there was some dumb, just dumb,
bureaucratic hiccup in me trying to deposit this check. This one.
I should switch banks. There's one particular bank I've been
going to forever. They've gotten crappier and crappier and crappier
over the years, with more and more and more stupid
just crap, and it's so annoying. And it takes like
(01:03):
fifteen minutes to deposit a check for some reason I
don't know why anyway, which I only have to do
like twice a year. But you can't do it through
the ATM passed us whatever it was my it was
my refund check from the State of California. And uh,
and then the way you don't believe this, I mean,
this is it's just AnyWho. What I did was that
(01:26):
I gotta go apologize for today. Is he needed something
else which seemed ridiculous to me and I already hate
this bank. And uh. He said you need to take
all your stuff with you and I said, there's nobody here.
It's a completely empty bank. I said, oh, could be
our I'll go out to my cards right there. And
he said, you need to take all this stuff right here.
You can't leave this here, my check and driver's license
(01:48):
and the stuff that I had for our little thing
we were doing. Yeah, I said, I'm going right out
to my truck. He said you can't leave this here,
and I said, well, that's freaking ridiculous. And I grabbed
my stuff and I walked out. So I'm gonna go
back and apologize that for that today, because all he
was doing was following their bank rules. I'm sure doing
what his boss tells.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Them to do.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And I, you know, I didn't need to do that.
So I'm going to go back and apologize him today,
which we'll get that off of my mind because I
keep thinking about saying, you know, criticizing something, poor young
guy just doing his job.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Now, let's tell the whole story. Did you call him
a dumb effort?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
No, that was the whole thing, A greasy hair jack, rabbit, anything, No,
that was it. I don't even think I said friggin'
I think I just said, well, that's ridiculous, and grabbed
my stuff in a huff and walked out and then
came back. But I didn't need to do that, and
he doesn't need to be feeling bad about doing his job.
So I will go back today and walk in there
(02:46):
and probably wait in line, and I'll walk out and
he'll still think I'm a dick.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But right, well, he left in a huff. You should
have waited a second, left in a second and a huff.
Groucho Marx nineteen thirty Fourish.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I since I was a little kid, and I should
get better. It's just the way of the world. I've
never liked dumb rules. Dumb rules have always bothered me.
I understand the point sometimes of dumb rules.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But yeah, I kind of get that rule though.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Oh I'm sure, I understand why it exists in an
empty bank. Just him and me walk him to Barkamara.
I'm gonna walk right back here. Yeah, it'll take me.
It took me fifteen twenty seconds.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, but whatever. Yeah, it's it's it's avoiding that whole
you stole my blanking scenario, you know. Yeah, Yeah, I
almost got in one of those the other day. I'd
misplaced something and was sure I knew where it was misplaced.
I ended up being wrong, and I'm glad I didn't
(03:56):
escalate the conversation at all. Uh No, I left it here.
I'm sure I left it here, and one he has it.
It's one of those situations, but they seem to be
of good character, and so I let it go, thinking
that's unlikely and I'm not going to be the mane
is stealing my jewelry person, And you turned out you
(04:19):
were wrong anyway. Oh yeah, I had put it somewhere
utterly inexplicable. I mean, I will never think figure out
why I would have done what I did. It was
it was akin to not quite as crazy, but akin
to putting your screwdriver in the refrigerator and the milk
in your tool chest. You know. It's just one of
(04:41):
those things not paying attention.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, I swore up and down. I left my credit
card for my son because he needed it for something
and I didn't. I left him my insurance card, which
is really no value. Well, I have some value, but
it's no good to buy anything at the grocery store.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah huh. Anyway, uh so we're discussing or
My introduction was a reference to pride and prejudice. You
may recall I haven't read I'm going to read that.
That's like two down my list. I'm going to get
to that enough. People that I really respect say that's
one of the great all time pieces of literature, and
I should read it. It's a really, really good window
(05:21):
into Victorian customs and values.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I gotta admit I tend to stay away from chick books, but.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
My daughter, Delanni and my wife are huge fans. They
kist women are practically recite the like the most celebrated
screen version of it. I can't tell you how many
times I heard oh, mister Bingley, mister Darcy around my house. Hilarious.
