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Nealz Nuze

Posted: 1:00 a.m. Wednesday, June 11, 2003

Today's Nuze: Today's Nuze: June 11, 2003 

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By Neal Boortz

Today's Nuze: June 11, 2003

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WHAT THE HELL? WHO NEEDS TO KNOW HOW TO READ ANYWAY?

My initial thought is that you won't believe what I'm about to tell you. But, then, you are Boortz listeners, and I spend no small amount of time relating stories to you that detail the incredible failures of government education. So ... you probably WILL believe this. Good thing ... 'cause it's true.

We take you to Petersburg, Virginia. The Petersburg School Board is preparing to make some changes to its promotion policy. Evidently they feel that too much is being demanded of Petersburg government school students.

The Petersburg schools have five academic core subjects. They are language arts, math, social studies, science and reading. The school board has decided that students in grades one through five will only need to pass four of these subjects to be promoted to the next grade. One academic core subject will be removed from the requirement list for grade promotion.

The four subjects that will be required? They are language arts, math, social studies and science.

The subject that will NOT be required? Reading.

Can you believe this? Reading is the path to knowledge .. and this school board in Petersburg, Virginia wants to drop reading as a requirement for promotion in grades one through five?

School board vice chairwoman Dr. Florence Farley says that holding a child back because they fail a [reading] class is "penalizing" a student. Oh my gosh, we can't do that, can we? Why, we might damage this precious child's self esteem! After all, a good health self-esteem is much more valuable in our society than the ability to read.

You should know that teachers and parents in Petersburg are in open revolt against this school board, and the school board is running for cover. My guess is that the school board will lose on this one.

The truly amazing story here is that so many parents still think that government --- the same government that does virtually nothing well - somehow is capable of educating their children.

Find a private school, folks ... and get your children away from these incompetent government schools.

AND THAT'S WHY WE DIDN'T GET BIN LADEN

No, I didn't watch Hillary's interview on Larry King Live last night. There are some things I just don't think I could endure. I did hear some excerpts this morning, however. One stands out. Hillary actually tried to say that all of the media attention aid to the Monica Lewinsky matter kept her "husband" from paying full attention to his efforts to get Osama Bin Laden.

So, is Hitlary trying to say that September 11thmight not have happened if people hadn't spent so much time picking on her poor husband?

TOUGH TIMES FOR TEENS

The economy is improving and growing with more strength. The economy is also doing what it has always done ... leaving the unemployment figures to be the last to improve.

Well, this looks like rough news for some teenagers this summer. They're going to find it a bit harder to find that summer job. Employers can be a bit choosier right now, and teens with bad attitudes are going to have all the time they need to work on their precious cars until school starts up again.

Now ... if I were the one doing the hiring, here are some guaranteed ways to make sure you don't get the job.
  1. Drive to the interview in a Camaro, Trans Am or Firebird.

  2. Wear your baseball hat backwards and forget to take it off when you come into my office.

  3. Use the word "like" improperly, such as "I like want to work here."

  4. Too many "you knows," or just one "know what I'm saying?"
  5. Baggy pants that with about 12 inches of extra fabric gathered around your ankles.

  6. Underwear showing above your beltline.

  7. Pierced naval, tongue, lips, eyebrows, or a line of earrings traveling up to the top of your ear.

  8. Tattoos

  9. Wearing earphones

  10. The display of an entitlement mentality.

  11. Facial hair (and this goes double for females).

That's is for now ... but I'm sure I'll think of some more bullet points before the interview.

STUPIDITY MAGNIFIED

There are some days when my tolerance for stupidity is relatively high. Today is not one of those days. Either was yesterday.

So, may I send my heartiest thanks to some busybody listener who took the time to tell me about a certain column in a certain newspaper written by a certain college student that absolutely reeks of profound ignorance? I tell you, I was not ready for this type of idiocy today.

So - on the theory that misery loves company, I'm going to foist this college student and her mindless opinions on you. My God, what kind of mush are they shoving into young minds at Georgia's LaGrange College?

OK .. you know the name of the college ... the name of the student is Jennifer Horton. Jennifer is upset about the money that was spent both producing and viewing "The Matrix Reloaded," some $150 million.

Here ... read this one paragraph from Jennifer's column. It should give you an idea of the stupefying level of her ignorance:

Now, I'm not some anti-entertainment prude; I enjoy watching a well-made movie as much as the next person, but it does disturb me to see so much money invested in crashing a few cars just right when there are children all over the world who go to bed hungry, impoverished Africans without clean water and a multitude of people in Third-World countries suffering from disease.

