Speaker 1: I'm always interested in stories about Presne Unified. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why I don't have kids in Fresno Unified.
Speaker 2: I don't know if kids in clothes unified.
Speaker 1: Frankly, I think though it's an interesting kind of Petri
Speaker 1: Dish case study example whatever of a lot of bigger
Speaker 1: trends that are going on in California public education. I
Speaker 1: think it's problems, its struggles are emblematic of the problems
Speaker 1: that the state faces at large. It struggles with the union,
Speaker 1: it's liberalism, it's just problems with student instruction seem to
Speaker 1: me to reflect the broader problems that the state faces.
Speaker 1: And something kind of caught my eye the other day
Speaker 1: and I did a little research on it. So Misty Hrr,
Speaker 1: who is the interim superintendent, and clearly I think is
Speaker 1: kind of trying to push for to get rid of
Speaker 1: that interim title. It seems like the school board is
Speaker 1: going to sort of they're going through like a board
Speaker 1: retreat process and they're refocusing and they're rethinking about what
Speaker 1: they want for their school superintendent. They're gonna have a
Speaker 1: nationwide search and blah blah blah blah blah. Well, it
Speaker 1: seems as though Misty Hurr wants this job. I think
Speaker 1: the initial push was for her to be hired, and
Speaker 1: somehow that got steymied when people said, why are we
Speaker 1: only looking within the school district for a replacement for
Speaker 1: Bob Nelson. So while she's interim Misty her is doing
Speaker 1: and saying a lot of things that don't sound very interimy.
Speaker 1: She's doing and saying a lot of things that sound
Speaker 1: like she's wanting to launch initiatives and programs and goals
Speaker 1: that sound very I want this job for the long haul,
Speaker 1: including a lot of stuff about wanting to improve student
Speaker 1: test scores by ten percent in math and reading comprehension,
Speaker 1: which right now President UNIFIEDES results are terrible, overwhelming majority
Speaker 1: of kids are not reading or doing math at grade level.
Speaker 1: And one of the things she said, so the school
Speaker 1: year I think just started yesterday, and she has sort
Speaker 1: of this opening beginning of the school year press conference
Speaker 1: where she keeps emphasizing your kids need to be there.
Speaker 1: Every day counts, every minute counts. Now there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that's thinking, well, this is a little selfish
Speaker 1: on the school's part. She basically every day that a
Speaker 1: student's there is more money for the school, so they
Speaker 1: get paid based on attendance. But it made me think
Speaker 1: about the question of chronic absince teaism, and I remembered
Speaker 1: reading some stories about it, and so I did a
Speaker 1: little digging. I went to the California Data Quest. This
Speaker 1: is produced by the California Department of Education, and it's
Speaker 1: this tool you can use from the California Department of
Speaker 1: Education to look at different kinds of statistics.
Speaker 2: Statewide for all kinds of different issues.
Speaker 1: So you can look at and one of the things
Speaker 1: that's been really tracking is chronic absenteeism. Okay, So chronic
Speaker 1: absenteeism basically it considers whether or not a student has
Speaker 1: missed ten percent or more of the days they were
Speaker 1: expected to attend. Okay, So that's a pretty good barometer
Speaker 1: of a kid who's missing way more school than is normal, right,
Speaker 1: ten percent or more of the days they are supposed
Speaker 1: to attend. So if you've got a kid who's chronically absent,
Speaker 1: guess what, his odds of learning are pretty low. It
Speaker 1: leads to worse outcomes in general. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that's happened since the pandemic has been an enormous
Speaker 1: spike in student absenteeism and an enormous spike in student
Speaker 1: absenteeism in Fresno Unified. All right, so let me give
Speaker 1: you something to compare. Let's go to twenty eighteen twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: So this is the last school year before COVID. The
Speaker 1: COVID school year was twenty nineteen to twenty twenty, so
Speaker 1: the stats get all weird. This is the last pre
Speaker 1: COVID full school year that we have sort of a
Speaker 1: basis of comparison with. All right, So these are the
Speaker 1: chronic absentee rates among school children within Fresno Unified. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you can use this statewide tool, but
Speaker 1: it can break it down for you buy school district.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at Fresno Unified chronic absenteeism twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: and twenty nineteen, and they break it down by racial demographics.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why.
