Speaker 1: As many of you know, there are big time school
Speaker 1: bond measures that pretty much everyone in the greater Fresno
Speaker 1: area is going to be voting on next month. Close
Speaker 1: Unified has its Measure A and the biggest one in
Speaker 1: the whole region. Well, I guess the State Center Community
Speaker 1: College District has the biggest of these bond initiatives. So
Speaker 1: State Center Community College District is for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: I think maybe some people have heard of it but
Speaker 1: don't exactly understand. This is the governing entity that oversees
Speaker 1: Fresno City College, Maderra College, closest community college Readley College.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost like think of it like a
Speaker 1: massive school district, like a public school district, but it's
Speaker 1: governing community colleges. Okay, so they've got a big bond measure.
Speaker 1: I think it's in the seven hundred million dollar range.
Speaker 1: Other than State Center Community College District, the biggest of
Speaker 1: all these individual K through twelve school district bond measures
Speaker 1: locally is Fresno Unified. Fresno Unified, which has a five
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars bond measure proposal for Measure H. Measure
Speaker 1: H is what it's called. If you live within the
Speaker 1: Fresno Unified School District territories, you will be voting for
Speaker 1: or against this bond measure, all right. And there's a
Speaker 1: piece in GV wire that written by Nancy Price that
Speaker 1: lists out the different projects that Fresno City wants to do,
Speaker 1: wants to accomplish with all of this Measure H funding.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious to read through it because let's also
Speaker 1: let's just understand this. Why is Measure H for President
Speaker 1: Unified on the ballot. Why is Measure A for Close
Speaker 1: Unified simultaneously on the ballot for Closes unified residents. Why
Speaker 1: is there a bond measure for Singer Unified. Why is
Speaker 1: there a bond measure for Central Unified. Why does every
Speaker 1: single school district and all the community college districts, why
Speaker 1: do they all have bond measures on the ballot right now?
Speaker 1: They have bond measures on the ballot right now. Because
Speaker 1: when Gavin Newsom was putting together the state budget, teachers'
Speaker 1: unions got mad that there wasn't enough money to their
Speaker 1: liking spent on education. Newsom was trying to cut things
Speaker 1: because revenues were not keeping up with the rate of
Speaker 1: our spending. We were facing a massive deficit. So Newsom
Speaker 1: was I don't know that he was actually cutting anything.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing he was just lessening the rate of increase.
Speaker 1: But Newsom was trying to deal with the fiscal realities
Speaker 1: of the situation. The teachers' unions got really mad at him.
Speaker 1: They had negotiations, and what they came up with was
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom saying, all right, well, then what I'll do
Speaker 1: then is I'll support a statewide bond measure which is
Speaker 1: now also on our ballots, Proposition two. So Proposition two
Speaker 1: is a statewide ten billion dollar bond measure that all
Speaker 1: of us are going to vote up or down on
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars to go towards K through twelve school
Speaker 1: districts and also community college districts. However, those K through
Speaker 1: twelve school districts and community college districts can get more
Speaker 1: money if they raise Bond Measure five funding themselves, then
Speaker 1: they can get matching funds from Prop two. If Prop
Speaker 1: two passes, and if their local bond measure passes or go,
Speaker 1: every single school district in the region has a bond measure.
Speaker 1: The capstone that the largest single one in the whole
Speaker 1: region is Measure H from Presno Unified. So I hear
Speaker 1: that and I think, well, okay, we just did a
Speaker 1: round of bond measures like this four years ago, first
Speaker 1: of all, and you're only doing these local bond measures
Speaker 1: because this state money is on the table. You're not
Speaker 1: doing it because it's not an organic, you know, response
Speaker 1: to exigen circumstances or to some emerging need. You're just
Speaker 1: doing this because state money happens to be on the table.
Speaker 1: You're taking advantage of this opportunity that is presenting itself
Speaker 1: that one year ago today, I don't think any of
Speaker 1: them anticipated would be happening. So when I hear from
Speaker 1: Clovis Unify, like the justification before the Close Unified School
Speaker 1: Board voted to before the Close Unified Board of Trustees
Speaker 1: rather voted to promote its local Close Unified bond measure A,
Speaker 1: the kinds of things they were talking about seemed to
Speaker 1: me patently facially ridiculous. It was stuff like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we need the funding to finish Clovis South High School.