Good times. Anyway, Texas is out with their required booklist,
(05:53):
and this is a trend among conservative state. Yes, yeah,
for I'm sorry for uh curriculu, school curriculum, curricula. And
this is a trend. There are a couple of universities
and I wish I had it in front of me
who's doing this. But the message that they're sending is,
(06:14):
I'm more than delighted to show you what we are
teaching your children, progressive places you next. And there's also
an element of hey, we're going to teach the classics
because their classics were proud of it, their great literature.
It's Western civilization. We're not ashamed Western civilization. Come look,
both of which I think are absolutely wonderful trends. Anyway, Texas,
(06:40):
I deliberately grabbed the account from the New York Times
about the Texas book List because I knew it would
be a it would be annoying. And they name check
a bunch of the lists, and they have the entire
list for various grades, which I'll touch on in a
little bit. They go through the mechanics of how this
came to be. The list was applauded in some corners
(07:02):
for prioritizing reading at a time when many students are
reading fewer whole books. In schooling at home. It was
also highly contested, in part because it includes excerpts from
the Bible. It also puts a focus on classic texts,
often written by white and male authors, a stirring debate
about what qualifies as essential literature. In a highly diverse state,
(07:27):
teachers can still assign additional books on top of the
ones required. The whole anti white, anti male they won.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They won, by the way. Who dat the people that
don't that wanted to drive out literature written of the
classic literature written by straight white males, old dead white males.
According to Harold Bloom, who was one of the greatest
fighters of that in American history, I just happened to
come across his one of his final interviews before he
(07:58):
died about fifteen years ago. He was a professor at Yale,
taught Shakespeare primarily, but all kinds of American literature. And
he was not a conservative. I mean, he thought we
were living in a theocracy under George Bush. I mean
he was one of those people. I mean he was
a hardcore Democrat, I know, whatever, but hated the new
(08:20):
woke erase, the Western canon because it was dead white
males thing, and particularly because he thought Shakespeare was the
greatest writer in human history. He hated the fact that
at the time that he started lecturing about this, there
wasn't a university in the country teaching Shakespeare trade up
straight up. I mean, like this is, you know, let's
(08:44):
read Hamlet because it's a great piece of literature. You
would only bring up Shakespeare if you brought it up
at all. Mostly it wasn't brought up at all. But
the only reason you'd bring it up is to show
how they didn't have enough a women, or didn't have
enough gay people, or didn't handle slim well, or what it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Was going to deconstruct it exactly right imblematize it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And so he as a left he fought against this
and just got attacked endlessly. He spent the last ten
years of his life fighting against people who had been
his best friends his whole life because they thought he
was on the wrong side of history. And I saw
one of his last interviews the other day on YouTube,
and it was so depressing to me. He's all, he's
(09:26):
all bent over, his body had given out on him.
They have a microphone they're holding up to his mouth
as he's in a wheelchair, and uh, and he said
I wish I'd never done it, he said. It cost
me too much. I lost all my friends and I lost.