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe socioeconomic demographics would be more helpful,
Speaker 1: but let's leave that where it is, all right, So, uh,
Speaker 1: chronic absenteeism in Fresno Unified. I'll go buy the largest
Speaker 1: racial demographics through the smallest racial demographics within Fresne Unified.
Speaker 1: Based on the twenty eighteen twenty nineteen numbers.
Speaker 2: All right, So.
Speaker 1: Hispanic and Latino kids seventeen point five percent of them
Speaker 1: were chronically absent in the twenty eighteen twenty nineteen school
Speaker 1: year seventeen let's say Asian kids seven point four percent.
Speaker 1: Only seven point four percent of Asian kids were absent
Speaker 1: during the twenty eighteen twenty nineteen school year. Seventeen point
Speaker 1: seven percent of white kids were absent Chronically absent during
Speaker 1: the school year African American kids twenty six percent of
Speaker 1: African American kids.
Speaker 2: So, of the four major.
Speaker 1: Ethnic demographics within President Unified, Hispanic Latinos by far the
Speaker 1: largest then Asian than White then African American. African Americans
Speaker 1: had the highest rate of chronic absenteeism at twenty six percent.
Speaker 1: Asians had the lowest, at seven point four percent, and
Speaker 1: Hispanics and whites were pretty much at the same level,
Speaker 1: about seventeen and a half percent seventeen point five percent
Speaker 1: for Hispanics Latinos seventeen point seven percent among white kids. So, actually,
Speaker 1: white kids were slightly more often absent than Black kids,
Speaker 1: excuse me, than Latino kids. Let's now compare, shall we
Speaker 1: what is the state wide average right now. Okay, so
Speaker 1: those are the numbers in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. This
Speaker 1: is the state wide average right now. Though for chronic absenteeism,
Speaker 1: thirty six percent of African American kids chronically absent. Asians
Speaker 1: didn't change that much ten percent, Filipinos thirteen point four percent, Hispanics,
Speaker 1: Latinos twenty eight point nine percent. That's the state wide average. Now,
Speaker 1: white kids nineteen percent didn't jump that much. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's the state wide average today. I already gave you
Speaker 1: the fres No average presdent unified average twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Here is the Fresno unified average right now. African American students. Remember,
Speaker 1: in Fresney unified, African American students had before COVID at
Speaker 1: twenty six percent chronic APPS and T rate. The statewide
Speaker 1: average is thirty six percent. In presdent unified, it's forty
Speaker 1: five percent. Forty five percent of African American students in
Speaker 1: fresnent unified are chronically absent.
Speaker 2: Asian children.
Speaker 1: Remember, in Fresne unified Asian children were chronically absent, only
Speaker 1: about seven percent of them were chronically absent before COVID.
Speaker 1: Now twenty one percent of them. It's a huge jump
Speaker 1: Hispanic and Latino kids. This is the most significant jump
Speaker 1: I think within Fresne Unified because basically they're almost ten
Speaker 1: times more Hispanic Latino kids than any other.
Speaker 2: In vidual racial demographic.
Speaker 1: Maybe more like okay, maybe more like seven times more.
Speaker 1: There's about fifty thousand Hispanic kids in Present Unified. The
Speaker 1: next biggest racial group are Asians, with seven five hundred kids.
Speaker 1: Hispanic chronic absenteeism thirty six point six percent. Before COVID
Speaker 1: it was seventeen point five percent, thirty six point six
Speaker 1: percent White kids. It used to be about seventeen and
Speaker 1: a half percent before COVID, now thirty three percent in
Speaker 1: Present Unified. These are massive jumps across all racial demographics.
Speaker 1: Asian kids, huge increase in the percentage of chronic absenteeism,
Speaker 1: African Americans, large increase in the percentage of absentee kids
Speaker 1: about a twenty percent increase.