Speaker 1: All right? Really, you started Close South High School without
Speaker 1: knowing where you were going to get the funding to
Speaker 1: finish it. Did you actually do that? That doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to make a lot of sense. Oh, we need it
Speaker 1: for ongoing maintenance and bringing buildings up to code. Ongoing
Speaker 1: maintenance isn't somehow already part of your existing budget like
Speaker 1: they get existing revenue. It's not like they they don't
Speaker 1: get any revenue outside of years where they have bond measures.
Speaker 1: So I was extremely skeptical of the different lists, the
Speaker 1: list of things that Close Unified was purportedly doing. Let's
Speaker 1: now look at this gv wire article written by Nancy
Speaker 1: Price from gv wire about the kinds of things Presney
Speaker 1: Unified is going to build. The revised project list for
Speaker 1: Fresney Unified school districts, Measure H contains major renovations at Kalawa, Norseman,
Speaker 1: and Pyle Elementary schools and Presne High School. Adds eighty
Speaker 1: A compliance, adds eighty A back compliance bathroom renovations at
Speaker 1: fourteen elementary schools, and adds funding for major renovation projects
Speaker 1: at several schools. But to cover the cost of adding
Speaker 1: library and cafeteria renovations at Centennial Elementary, unspecified renovations at
Speaker 1: Kirk Elementary. Why are any of the renovations unspecified? Specify them.
Speaker 1: That's the point we're about to work we're already voting
Speaker 1: on this stuff. I think early voting has already started
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And the bathroom renovations. District
Speaker 1: staffers trimmed thirty one million for turf, track and lights
Speaker 1: projects at Edison and Hoover High Schools and fifteen million
Speaker 1: for the Aviation Academy at Chandler Airport, but the district
Speaker 1: is shifting funds from other areas to the aviation academy project. However,
Speaker 1: the list retains nine million dollars for another new career
Speaker 1: technical education program, an agricultural farm facility in the Sunnyside region. Okay,
Speaker 1: anything that's going towards vocational work or agwork like do
Speaker 1: that Jesuise project. Funding would increase by two point one
Speaker 1: million in six of the seven regions, but would drop
Speaker 1: by twelve point six million in the Edison region. So
Speaker 1: it's talking about basically they're sort of moving money around
Speaker 1: in different ways, with fifty million dollars left over for
Speaker 1: deferred maintenance district wide, so basically they're breaking it up
Speaker 1: by regions. McLain would get one hundred million dollars of funding.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt we'll get ninety seven point four million dollars. Tresno
Speaker 1: High we get seventy six point three million. Hooever we
Speaker 1: get sixty seven point five million, Edison we get sixty
Speaker 1: one point eight million, Bullard we'll get thirty two point
Speaker 1: seven million. Sunnyside we get fourteen point three million. The
Speaker 1: biggest project would be forty four point eight million to
Speaker 1: rebuild Kalwa Elementary School in southeast Fresno with a new classroom,
Speaker 1: building new English language classroom, building new cafeteria, relocating admin offices,
Speaker 1: and building a library. That's nearly four million more than
Speaker 1: the district spent on the brand new one Felipe Herrera
Speaker 1: Elementary School that opened in twenty twenty two. So they
Speaker 1: have other projects that they've got, and I guess it
Speaker 1: seems again I question what was the plan without this
Speaker 1: infusion of cash. Like there's a lot of talk about
Speaker 1: eight A compliance stuff. It isn't eighty A compliance stuff
Speaker 1: like sort of part of ongoing maintenance. Now I fully
Speaker 1: acknowledge eighty A compliance is a huge pain in the butt.
Speaker 1: And there's all kinds of tiki taky things that can
Speaker 1: happen with you know where EIGHTYA compliance can change over
Speaker 1: time in ways that don't even seem obvious, and it
Speaker 1: can be pricey. But again, it's not like the school
Speaker 1: district doesn't have ongoing revenue streams. They get ongoing tax revenue.