Now some of you are already a bit upset with me, maybe ourtraged, that I'm using such strong words to describe this lady's mental abilities. Yeah, I guess it is a bit strong ... but I'm just getting so weary of seeing and experiencing what seems to be an ever-increasing level of ignorance in the American public. Maybe it's just that the truly dumb ones are seeking attention while the smart ones are seeking their fortunes. You really hope that people like Jennifer actually get out there and learn something before it's too late.

OK ... back to Jennifer's column. She is particularly outraged that the producers of this movie actually built a two-mile freeway with all the fixings, including an overpass, exit signs and ramps. This freeway cost about $2.4 million. Jennifer says:

"... the freeway construction funds could have instead paid for new schools in developing countries, immunizing children, giving families two oxen and a plow, providing homeless children with clothes, wells to supply clean water or reforesting thousands of acres."

The flaws in Jennifer's feel-good, leftist nonsense are so obvious I hesitate to even spend the time to put them in writing. But, hey ... I don't have anything else to do at 5:18 in the morning, so here goes. I'm going to write a little letter to Jennifer.

Dear Jennifer:

I read your column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this week.

Lady, you need help.

So, you're upset that some Hollywood producers spent big bucks making a movie. You think that money might have been used to help some family in Africa buy a goat or to reforest some land in the Amazon. Well, isn't that special.

Look, I fully realize that you're at that unique and wonderful time of your life when you think that you know everything. After all, you area college student! Over the next ten years you are going to learn some of the most valuable lessons of your life. Principal among those lessons will be the realization that true intelligence can be defined as "knowing what you don't know."

Though I'm not one of your professors at LaGrange College. May I be so presumptuous as to give you a little assignment? If you're willing, here is what I would like for you to do.

First, I would require your attendance at a screening of "The Matrix Reloaded." You would have to sit through the entire move ... including the credits. After the movie I want you to write the producers and ask for a print-out of those credits. Every name. Every single one. Each camera operator, lens cleaner, grip, dolly grip, electrician, driver, cook, makeup artist, sound engineer, public relations assistant, actor, stand-in, stunt man, writer, film editor, model maker, best boy, caterer, carpenter, composer, musician, special effects technician, choreographer, and every other person who's name crawls across the screen.

These, Jennifer, are the people who earn their livings making movies like this. Their very livelihoods depend on the people who invest in these productions, and the people who produce them. So, here's what I would like for you to do. Your assignment is to write a letter to each and one of the people who's names you find on those credits. You will tell them why the money that they earned working on this movie should have been spent instead on buying goats for Africans and cleaning up a water supply in South America. Then you will write letters to the families of all of those people telling them why their husband, wife, mother or father shouldn't have earned those Matrix paychecks. After all, why should they be allowed to work for a living while children are hungry and there's acre without trees in the rainforest?

Wait, you're not through. Since you're so upset with that two miles of freeway that were built for this movie, you have more letters to write. You'll do some research to find out just what construction companies were hired to build that two miles of freeway and bridges. You will then write a letter to each and every employee of those construction companies telling them just how wrong they were to accept this employment while there are families in Africa that don't have goats. These letters will be followed by still more letters to the employees of the companies that supplied the materials and equipment for the construction of those freeways. Tell them that the money they earned should have been given to poor people.

After you write those letters I want you to do so research with a goal of finding out just what the movie producers did with the freeway construction materials that remained after the movie was completed. You might be surprised.

You're almost through. Your last batch of letters will be to the men and women who work in the thousands of movie theatres around the nation who earn a living and support their families showing movies such as "The Matrix Reloaded." Tell them of your concerns about treating disease on the fringes of the Sahara.

You see, Jennifer, when money is spent on a motion picture - or on any project for that matter - it doesn't just evaporate. That money makes its way into the pockets of people who have taken the time to learn a craft and develop job skills that are needed to put that movie in front of an audience. Those people in turn will use that money to support their families and realize their own dreams. If they want to pay for immunizations for children in Croatia, that would be their business. If they want to invest some of that money with the production company that hired them, that, also, istheir business. Those investments will lead to the creation of another move, and more tens of millions of dollars spent on such wasteful things as salaries for movie workers.