Speaker 2: And Hispanic kids.
Speaker 1: That's probably the most significant for President Unified because again,
Speaker 1: far more Hispanic kids within President Unified than any other
Speaker 1: racial demographic that has jumped from It's basically doubled the
Speaker 1: chronic APPS and T rate has more than doubled.
Speaker 2: What has happened.
Speaker 1: I really think we need to examine the I think
Speaker 1: we still don't really have a solid grasp on the
Speaker 1: full weight of COVID's impact on the culture, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to something as simple as going to school.
Speaker 2: I think so many families got used.
Speaker 1: To just not having kids go to school or keeping
Speaker 1: kids home for the flimsiest of reasons, that it's basically
Speaker 1: resulted in this huge change. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: let's compare while we're at it, Fresno Unified versus Clovis Unified.
Speaker 1: Clovis Unified has somewhat gotten back to sort of the
Speaker 1: pre COVID level according to the most up to date stats.
Speaker 1: So again, largest racial demographic in Clothes Unified are Hispanic kids.
Speaker 1: Twenty one percent of Hispanic kids in Clovis Unified are
Speaker 1: chronically absent, thirty four percent within FRESNOE Unified. Sixteen percent
Speaker 1: of white kids are chronically absent in Clovis Unified. Much
Speaker 1: higher again with Fresne Unified. Well, actually it's not which
Speaker 1: one was this. It's not that much higher. It's about
Speaker 1: nineteen percent within Fresno Unified. But the real difference is
Speaker 1: Close Unified's Latino population versus Fresno unified Its Latino population,
Speaker 1: both of which are the largest racial demographics within their
Speaker 1: Within their district, there's much better attendance among Hispanic and
Speaker 1: Latino students within Clovis Unified than within Fresno Unified. So
Speaker 1: I don't know what has happened. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it is a cultural thing. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: just a socioeconomic thing that or what it is that
Speaker 1: people have just sort of decided. I suspect it's a
Speaker 1: socioeconomic thing. Fresnent Unified tends to be sort of at
Speaker 1: a not as high socioeconomic status as far as the
Speaker 1: average student who goes there than Clovis Unified. I guess
Speaker 1: I just don't understand and that this culture that's come
Speaker 1: about because of COVID that makes it just so common
Speaker 1: for kids to be chronically absent, And it just seems
Speaker 1: like one of these things again where it should be
Speaker 1: a ten alarm fire and every teachers, you know, teacher
Speaker 1: union whatever, should be all running around like with their
Speaker 1: hair on fire, trying to get kids to actually go
Speaker 1: to school. But again, I think so much of what
Speaker 1: we hear from in education news is about adults jobs
Speaker 1: because so much of it is driven by union priorities,
Speaker 1: union needs, union contracts, negotiating the district, negotiating with the union.
Speaker 1: That's something this simple just seems like it's it almost
Speaker 1: seems like an afterthought. But this is such a fundamental thing.
Speaker 1: You obviously cannot instruct students if they're not there. And
Speaker 1: since COVID, I don't know that we've yet arrived at
Speaker 1: a point where our post COVID numbers are, we still
Speaker 1: haven't arrived back at our pre COVID numbers when we return.
Speaker 1: My PSA for conservative parents, don't let your kids do
Speaker 1: sex ed in public schools. Next on the John Girardi Show,
Speaker 1: I want to periodically do this little PSA for you all,
Speaker 1: just to remind you that all of you folks sending
Speaker 1: your kids to public schools up and down the.
Speaker 2: Great San Joaquin Valley.
Speaker 1: Here, many of you probably sending your kids to close
Speaker 1: unified public school and you might be thinking, you close
Speaker 1: unified parents. I know you kind of know how you think.
Speaker 1: Maybe you sang or unified parents. Maybe you think something
Speaker 1: along these lines too, or maybe some of you folks
Speaker 1: in more rural school districts up and down the San
Speaker 1: Joaquin Valley. You think, yeah, I know, I read these
Speaker 1: stories about crazy left wing things that California does through
Speaker 1: public schools, and yeah, I know the state legislature's crazy, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I know I get it. But but
Speaker 2: not our public school.