Speaker 1: So if it's talk about renovating existing buildings, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just curious as to how many of these projects
Speaker 1: were already going to go ahead with existing funding, How
Speaker 1: many of these projects are only going to be accomplished
Speaker 1: with Measure H funding. How necessary are these projects really?
Speaker 1: They also talk about the way they're allocating the spending.
Speaker 1: Measure H is different than previous bond measures for two reasons.
Speaker 1: The board had previously decided to look at projects through
Speaker 1: an equity lens. We all love that word equity providing
Speaker 1: funds to schools with the greatest needs, no matter which
Speaker 1: region they are in. And as part of the contract
Speaker 1: negotiated last fall with the President Teachers Association, the union
Speaker 1: is collaborating with district staffers on how to allocate spending
Speaker 1: for one third of the measure revenues, or one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty seven million dollars of it. Now, I guess now,
Speaker 1: usually when you hear equity, it means some kind of
Speaker 1: liberal nonsense. If equity here just means, hey, the less
Speaker 1: well funded areas of the district should get most of
Speaker 1: this money because they need more money. Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: that makes sense. I find I do not see necessarily
Speaker 1: the benefit of having the teachers union overseeing a third
Speaker 1: of the spend. That's such a weird provision. The teachers'
Speaker 1: union gets to collaborate with district staffers on how to
Speaker 1: allocate spending, but only for a third of it. I
Speaker 1: wonder what kind of a concession that is. That is
Speaker 1: that that strikes me as really curious. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't trust the teachers' unions as far as I can
Speaker 1: throw them. I find it interesting that this was part
Speaker 1: of negotiations that the teachers' unions, looking into the future,
Speaker 1: said okay, well, they're going to have you know, bond
Speaker 1: measure funding at some point in the future, during the
Speaker 1: time frame of this CBA that we're of this you know,
Speaker 1: collectively bargain agreement that we're signing here, we want to
Speaker 1: have a say on how some of it is spent,
Speaker 1: so we're going to we can collaborate, but only on
Speaker 1: a third of the spending. I mean, if they're just
Speaker 1: collaborating and not deciding why not have them collaborate on
Speaker 1: the whole amount of spending. And if you can only
Speaker 1: trust them with a I mean, if you're in trusting
Speaker 1: them with a third, that either means you don't really
Speaker 1: trust their input on anything, so it should be zero,
Speaker 1: or you trust and value their input, in which case,
Speaker 1: why not have their input on all five hundred million.
Speaker 1: It seems like a bizarre what a bizarre provision that is,
Speaker 1: And it is interesting to me how the Bullard region
Speaker 1: basically gets the absolute shortest end of the stick. But
Speaker 1: I guess if you're looking at it in terms of okay, well,
Speaker 1: Bullard and Sunnyside get the absolute short ends of the stick.
Speaker 1: I guess though, if you're looking at it through they said,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this through an equity lens, so
Speaker 1: we'll give the most money to the regions of President
Speaker 1: Unified that needed the most. Well, then I guess that
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense. Bullard is there's certainly Bullard and
Speaker 1: Sunnyside are probably the wealthier parts of as a Unified. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that makes me most nervous about
Speaker 1: all this is the timing people are getting their ballots
Speaker 1: mailed out to them that people have their ballots already.
Speaker 1: Early voting has already started, and it seems like the
Speaker 1: President Unified Board of Trustees doesn't really exactly one hundred
Speaker 1: percent have total agreement necessarily about how all this money
Speaker 1: should be spent and where. Their article says, the project
Speaker 1: lists for Measure H, the largest bond measure in Presdent
Speaker 1: Unified's history, has still not been finalized, even though ballots
Speaker 1: were mailed out to voters on Monday, two days before
Speaker 1: the board is scheduled to meet and vote on the project.
Speaker 1: So the Board is supposed to meet and vote on
Speaker 1: these projects tomorrow Wednesday. Voters got their ballots in the
Speaker 1: mail Monday, so people are expected to vote up or
Speaker 1: down on Measure H when we still haven't decided exactly
Speaker 1: where all the five hundred million dollars is supposed to go.