I lost the battle. It's over. The universities no longer
teach that stuff. It's never coming back, he said. All
(09:46):
I could do is hope there's a remnant of some
of us. It was his last year teaching, and he
taught like ten people at Yale in the Shakespeare class
because no kids wanted to take it. He said, All
I can do is hope to educate a remnant for
the rest of my life, which didn't end up being
much longer. He said. We lost, and hopefully someday it
will come back again.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Well, Harold, if you're looking down from the heaven, you
don't believe in or up from similarly described hell. They
were winning for a long time, but there is a
counter fight going on.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I hope it's not over. Is it not horrifying though,
that Shakespeare went from being the greatest writer in human
history to not taught in our colleges at all, and
if you stood up for it, you got destroyed. That's horrifying,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
In the midst of the terror in the French Revolution,
I'm sure lots of people probably went to the guillotines thinking,
oh my god, they won. Right they did for a while. Anyway,
I won't give up on any of this stuff. I
don't care. But Texas's list, which is controversial in some quarters,
includes the Holy Bible. I read an absolutely terrific defense
(10:56):
of it, more eloquent than I can provide about how
you cannot understand much in literature without being passingly familiar
with the Bible and its stories. The Bible. That's right, sir,
That's what I just said. But it goes from kindergarten
(11:16):
where they have you reading the Berenstain Bears in the
Golden Rule, for instance, and The Cat and the Hat
by Doctor Seuss, among other classics, to classic nursery rhymes
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Three Little Bear, Doctor Seuss took money from Apak.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Hilarious, The Three Little Pigs slash Los Tres Serditos, a
bilingual story book by Patricia Seibert. Anyway, I have no
problem with that. Let's see. Grade one includes Abe Lincoln,
The Boy who Loved Books Beautiful something called Aboila by
Arthur Doros. So you're reflecting Hispanic culture. Wait, a minute.
(11:57):
Let me go back to that sentence by the annoying
fing New York Times quote unquote journalist. It puts a
focus on classic texts often written by white and male authors,
but nowhere near exclusively. So I guess you threw that
in because you just feel like you have to God,
these people are annoying. What grade do you want? Name
(12:20):
a grade, Michael. You get to pick the grade name
of grade any grade seventh, seventh grade, here you go,
grade seven, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
Let's see Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport by
George Washington. I don't know that the Shepherd's Psalm from
(12:40):
the Book of Psalms, Chapter twenty three by King the
King James Versu.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sh having Christiandy down my throat.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
No, they're not the outsiders by S. E. Hinton, very famous.
Got some Dylan Thomas and Langston Hughes from Robert Frost.
Good stuff. Let's see grade eight, grade nine, grade ten.
What have they got? The seniors in high school reading
the twelve vers Hamlet by William Shakespeare to deconstruct it
and problematize, and I'm sure, yeah, the thing then then
(13:08):
the thing that really depressed me because I've taken in
so much Harold Blooms stuff, uh recently, because I got
on this Shakespeare kick.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And he used to be on Charlie Rose all the time,
back when that was what passed for being a lefty.
Then he was hunted down by you know, the other
people academy and he was a pariah. So he went
from being a regular on Charlie Rose as a ill
professor to a pariah. But the thing that was depressing
is watching an interview with him from like nineteen ninety
(13:37):
two and he was talking about, you know, I'm in
the fight for my life Charlie for trying to keep
Shakespeare in the colleges. But this is a blip in time.
They won't win. It's just a select few people. Back then,
everybody used the term political correctness instead of woke. But
he taught political correctness will have its time, but it
will go away. Shakespeare will prevail. It went from that
(13:57):
in ninety two, little by little, year by year, and
he was inside these in your universities. He taught at Yale,
he taught at NYU, he did stuff at Stanford. He
was in and and to the end of his life
where he said we lost. I lost the battle. It
is over. They won. Uh. He saw it go in
that direction little by little over the years. I mean,
that's that's so depressing. Yeah, yeah, it is as as
(14:22):
I I've quoted before Christopher Hitchens said, you talk about
the end of civilizations, the barbarians at the gate. The
reality is the barbarians woke, walk in the gates with
somebody holding the door from them. That's the way civilizations.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Die, right right. So Grade eleven Ray Bradbury for height
four fifty one, you got some Kurt Vonnegut, some mine ran,
some Thomas Sowell, uh, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I wasn't introduced to hardly any of this stuff in school.
It all came later on the round.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeaharnheim first fifty one was required.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Pretty sure. I never read Kurt Vonnagut in school.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I did. It was one of the formative experiences of
my life, reading his short story Harrison bergeron which every
child should read ten times by the time they get
out of high school. Yeah. Let's see, Yeah, this is
really good. This is terrific. Grade nine you got Animal Farm.