Speaker 1: My Clovis Unified school district, guided by the wise spirit
Speaker 1: of Doc sat Doc Buchanan watching over us, the agis
Speaker 1: of his protection, overshadowing us.
Speaker 3: May he rain all over a sunbevc Torrius, God save
Speaker 3: the Doc.
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, uh so not in my school district. Though
Speaker 1: our school district is more conservative. Our teachers are more
Speaker 1: conservative our school district. You know, I know mister Johnson,
Speaker 1: the science teacher, teaches biology, and he's a Christian, he's
Speaker 1: a republic He voted for George W.
Speaker 2: Bush when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: And by gum by golly, he's not gonna what are
Speaker 1: they gonna teach my kids?
Speaker 2: That's so bad.
Speaker 1: And I just want to remind you all that a
Speaker 1: lot of the bad super liberal cultural stuff. That's especially
Speaker 1: the stuff that's part of the sex aid curriculum, the
Speaker 1: stuff where we are educ they are mandated by state
Speaker 1: law to educate your kids about abortion as a method
Speaker 1: of birth control, where kids can go for local resources
Speaker 1: for abortion, what their rights are with regard to getting abortion,
Speaker 1: i e. Getting an abortion without you knowing about it?
Speaker 1: Do I need to remind you? Within Fresdent Unified and
Speaker 1: Clothes Unified, they have agreements with the Fresno Economic Opportunities
Speaker 1: Commission which can take kids during the school day drive
Speaker 1: them off of your nice, safe, pristine little Clothes Unified
Speaker 1: campus to a family planning clinic in downtown Fresno where
Speaker 1: they can give your kid an IUD without you knowing,
Speaker 1: Where they can give your kid the morning after pill
Speaker 1: without you knowing, where they can give your kid birth control,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff without you knowing, and even refer
Speaker 1: your kid for an abortion without you knowing.
Speaker 2: And a driver. Will it be a stranger you don't know.
Speaker 1: Who's probably that didn't fingerprinted by Fresne Economic Opportunities Commission,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's not totally dangerous, but still someone you
Speaker 1: don't know, someone you didn't say yes, please drive my
Speaker 1: daughter around. Please drive my fourteen year old around today
Speaker 1: rather than have her or you know, go to class
Speaker 1: at Clark Intermediate School or freshman year at close high
Speaker 1: or whatever. Please drive my daughter around to get reproductive
Speaker 1: health care without me knowing about it. Oh, she has
Speaker 1: an STD and the school's just not gonna tell me
Speaker 1: that is happening. Okay, that legally happens. And the sexad
Speaker 1: stuff where we're telling your kids about their rights to
Speaker 1: get abortions without your knowing. The sex ad stuff where
Speaker 1: we're talking to kids about abortion as a method of
Speaker 1: birth control, positively talking about it. In some school districts,
Speaker 1: we're bringing planned parenthood in to teach.
Speaker 2: Your kids about this.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is mandated by state law. State
Speaker 1: law that applies Doc Buchanan's ghost or no. So here's
Speaker 1: my one bit of practice advice. I understand the twenty
Speaker 1: years ago, if your parents had pulled you out of
Speaker 1: sex said, you would have been embarrassed. I understand that
Speaker 1: maybe twenty years ago you'd.
Speaker 2: Be, oh, well, you know, the sex said.
Speaker 1: Sex said is embarrassing, but it is not that bad,
Speaker 1: and you know, kids need to learn their biology. And
Speaker 1: you look, No, the sex said today is much different
Speaker 1: and much worse than the sex said when you were
Speaker 1: in high school twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: It's much worse. It's much different. It is much more
Speaker 1: ideologically focused on making sure your kids can get abortions
Speaker 1: without you knowing about it, get abortions without you knowing
Speaker 1: about it, get contraception without you knowing about it, Try
Speaker 1: to deal with an STD without you knowing about it.