Speaker 1: Board President Susan Wittrop, who represents the Boullard region, said
Speaker 1: Monday she didn't know why staff pulled the project list
Speaker 1: from the September twenty eighth board meeting agenda, but was
Speaker 1: told by Superintendent Misty her that the bond consultant would
Speaker 1: quit if there was any opposition from board members. Well,
Speaker 1: then let the bond consultant quest what kind of a
Speaker 1: bizarre what kind of a bizarre answer is that if
Speaker 1: there was any opposition from board members who died and
Speaker 1: made this guy the pope or gal Wittrop said she
Speaker 1: has many questions about the revisions that were posted late
Speaker 1: Friday and has asked the staff to post her questions
Speaker 1: and their answers on the district website for board meeting
Speaker 1: q and as nothing has been posted by a two
Speaker 1: pm Monday, so we get these proposed revisions on Friday.
Speaker 1: Ballots were shipped to people Monday. The board is supposed
Speaker 1: to vote on it on Wednesday. All this while you know,
Speaker 1: this is all in the context, by the way, of
Speaker 1: a school district that already gets funding even without its
Speaker 1: bond measure funding, and a school district that I just
Speaker 1: don't think deserves any kind of measure of grace. Here,
Speaker 1: two thirds of the kids in the school district can't
Speaker 1: read at grade level, can't do math at grade level.
Speaker 1: It's a school district that is failing massively at its
Speaker 1: basic tasks. Basic task that doesn't require fancy school buildings.
Speaker 1: Teaching math and teaching kids how to read hasn't changed
Speaker 1: in the last one hundred years when we return. Just
Speaker 1: a reminder about how much this whole thing will actually cost.
Speaker 1: Next on the John Girardi Show, in going over this
Speaker 1: proposed project list for Measure eights, for Measure H, which
Speaker 1: is the Fresno Unified School Bond measure, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars for the McLean region, ninety seven point
Speaker 1: four million for the Roosevelt region, seventy six point three
Speaker 1: million for Fresno High rebuilding, this elementary school rebuilding that
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. Let's remember the actual cost
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, because Measure H and all of
Speaker 1: these local bond measures are and I will repeat myself
Speaker 1: on this, probably on several shows through election day. I
Speaker 1: will continue to beat this drum. Measure H is a bond.
Speaker 1: What is a bond? If you're sitting in your car
Speaker 1: and you can't define it, then you probably shouldn't vote
Speaker 1: for it. Okay, But let me define it for you
Speaker 1: so you can understand. A bond is a loan to
Speaker 1: a municipal governmental entity like a school district, like a city,
Speaker 1: like a county, like the state, Like any loan, you
Speaker 1: need to pay it back. But A school district doesn't
Speaker 1: generate its own revenue. It doesn't sell a product or
Speaker 1: a service. The only way school districts get money is
Speaker 1: through taxpayers. Taxpayers like you. If you vote for Measure H,
Speaker 1: you're voting to increase your taxes. You are voting to
Speaker 1: increase your property taxes in all likelihood. Oh but but
Speaker 1: I just rent an apartment in frozen Unified. That won't
Speaker 1: affect me, says someone who was born yesterday or who
Speaker 1: doesn't understand that. Hey, don't you think maybe your landlord
Speaker 1: might pass on the cost of higher rent, pass on
Speaker 1: the cost of his higher property taxes in the forum
Speaker 1: of higher rent to you. Yes, it will eventually get you.