(15:21):
Let's see the Lyceum address by Abraham Lincoln, which is
absolutely brilliant Ozymandias by Percy is it bite Bishe Shelley.
I'll just go with Percy Shelley. I've never really got
into poetry that much. It was never taught to me,
all sorts of good stuff, including the Parable of the
Prodigal Sun.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I hope you're right they can make a comeback. I'm
not optimistic.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I know. I'm always more optimistic in these things than
you are.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I hope I'm wrong. I would rub I'd love to
be wrong. I would roll around in my wrongness. If
this stuff can make a comeback, well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
If they can quote unquote when for fifth the years
and then it gets rolled back, if that's as good
as it gets, that's as good as it gets. But
you got to keep fighting it one way or another,
you know. I remember reading about the Civil War, how
depressing it was, how the Union endured defeat after defeat,
and the incompetence of McClellan in particular. It's just astonishing
(16:21):
a lot of people more or less gave up. But
that's why you keep fighting.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Not only is it like you know, I just think
it's wrong and depressing. All that sort of stuff. The
self pleasedness of these people who are smarter than all
of you know, the last four hundred years. Shakespeare has
some problems, you know, and we are now, all of
(16:49):
a sudden, after four centuries, way smarter than everybody that's
come before. They didn't realize how awful this was. And
we're gonna kill it off.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, the smug self congressional progressivesm makes me insane, But
you know that's where you keep fighting. You're either gonna
win or you're gonna go down. Swinging one of Tom
Petty's greatest songs, Swinging like Sonny Listen, man, I love
that song. That ought to be required listening in Texas
and everywhere else. Also read three Shakespeare's Michael portraying the
(17:26):
modern university. Well, I guess that's it. That's great.
I'm already proud and prejudiced. Why would I want to
read that crap. It's one more thing I'm a reference,
of course to Jane Austen is pride and prejudice, which
I believe is a guidebook to get you better at
those two qualities.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah I uh, I'm going to say this on the
air so that it kind of backs me into having
to do it. Oh boy, this is not a good
story about me, or maybe it is, depends on how
you look at it. I have to go to apologize
to a bank teller today, oh boy, because yesterday I
(00:42):
was doing something and there was some dumb, just dumb,
bureaucratic hiccup in me trying to deposit this check. This one.
I should switch banks. There's one particular bank I've been
going to forever. They've gotten crappier and crappier and crappier
over the years, with more and more and more stupid
just crap, and it's so annoying. And it takes like
(01:03):
fifteen minutes to deposit a check for some reason I
don't know why anyway, which I only have to do
like twice a year. But you can't do it through
the ATM passed us whatever it was my it was
my refund check from the State of California. And uh,
and then the way you don't believe this, I mean,
this is it's just AnyWho. What I did was that
(01:26):
I gotta go apologize for today. Is he needed something
else which seemed ridiculous to me and I already hate
this bank. And uh. He said you need to take
all your stuff with you and I said, there's nobody here.
It's a completely empty bank. I said, oh, could be
our I'll go out to my cards right there. And
he said, you need to take all this stuff right here.
You can't leave this here, my check and driver's license
(01:48):
and the stuff that I had for our little thing
we were doing. Yeah, I said, I'm going right out
to my truck. He said you can't leave this here,
and I said, well, that's freaking ridiculous. And I grabbed
my stuff and I walked out. So I'm gonna go
back and apologize that for that today, because all he
was doing was following their bank rules. I'm sure doing
what his boss tells.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Them to do.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And I, you know, I didn't need to do that.
So I'm going to go back and apologize him today,
which we'll get that off of my mind because I
keep thinking about saying, you know, criticizing something, poor young
guy just doing his job.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Now, let's tell the whole story. Did you call him
a dumb effort?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
No, that was the whole thing, A greasy hair jack, rabbit, anything, No,
that was it. I don't even think I said friggin'
I think I just said, well, that's ridiculous, and grabbed
my stuff in a huff and walked out and then
came back. But I didn't need to do that, and
he doesn't need to be feeling bad about doing his job.