Speaker 1: California law wants to facilitate this. Why because California law
Speaker 1: basically things that if your minor child is pregnant and
Speaker 1: you don't want them to get an abortion, that you
Speaker 1: are a monster, and that therefore they should almost step
Speaker 1: in to allow your kid to do this without you.
Speaker 1: They should step in to allow your kid to do
Speaker 1: this without you, without your knowledge, without your consent, and
Speaker 1: of course though with you having to pick up the
Speaker 1: pieces after your kid makes that decision. So my advice
Speaker 1: to you parents is precisely this, just don't We've always
Speaker 1: just sort of accepted this incredibly controversial notion that public
Speaker 1: school teachers who are strangers to us, not someone you know,
Speaker 1: not someone from your church, not someone who's whom you've
Speaker 1: sort of vetted to see, do they really align with
Speaker 1: what I believe about marriage and sexuality, and that we
Speaker 1: outsource teaching our children about the core aspects of some
Speaker 1: of the most important relationships they will ever have in
Speaker 1: their lives.
Speaker 2: Sexuality.
Speaker 1: We outsource that to strangers whose ethics we maybe just
Speaker 1: don't share, and we never stop to think, why are
Speaker 1: we outsourcing this? Shouldn't parents control this completely. I've never
Speaker 1: understood the wide societal acceptance of the idea, Oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we let teachers teach our kids about marriage,
Speaker 4: sex and intimacy. Now, some parents have their head screwed on, right,
Speaker 4: and they say, well, no, I'm gonna I will form
Speaker 4: my kids also, maybe they'll learn this in school, or
Speaker 4: we take the idea of well, Jimmy will be made
Speaker 4: fun of if he's not in the sex ed class,
Speaker 4: so I'll allow him to be in the sex head class. No,
Speaker 4: you guys, you parents need to grow a spine and
Speaker 4: just say we're going to completely control what our kid
Speaker 4: learns about sex, as far as what they are learning,
Speaker 4: the context in which they aren't learning it, and the
Speaker 4: ethics involved that surround this incredibly profoundly important aspect of relationship.
Speaker 4: We are going to control this, not the school, not
Speaker 4: some teacher whom we didn't vet for what they believe.
Speaker 4: I genuinely just think it is One, unnecessary for you
Speaker 4: to have the school teach your.
Speaker 2: Kids about this.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is you know, It's not like
Speaker 1: the teachers have some access to numinus knowledge that you
Speaker 1: could never possibly find.
Speaker 2: And two, they probably don't believe all.
Speaker 1: The same things you believe, and the state mandates them
Speaker 1: to teach things that are obviously you know, if you
Speaker 1: like this show, the state is mandating that they teach
Speaker 1: things you don't believe. Also, you got to remember, you
Speaker 1: gotta affirmatively opt your kid out. If you don't do anything,
Speaker 1: your kid is automatically opted in. You gotta affirmatively opt out.
Speaker 1: You might have to do something, send an email, make
Speaker 1: a phone call, do something to opt your kid out.
Speaker 1: And I really think you should. When we return the
Speaker 1: bizarre biblical nature of the DNC next on The John
Speaker 1: Gardy Show, I've been kind of keeping half an eye
Speaker 1: on the DNC. I mean, frankly, I'm watching about as
Speaker 1: much of it as I watched the RNC, which is
Speaker 1: to say, not very much at all. I hate political
Speaker 1: speeches and political conventions. I hate speeches that get interrupted
Speaker 1: by applause every two minutes, which make things really long.
Speaker 1: It was funny hearing after the fact that yesterday, I
Speaker 1: guess Joe Biden just got bumped and bumped and bumped
Speaker 1: by prior speakers going long so much that he basically
Speaker 1: was talking like at you know, I think he started
Speaker 1: his address around eleven thirty at night.
Speaker 2: In fact, my.