Speaker 1: If you live, you will pay more. It might not
Speaker 1: be called a tax, it might be called higher rent,
Speaker 1: but you will pay for it. So, yeah, you will
Speaker 1: pay more in taxes. And the five hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: that the school district gets right away great for the
Speaker 1: school district. But guess how much you have to pay
Speaker 1: over the lifetime of the loan. Because again there's this
Speaker 1: little thing called interest. It means you don't just pay
Speaker 1: back five hundred million dollars, you're paying back more than
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars. That's the only reason they gave
Speaker 1: you the loan in the first place, is so that
Speaker 1: they could make more money off the back end. So
Speaker 1: you then wind up paying back almost a billion dollars
Speaker 1: in taxes. You the tax pairs of PRESNY Unified, will
Speaker 1: pay almost a billion dollars back. And that's just how
Speaker 1: bonds work. It is the opposite of delayed gratification. It's
Speaker 1: eating your cake now and paying for it later. It's
Speaker 1: borrowing money. It's borrowing money that you don't have. And
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe for local school districts, you could argue that,
Speaker 1: you know, these are investments that are going to last
Speaker 1: longer than the life of the loan. If we, you know,
Speaker 1: rebuild a falling apart, decrepit elementary school and we can
Speaker 1: completely rebuild it, all right, that's nice. But we're also saying, oh,
Speaker 1: we need it for updates and renovation eighty A Compliance
Speaker 1: and renovation No. Eighty A, compliance and upkeep of buildings
Speaker 1: that should be paid for with your ongoing revenue. The
Speaker 1: idea that you need a special bond measure to pay
Speaker 1: for that, that that's not smart, that's not wise. Eighty
Speaker 1: eight compliance rules will change over time. It's weird how
Speaker 1: EIGHTYA compliance rules change over time even though disabled people.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like the kinds of maladies disabled
Speaker 1: people have change anyway. So I understand the actual cost
Speaker 1: of what you're voting for here, and the actual nature
Speaker 1: of what you're voting for here. I genuinely think a
Speaker 1: lot of people, and probably especially people who don't pay,
Speaker 1: who don't own a home, who are renting, they have
Speaker 1: no understanding of what a bond is. I think they
Speaker 1: hear bond. They hear people say, oh, it's five hundred
Speaker 1: million for Preston unifight. No, it's a billion dollars to
Speaker 1: the taxpayers over thirty years to fund five hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of stuff for the schools. And yes, even
Speaker 1: if you're not a property owner, you're paying for it.
Speaker 1: You're paying for it, probably through higher rent. Hold the
Speaker 1: rent's too damn high. Oh I think we should support
Speaker 1: a rent control. Well, maybe don't vote for this then, okay, Like, like,
Speaker 1: your your rent's not going to be controlled if you're
Speaker 1: voting for property tax increases. So again, just I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone should vote for this without having a full
Speaker 1: understanding of what a bond. Measure is a bond, is
Speaker 1: a loan. It is a loan to a municipal entity.
Speaker 1: It is a loan that has to be repaid, usually
Speaker 1: over the course of about thirty years with interest. And
Speaker 1: I hate the fact that in the reporting on bond measures,
Speaker 1: the only thing we hear, that, the only thing that's
Speaker 1: in the news, and this is just standard practice in
Speaker 1: the news is five hundred million dollar bond. What every
Speaker 1: news story about a bond should include is the likely
Speaker 1: interest rate at which the likely interest rate for this loan,
Speaker 1: for this bond, and the likely amount of interest payment
Speaker 1: that we will make over the lifetime of the loan,
Speaker 1: as well as the term of years. I think every
Speaker 1: news story should include that. It shouldn't just be Measure
Speaker 1: H the five hundred million dollar bond for president to
Speaker 1: fund improvements at present unified. No, it should be Measure
Speaker 1: H is a five hundred million dollar bond which will
Speaker 1: cost taxpayer, which will require blah blah blah, one billion
Speaker 1: dollars of taxpayer funding, with an interest rate at dah
Speaker 1: da da da da, with a term of the bond
Speaker 1: of thirty years. Blah blah blah. Every single story about
Speaker 1: Measure A measure. H all these bond measures should include
Speaker 1: those provisions, and they don't. When we return the casual
Speaker 1: awfulness of women's magazines like Cosmo and Lle Next on
Speaker 1: the Jon Girardi Show, about two months ago, I was monitoring.
Speaker 1: It was for a work thing. I was trying to
Speaker 1: monitor something about some article relating to the abortion issue
Speaker 1: that I knew was going to be published in it.
Speaker 1: I was monitoring on an almost daily basis the website
Speaker 1: of L magazine, e ll E magazine, the women's fashion magazine.