Now ... after you have written all of these letters, I want you to throw them away. You see, these people aren't interested in listening to your mindless whining. They're too busy trying to earn a living while you waste your time writing mindless columns. Just take the postage money and go buy someone a goat.

Cordially,

Neal Boortz.
America's (and your) Rude Awakening.


WOODY ALLEN - SPOKESMAN FOR THE FRENCH?

The French Tourist Bureau has hired Woody Allen to promote the image of France in the United States. It is hoped that he will bring the French and Americans together again.

Oh come on now. This isn't about rekindling affection between the French and Americans ... it's about American money. The French tourist industry is hurting, and French wines aren't doing all that well either.

French tourism officials don't need to be sending us messages. They need to be sending messages to their own countrymen. Americans don't like to visit France because they're treated like crap over there. Woody Allen lecturing Americans isn't going to change that. Besides, Woody Allen is more interested in relations with the Vietnamese.

A WHITE HOT HATRED FOR FOX NEWS

It's an amazing thing to watch. As Fox News Channel steadily gains in viewership the howls of outrage from the left get louder, louder and more vicious.

It's understandable, I guess. If you control television news for generations, you're naturally going to get a bit upset when an alternative viewpoint appears.

Just a quick note here to tell you how upset some leftists are over the popularity of Fox News. Hal Crowther, writing in the Charlotte Creative Loafing newspapers, says "If Joseph Goebbels had run his own cable channel, it would have been indistinguishable from Fox News."

Yup, Fox News is a Nazi propaganda outlet. Like they say, a hit dog always howls.

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Donald Regan was Ronald Reagan's Treasury Secretary. He died of Cancer on Monday of this week. Before he died he wrote this final column for The Wall Street Journal. Here are Don Regan's feelings on Bush's tax cuts.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003609

Fast becoming one of my favorite columnists: Victor Davis Hanson. Here he writes about some lessons of the war. Definitely worth reading.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/hanson.html

Hillary Clinton - specialist in denial.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/kp20030611.shtml

Tony Blankley says that Hitlary's book will most assuredly make it to the NYT best seller list. But ... Fact or fiction? http://www.townhall.com/columnists/tonyblankley/tb20030611.shtml

Juanita Broaddrick was on Hannity and Colmes last night. There she detailed her rape by Bill Clinton. This was happening at the same time that Bill's "wife" was enduring the panting and slobbering of Larry King on CNN. You should bear in mind that Bill Clinton has never stepped forward to deny Juanita's allegations.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33027

A few years ago I was appointed to board of the Atlanta Fulton County Library System. I went to ONE board meeting. It became immediately apparent that this was one of the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional organizations extant in government. I got the hell out of there as soon as I could. Now a Federal Appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling against this board. The board, it seems, felt that there were "too many white faces" in the library system and embarked on a program of discrimination, then used deceit and trickery to cover it up.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33015

James Taranto's Best of the Web
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110003607

House Republican leaders are resisting White House pressure for a new welfare entitlement. They're looking for a bit more for the people who actually pay taxes as part of the bargain. Good for them, but the fact is that a new entitlement is being created - more income redistribution.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41454-2003Jun10.html

This is just disgusting. I mentioned it earlier this week ... but this US Senator deserves to be harassed and harangued over this nonsense. He's holding up the promotions and transfers of hundreds of our men and women in uniform until he gets his pork for the ole home district.
http://www.nationalreview.com/geraghty/geraghty061003.asp

Al Sharpton says he intends "to be my party's candidate" for president in 2004. Does he mean the Democratic Party? If not, then he's certifiably insane, unless, that is, there's a "Race Warlord" party.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/749.htm

Susan Estrich says that the Clintons may very well not want a Democrat to beat bush in 2004. She knows them better than most.
http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/7/049584-6517-021.html

James Pinkerton has managed to crawl in the dank, dark and foul-smelling inner recesses of the persona of one Hillary Clinton. He actually managed to read her thoughts about the great "Living History" book tour and put those thoughts on paper.
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin3326524jun10,0,1170393.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

Hans Blix has a word for the Bush Administration. That word would seem to be "bastards." It would seem that Hans has his boxers in a bundle.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,974998,00.html

We'll stick a little quiz in here. What country is the largest English speaking country in the world? Hint, it isn't the United States.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/in.html

Peggy Noonan takes a look at the 21 months that have passed since 9-11.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110003610
 
 

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