Speaker 1: Wife and I, my wife and I were sitting around
Speaker 1: watching TV and we we wanted to turn on anti
Speaker 1: This is what old what an old man I am,
Speaker 1: and what an old couple me and Holly are in
Speaker 1: spite of just being in our thirties. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just bored, let's just watch Antiques road Show. And
Speaker 1: so we turned on tried to. So we tried to
Speaker 1: turn on you know, PBS and into Antiques Roadshow. And
Speaker 1: in our comcast thing it has, you know, the description
Speaker 1: underneath like the channel guide thing, it says Antiques Roadshow.
Speaker 1: We turn it on and it was still broadcasting the DNC.
Speaker 1: So it says on the bottom of the screen Antiques
Speaker 1: road Show. And look who's speaking at the DNC. None
Speaker 1: other than Joe Biden. So I've got this great picture
Speaker 1: on my TV that we took of the TV. It's saying,
Speaker 1: you know, Antiques road Show. All along the bottom, and
Speaker 1: here's Joe Biden speaking a more perfect encapsulation of poor
Speaker 1: Joe's predicament you couldn't find. And basically, poor Joe was pushed.
Speaker 1: They bumped the President of the United States at his
Speaker 1: own parties, at his own party's convention. What was supposed
Speaker 1: to be this big love fest for Joe Biden, and
Speaker 1: instead he's you know, pushed until after you know, most
Speaker 1: of the East Coast has already gone to bed, probably
Speaker 1: much of Central Time.
Speaker 2: Now I'm going to talk a little bit about.
Speaker 1: The DNC though, stuff that's around it, and maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just reading too much Old Testament history and I'm relating everything.
Speaker 2: I see to this. So the last several.
Speaker 1: Months, really since June, my kind of daily prayer routine
Speaker 1: is I use this book. It's basically like a Catholic
Speaker 1: version of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the Book of Common Prayer is sort of the normative
Speaker 1: sort of prayer and liturgical text for Episcopalians and Anglicans,
Speaker 1: and there was this big group of Anglicans and Episcopalians
Speaker 1: who wanted to convert sort of wholesale into the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: and so PO Benedict the sixteenth. Around two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine or twenty ten, I believe set up a structure
Speaker 1: for former Anglicans and other members of the Anglican Communion
Speaker 1: like Episcopalians, a structure for them to convert to Catholicism,
Speaker 1: but to bring with them some of their liturgical and
Speaker 1: prayer traditions, many of which actually have their roots in
Speaker 1: sort of pre Reformation English Catholicism.
Speaker 2: That sort of.
Speaker 1: Thomas Cranmer tookook and made into the Book of Common
Speaker 1: Prayer as he was devising it a lot of older
Speaker 1: Latin language Catholic prayer sources that he translated into English
Speaker 1: and adapted and made into the Book of Common Prayer.
Speaker 1: So that's my kind of daily prayer routine, and it
Speaker 1: basically centers around morning prayer and evening prayer. And at
Speaker 1: morning prayer and evening prayer, you pray a selection of
Speaker 1: the psalms, and then you have reading from the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: some biblical canticle or verse, a reading from the New Testament,
Speaker 1: and another biblical canticle.
Speaker 2: Hymn.
Speaker 1: So every day I'm reading a big chunk of the
Speaker 1: Old I'm reading two big chunks of the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: and two big chunks of the New Testament every day,
Speaker 1: about about a full chapter of the Old Testament, about
Speaker 1: two full chapters of the Old Testament, two full chapters
Speaker 1: of the New Testament, more or less. The last several months,
Speaker 1: I've been reading through selections of and according to the
Speaker 1: kind of the schedule that's laid out for this prayer book,
Speaker 1: I've been reading through First and Second Samuel and some
Speaker 1: stuff from first and second Kings, and it goes through basically,
Speaker 1: I've read through the biblical history that's given for the
Speaker 1: kingdoms of Judah and Israel, so starting with King David,
Speaker 1: David taking over the kingdom from starting with King Saul
Speaker 1: actually Saul, and then David taking over the kingdom from
Speaker 1: Saul Solomon, and then Solomon's descendants as his kingdom was
Speaker 1: divided into two kingdoms, Judah in the south, Israel in
Speaker 1: the north. And the constant theme of these books of
Speaker 1: the Old these sort of historical books about the two
Speaker 1: kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The constant theme the barometer
Speaker 1: by which they judge every single king of Israel and Judah.