Speaker 1: L magazine is kind of in the same universe as
Speaker 1: you know, Cosmopolitan seventeen I think is one of those.
Speaker 1: Maybe seventeen is maybe supposed to be geared towards the
Speaker 1: younger audience, but I'm not sure now, I, as a man,
Speaker 1: do not really have much of a history with these
Speaker 1: kinds of publications. Don't read them, never have read them.
Speaker 1: They're not really written for me clearly, so I don't
Speaker 1: have much of a sense of them. I sort of
Speaker 1: knew that. I mean, I know, have a sort of
Speaker 1: general idea that like these are women's magazines, so they're
Speaker 1: sort of centered around a lot of like fashion stuff,
Speaker 1: beauty stuff, different things. That are sort of I don't know,
Speaker 1: stereotypical women's interest. I figured because a lot of them
Speaker 1: are major media publications that probably they were very left leaning.
Speaker 1: And that's about the extent of my knowledge understanding opinions, views,
Speaker 1: perceptions of women's magazines. But as I was monitoring L
Speaker 1: magazine every day for about a two weeks stretch, I
Speaker 1: was just floored by the relentless pro LGBT stuff, just
Speaker 1: pure straight pro Democrat propaganda. Well it's like there's not
Speaker 1: even a vague appearance of any kind of neutrality. Just
Speaker 1: here's Joe Biden, Joe Biden so great. Here's Jill Biden.
Speaker 1: Jill Biden's so great. Joe Biden's like your sexy uncle
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. She's she's smart, sassy, and knows what she's about.
Speaker 1: Here's a feature piece about Joe Biden's daughter, who's, you know,
Speaker 1: not not a total screw up the way that Hunter is.
Speaker 1: Here's a piece about this person. It was like Biden, Biden, Biden,
Speaker 1: Biden Biden. And then the minute Biden dropped out, it
Speaker 1: was Kamala Harris, Kamala is Mamala and I was I
Speaker 1: was reading, I was monitoring it right at the time
Speaker 1: when Joe dropped out and Kamala stepped into the role
Speaker 1: as the Democrat nominee for president, and it was just
Speaker 1: Mamo la, Oh my gosh, Camilaire is so cool. Just
Speaker 1: article after article after article after article. And I had
Speaker 1: been monitoring sort of their news and politics section and
Speaker 1: it's it's just relentless. And the pro abortion stuff was
Speaker 1: just every article was abortion, abortion, abortion, abortion. You know,
Speaker 1: this state limiting abortions terrible. This state standing up for
Speaker 1: abortion rights is great, this state limiting abortions terrible. And
Speaker 1: every lie, every canned pro abortion argument was just being
Speaker 1: regurgitated mindlessly, and I was even surprised, like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is I thought this was like a fashion magazine, like
Speaker 1: they're this heavy into every article. I mean, now, granted
Speaker 1: I was looking just in their news and politics section,
Speaker 1: which is going to l magazine for news and politics.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's like, you know, going to ESPN for fashion ideas,
Speaker 1: But nonetheless it was bizarre just how aggressive it was.
Speaker 1: So I found this fantastic piece for National Review that
Speaker 1: sort of mirrored my own experience, written by Abigail Anthony
Speaker 1: for National Review, A terrifying journey through Cosmo for just
Speaker 1: six dollars, I had purchased a morally corrupting poison. Before
Speaker 1: boarding a short flight, I did what I did, what
Speaker 1: I imagine most twenty something women do. I bought a
Speaker 1: glossy magazine, Cosmopolitan. I'd never read it before, not even
Speaker 1: the battered and outdated copies at the nail salon. But
Speaker 1: I'm always open to in flight entertainment and suggestions for
Speaker 1: my ever growing lip gloss collection. After I merely glanced
Speaker 1: at the headlines, tucked between the seemingly endless advertisements for
Speaker 1: jewelry and body washes, it became clear that I wasn't
Speaker 1: being offered harmless suggestions for a stylish wardrobe. For just
Speaker 1: six dollars, I had purchased a morally corrupting poison. Editor
Speaker 1: in chief Jessica got Le Giles Giles not Sure, introduced
Speaker 1: the Cosmopolitan issue with a short paragraph lamenting the bat
Speaker 1: blank sh blank blank the bat guano crazy election season.