So I will go back today and walk in there
(02:46):
and probably wait in line, and I'll walk out and
he'll still think I'm a dick.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But right, well, he left in a huff. You should
have waited a second, left in a second and a huff.
Groucho Marx nineteen thirty Fourish.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
I since I was a little kid, and I should
get better. It's just the way of the world. I've
never liked dumb rules. Dumb rules have always bothered me.
I understand the point sometimes of dumb rules.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
But yeah, I kind of get that rule though.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Oh I'm sure, I understand why it exists in an
empty bank. Just him and me walk him to Barkamara.
I'm gonna walk right back here. Yeah, it'll take me.
It took me fifteen twenty seconds.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, but whatever. Yeah, it's it's it's avoiding that whole
you stole my blanking scenario, you know. Yeah, Yeah, I
almost got in one of those the other day. I'd
misplaced something and was sure I knew where it was misplaced.
I ended up being wrong, and I'm glad I didn't
(03:56):
escalate the conversation at all. Uh No, I left it here.
I'm sure I left it here, and one he has it.
It's one of those situations, but they seem to be
of good character, and so I let it go, thinking
that's unlikely and I'm not going to be the mane
is stealing my jewelry person, And you turned out you
(04:19):
were wrong anyway. Oh yeah, I had put it somewhere
utterly inexplicable. I mean, I will never think figure out
why I would have done what I did. It was
it was akin to not quite as crazy, but akin
to putting your screwdriver in the refrigerator and the milk
in your tool chest. You know. It's just one of
(04:41):
those things not paying attention.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, I swore up and down. I left my credit
card for my son because he needed it for something
and I didn't. I left him my insurance card, which
is really no value. Well, I have some value, but
it's no good to buy anything at the grocery store.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah huh. Anyway, uh so we're discussing or
My introduction was a reference to pride and prejudice. You
may recall I haven't read I'm going to read that.
That's like two down my list. I'm going to get
to that enough. People that I really respect say that's
one of the great all time pieces of literature, and
I should read it. It's a really, really good window
(05:21):
into Victorian customs and values.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
I gotta admit I tend to stay away from chick books, but.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
My daughter, Delanni and my wife are huge fans. They
kist women are practically recite the like the most celebrated
screen version of it. I can't tell you how many
times I heard oh, mister Bingley, mister Darcy around my house. Hilarious.
Good times. Anyway, Texas is out with their required booklist,
(05:53):
and this is a trend among conservative state. Yes, yeah,
for I'm sorry for uh curriculu, school curriculum, curricula. And
this is a trend. There are a couple of universities
and I wish I had it in front of me
who's doing this. But the message that they're sending is,
(06:14):
I'm more than delighted to show you what we are
teaching your children, progressive places you next. And there's also
an element of hey, we're going to teach the classics
because their classics were proud of it, their great literature.
It's Western civilization. We're not ashamed Western civilization. Come look,
both of which I think are absolutely wonderful trends. Anyway, Texas,
(06:40):
I deliberately grabbed the account from the New York Times
about the Texas book List because I knew it would
be a it would be annoying. And they name check
a bunch of the lists, and they have the entire
list for various grades, which I'll touch on in a
little bit. They go through the mechanics of how this
came to be. The list was applauded in some corners
(07:02):
for prioritizing reading at a time when many students are
reading fewer whole books. In schooling at home. It was
also highly contested, in part because it includes excerpts from
the Bible. It also puts a focus on classic texts,
often written by white and male authors, a stirring debate
about what qualifies as essential literature. In a highly diverse state,
(07:27):
teachers can still assign additional books on top of the
ones required. The whole anti white, anti male they won.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
They won, by the way. Who dat the people that
don't that wanted to drive out literature written of the
classic literature written by straight white males, old dead white males.