Speaker 1: It was their approach to paganism.
Speaker 2: Did they.
Speaker 1: Suppress and refuse to participate in the worship of Ball. Now,
Speaker 1: ball seems to be kind of a catch all name
Speaker 1: for some of the pagan worship that was practiced within
Speaker 1: by some of the Canaanite people, some of the people's
Speaker 1: in the Levant, Ball was sort of attached to various
Speaker 1: different kinds of maybe local deities, so there were different
Speaker 1: different kinds of balls, but ball was sort of the
Speaker 1: catch all term used in the Bible. Ball and then Asherah,
Speaker 1: which was a name sort of applied to a female
Speaker 1: goddess of fertility, So you had Ball was kind of
Speaker 1: a male goddess of fertility.
Speaker 2: Astra kind of a female god fertility.
Speaker 1: And the authors of these books of the Old Testament,
Speaker 1: they were constantly judging the kings of Israel and Judah
Speaker 1: based on their attitudes towards paganism. Were they like King Josiah,
Speaker 1: who was a very good king who completely suppressed the
Speaker 1: worship of Baal and Astra and promoted the true religion
Speaker 1: in the Temple in Jerusalem, Or did they not as good?
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't worship Ball and Ashra, but they
Speaker 1: didn't they still allowed the sites for their worship to
Speaker 1: remain without you know, suppressing them. Or did they actively
Speaker 1: promote and participate in the worship of ball and Ashra, and.
Speaker 2: Some of the stuff that.
Speaker 1: Was associated with their worship included human sacrifice and sometimes
Speaker 1: the sacrifice of infants, and it talks about that in
Speaker 1: the Bible. There was one king of I forget if
Speaker 1: it was a king of Israel and Judah who actually
Speaker 1: offered his own child in human sacrifice, burned his child
Speaker 1: to death in sacrifice to.
Speaker 2: The god Moloch. No so Moloch or Molac was.
Speaker 1: Another one of these deities that was being worshiped in
Speaker 1: this time that was sort of affiliated with these sort
Speaker 1: of in the levant pagan religions that sort of surrounded
Speaker 1: the Jewish people. And I've often thought of it, like
Speaker 1: why was this so tempting to the Jewish people? I
Speaker 1: just couldn't understand it. Like, and people would say to I, remember,
Speaker 1: you know, hearing priests or someone say, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Jews, they they worshiped idols, But we worship idols
Speaker 1: just the same way we worship money and we worship
Speaker 1: you know, power, and we worship this.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, yeah, but that doesn't sound very
Speaker 2: satisfying to me.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what's so tempting about starting up another
Speaker 1: religion or participating in another relig Why is that tempting.
Speaker 1: I can understand why money is tempting. I can understand
Speaker 1: why sex is tempting. I just don't understand why these
Speaker 1: other pagan religions were so tempting to the Jewish people
Speaker 1: of that time. And over time I've sort of learned
Speaker 1: more about pagan attitudes towards people who were weak. One
Speaker 1: of the great revolutions of Judaism and then Christianity is
Speaker 1: the idea of caring for people who are weak, giving
Speaker 1: a sense of human respect and dignity to people who
Speaker 1: are weak and can't take care of themselves, the idea
Speaker 1: that there is a sort of baseline standard of intrinsic
Speaker 1: human value that exists whether or not you are powerful
Speaker 1: or important.
Speaker 2: And you could see this.