According to Harold Bloom, who was one of the greatest
fighters of that in American history, I just happened to
come across his one of his final interviews before he
(07:58):
died about fifteen years ago. He was a professor at Yale,
taught Shakespeare primarily, but all kinds of American literature. And
he was not a conservative. I mean, he thought we
were living in a theocracy under George Bush. I mean
he was one of those people. I mean he was
a hardcore Democrat, I know, whatever, but hated the new
(08:20):
woke erase, the Western canon because it was dead white
males thing, and particularly because he thought Shakespeare was the
greatest writer in human history. He hated the fact that
at the time that he started lecturing about this, there
wasn't a university in the country teaching Shakespeare trade up
straight up. I mean, like this is, you know, let's
(08:44):
read Hamlet because it's a great piece of literature. You
would only bring up Shakespeare if you brought it up
at all. Mostly it wasn't brought up at all. But
the only reason you'd bring it up is to show
how they didn't have enough a women, or didn't have
enough gay people, or didn't handle slim well, or what it.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Was going to deconstruct it exactly right imblematize it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And so he as a left he fought against this
and just got attacked endlessly. He spent the last ten
years of his life fighting against people who had been
his best friends his whole life because they thought he
was on the wrong side of history. And I saw
one of his last interviews the other day on YouTube,
and it was so depressing to me. He's all, he's
(09:26):
all bent over, his body had given out on him.
They have a microphone they're holding up to his mouth
as he's in a wheelchair, and uh, and he said
I wish I'd never done it, he said. It cost
me too much. I lost all my friends and I lost.
I lost the battle. It's over. The universities no longer
teach that stuff. It's never coming back, he said. All
(09:46):
I could do is hope there's a remnant of some
of us. It was his last year teaching, and he
taught like ten people at Yale in the Shakespeare class
because no kids wanted to take it. He said, All
I can do is hope to educate a remnant for
the rest of my life, which didn't end up being
much longer. He said. We lost, and hopefully someday it
will come back again.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Well, Harold, if you're looking down from the heaven, you
don't believe in or up from similarly described hell. They
were winning for a long time, but there is a
counter fight going on.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I hope it's not over. Is it not horrifying though,
that Shakespeare went from being the greatest writer in human
history to not taught in our colleges at all, and
if you stood up for it, you got destroyed. That's horrifying,
you know.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
In the midst of the terror in the French Revolution,
I'm sure lots of people probably went to the guillotines thinking,
oh my god, they won. Right they did for a while. Anyway,
I won't give up on any of this stuff. I
don't care. But Texas's list, which is controversial in some quarters,
includes the Holy Bible. I read an absolutely terrific defense
(10:56):
of it, more eloquent than I can provide about how
you cannot understand much in literature without being passingly familiar
with the Bible and its stories. The Bible. That's right, sir,
That's what I just said. But it goes from kindergarten
(11:16):
where they have you reading the Berenstain Bears in the
Golden Rule, for instance, and The Cat and the Hat
by Doctor Seuss, among other classics, to classic nursery rhymes
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Three Little Bear, Doctor Seuss took money from Apak.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Hilarious, The Three Little Pigs slash Los Tres Serditos, a
bilingual story book by Patricia Seibert. Anyway, I have no
problem with that. Let's see. Grade one includes Abe Lincoln,
The Boy who Loved Books Beautiful something called Aboila by
Arthur Doros. So you're reflecting Hispanic culture. Wait, a minute.
(11:57):
Let me go back to that sentence by the annoying
fing New York Times quote unquote journalist. It puts a
focus on classic texts often written by white and male authors,
but nowhere near exclusively. So I guess you threw that
in because you just feel like you have to God,
these people are annoying. What grade do you want? Name
(12:20):
a grade, Michael. You get to pick the grade name
of grade any grade seventh, seventh grade, here you go,
grade seven, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
Let's see Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport by
George Washington. I don't know that the Shepherd's Psalm from
(12:40):
the Book of Psalms, Chapter twenty three by King the
King James Versu.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Sh having Christiandy down my throat.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
No, they're not the outsiders by S. E. Hinton, very famous.
Got some Dylan Thomas and Langston Hughes from Robert Frost.
Good stuff. Let's see grade eight, grade nine, grade ten.
What have they got? The seniors in high school reading
the twelve vers Hamlet by William Shakespeare to deconstruct it
and problematize, and I'm sure, yeah, the thing then then
(13:08):
the thing that really depressed me because I've taken in
so much Harold Blooms stuff, uh recently, because I got
on this Shakespeare kick.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And he used to be on Charlie Rose all the time,
back when that was what passed for being a lefty.
Then he was hunted down by you know, the other
people academy and he was a pariah. So he went
from being a regular on Charlie Rose as a ill
professor to a pariah. But the thing that was depressing
is watching an interview with him from like nineteen ninety
(13:37):
two and he was talking about, you know, I'm in
the fight for my life Charlie for trying to keep
Shakespeare in the colleges. But this is a blip in time.
They won't win. It's just a select few people. Back then,
everybody used the term political correctness instead of woke. But
he taught political correctness will have its time, but it
will go away. Shakespeare will prevail. It went from that
(13:57):
in ninety two, little by little, year by year, and
he was inside these in your universities. He taught at Yale,
he taught at NYU, he did stuff at Stanford. He
was in and and to the end of his life
where he said we lost. I lost the battle. It
is over. They won. Uh. He saw it go in
that direction little by little over the years. I mean,
that's that's so depressing. Yeah, yeah, it is as as
(14:22):
I I've quoted before Christopher Hitchens said, you talk about
the end of civilizations, the barbarians at the gate. The
reality is the barbarians woke, walk in the gates with
somebody holding the door from them. That's the way civilizations.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Die, right right. So Grade eleven Ray Bradbury for height
four fifty one, you got some Kurt Vonnegut, some mine ran,
some Thomas Sowell, uh, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I wasn't introduced to hardly any of this stuff in school.
It all came later on the round.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeaharnheim first fifty one was required.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Pretty sure. I never read Kurt Vonnagut in school.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
I did. It was one of the formative experiences of
my life, reading his short story Harrison bergeron which every
child should read ten times by the time they get
out of high school. Yeah. Let's see, Yeah, this is
really good. This is terrific. Grade nine you got Animal Farm.
(15:21):
Let's see the Lyceum address by Abraham Lincoln, which is
absolutely brilliant Ozymandias by Percy is it bite Bishe Shelley.
I'll just go with Percy Shelley. I've never really got
into poetry that much. It was never taught to me,
all sorts of good stuff, including the Parable of the
Prodigal Sun.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I hope you're right they can make a comeback. I'm
not optimistic.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I know. I'm always more optimistic in these things than
you are.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I hope I'm wrong. I would rub I'd love to
be wrong. I would roll around in my wrongness. If
this stuff can make a comeback, well.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
If they can quote unquote when for fifth the years
and then it gets rolled back, if that's as good
as it gets, that's as good as it gets. But
you got to keep fighting it one way or another,
you know. I remember reading about the Civil War, how
depressing it was, how the Union endured defeat after defeat,
and the incompetence of McClellan in particular. It's just astonishing
(16:21):
a lot of people more or less gave up. But
that's why you keep fighting.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Not only is it like you know, I just think
it's wrong and depressing. All that sort of stuff. The
self pleasedness of these people who are smarter than all
of you know, the last four hundred years. Shakespeare has
some problems, you know, and we are now, all of
(16:49):
a sudden, after four centuries, way smarter than everybody that's
come before. They didn't realize how awful this was. And
we're gonna kill it off.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, the smug self congressional progressivesm makes me insane, But
you know that's where you keep fighting. You're either gonna
win or you're gonna go down. Swinging one of Tom
Petty's greatest songs, Swinging like Sonny Listen, man, I love
that song. That ought to be required listening in Texas
and everywhere else. Also read three Shakespeare's Michael portraying the
(17:26):
modern university. Well, I guess that's it. That's great.
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