Speaker 1: As soon as Christianity became the official religion of the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire, a lot of stuff changed. Gladiator fights became
Speaker 1: suppressed where they were like, hey, we can't have murder
Speaker 1: for sport. That violates basic principles of human dignity. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna have gladiator fights where people are murdering each
Speaker 1: other anymore. The very common Roman practice also of infanticide. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you were a Roman, you had a kid you
Speaker 1: didn't want, maybe the kid was a girl, maybe you
Speaker 1: had the kid with a slave, whatever, you would just
Speaker 1: leave the child to die. They were like designated crossroads
Speaker 1: or designated points where people could leave their children, either
Speaker 1: to die or maybe to be picked up by some
Speaker 1: other family and be raised as their household slave, or
Speaker 1: maybe to be raised to eventually one day become a
Speaker 1: proper institute. Prostitution is also a widespread thing and archaeological
Speaker 1: evidence regarding places that were brothels, they often find the
Speaker 1: skeletons the remains of infants. Basically, inconvenient human beings were
Speaker 1: cast aside. And I think what was happening in the
Speaker 1: Old Testament with the worship of Baal was it provided
Speaker 1: the human sacrifice elements of those religious practices provided an
Speaker 1: opportunity to get rid of inconvenient children. The ritual prostitution
Speaker 1: that would take place in the temples in the areas
Speaker 1: associated with Ashra provided an opportunity at temptation literally for
Speaker 1: the Jewish people to get away from the more strict
Speaker 1: sexual and marriage mores of the Jewish religion to engage
Speaker 1: in sexual activity with prostitutes, people taken advantage of people
Speaker 1: whose human dignity being violated outside of the dictates again
Speaker 1: of marriage in the Jewish context. I think that's what's tempting,
Speaker 1: and it deeply troubles me that the Democratic Party proudly
Speaker 1: pronounces that they've got a mobile van, that a partnership
Speaker 1: that DNC itself set up with Planned Parenthood, a mobile
Speaker 1: van for handing out the abortion pills, the abortion pill,
Speaker 1: not the morning after pill, the abortion pill, something to
Speaker 1: induce a miscarriage up to ten weeks into a pregnancy.
Speaker 1: There's something weirdly religious about it. There's something weirdly pagan
Speaker 1: about it. Tying this whole movement, branding this whole movement
Speaker 1: towards the killing of little ones because they are weak
Speaker 1: and inconvenient, because they are inconvenient, because they are burdens.
Speaker 1: There's something just biblically terrifying to me about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: When we return my envy at the Democrat platform next
Speaker 1: on the John Girardi Show, I've taken a bit of
Speaker 1: flack from people with my frustration over the Republican platform,
Speaker 1: and it's not mentioning abortion much at all, and being very,
Speaker 1: very weak on the abortion question where it did address it,
Speaker 1: and basically not calling for the things that the Republican
Speaker 1: platform has always called for when it comes to abortion,
Speaker 1: amending the US Constitution for a Human Life Protection Amendment,
Speaker 1: all the policy things that we want the new Executive
Speaker 1: branch to do when it comes to cutting off abortion funding.
Speaker 1: Almost none of that is in the new Republican platform,
Speaker 1: which is only fifteen pages long. Obviously a totally different
Speaker 1: approach to the platform. But when it does address abortion,
Speaker 1: it does it in a really weak way, and I
Speaker 1: get blowback saying, well.
Speaker 2: John, yoh, no, no, you don't understand it. Trump's just
Speaker 2: got to get elected here.
Speaker 1: Trump's got to get elected here, and you know You've
Speaker 1: got to be you know, you gotta be careful here,
Speaker 1: you know, then then you'll.
Speaker 2: Okay, consider this.
Speaker 1: Though the Democrats release their platform, it's eighty pages long.
Speaker 1: It details every single thing they want to do with abortion,
Speaker 1: all the crazy, insane ways that they want to fund abortion.
Speaker 1: And yes, I understand that what I think about abortion
Speaker 1: is not where the party, where the country is. The
Speaker 1: hardcore Democrat position on how abortion should be treated in
Speaker 1: this country is also not where the country is, and
Speaker 1: they're not afraid to say what they want, they're not
Speaker 1: afraid to push for it. So I'm just saying we
Speaker 1: should have a little more backbone.
Speaker 2: That'll do it. John dirolready show see next time on
Speaker 2: Power Talk