Speaker 1: Giles prefaces an article about the dawn of black centered
Speaker 1: fragrances in a stubbornly white perfume industry. Pages later, the
Speaker 1: magazine's beauty editor, Julie Wilson complained that the fragrance industry
Speaker 1: is quote super European and super white. Adding that quote,
Speaker 1: it seems like the fragrance business never got the Dei
Speaker 1: memo the rest of the beauty industry has doubled down on.
Speaker 1: She recommends eight perfumes made by people of color, but
Speaker 1: there's no description of how any of them smells, so
Speaker 1: you have no idea which ones you might actually like.
Speaker 1: I thought that by the end of twenty twenty, progressives
Speaker 1: had exhausted their ability to whine about white people in
Speaker 1: supposed racism, but Cosmo provides a fresh spin by decrying
Speaker 1: the devilish perfume industry. Although Giles's introduction praised, quote, the
Speaker 1: possibility for young women to reinvent themselves and okay, take
Speaker 1: over the world however they damn well please. An article
Speaker 1: by Erica W. Smith bashed self described tradwives who embody
Speaker 1: ultra traditional gender roles and produce social media content that
Speaker 1: appears like a pre feminine mystique guide to middle class
Speaker 1: white womanhood. In other words, women can reinvent themselves however
Speaker 1: they like, as long as there isn't a tenuous connection
Speaker 1: to anything traditional, religious, right leaning, or white. And it
Speaker 1: keeps going on. It's like relentless peace after piece after
Speaker 1: piece that is some kind of left wing thing. Smith,
Speaker 1: who is also Cosmo's senior astrology editor and the author
Speaker 1: of the which, By the way, I've had so much
Speaker 1: fun teaching my older kids about what nonsense astrology is
Speaker 1: because the one thing, Okay, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: there were a bunch of Christians who are sort of
Speaker 1: nervous about Harry Potter. I get it witchcraft, all right.
Speaker 1: I think it's harmless enough and obviously fictional, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think it's that corrupting an influence. Though.
Speaker 1: The one thing I really appreciate about Harry Potter is
Speaker 1: that the one kind of magic, even in their world
Speaker 1: that's complete nonsense is astrology. And the one professor who
Speaker 1: teaches astrology is a complete quack and is like the
Speaker 1: butt of every joke. So teaching my kids about astrology
Speaker 1: actually being complete nonsense, that that has tickled them and
Speaker 1: made them laugh. So Cosmo has an actual astrology editor,
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. I mean, like hilarious, how stupid this is.
Speaker 1: She's also the author of a book called astro Sex,
Speaker 1: How to have the Best Sex according to Your Star Sign.
Speaker 1: So this woman compared to quote, tradwives to women who
Speaker 1: describe themselves as stay at home girlfriend. Anyway, she's going
Speaker 1: this woman who's all into astrology is talking about how
Speaker 1: ridiculous and terrible people who want to get married are. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: let's take the advice of the astrology expert. Seriously, they
Speaker 1: have this huge reluctance throughout the magazine apparently to say
Speaker 1: anything positive about marriage whatsoever. Like they're criticizing stay at
Speaker 1: home girlfriend. They are comparing tradwives to what's called stay
Speaker 1: at home girlfriends. So people who are dating a man,
Speaker 1: they just stay at home and they don't work, but
Speaker 1: they're not married, and they're complaining about stay at home
Speaker 1: girlfriends don't have any of the legal protections that come
Speaker 1: with a marriage license. Now, this might lead to the
Speaker 1: argument that marriage is desirable, but for Cosmo, no marriage
Speaker 1: is still not desirable, which is like, well, then what
Speaker 1: is this antipathy towards marriage, Like they just absolutely despise marriage.
Speaker 1: They'll promote being a stay at home girlfriend, acknowledge that
Speaker 1: it's a much less stable kind of life situation than
Speaker 1: being married, but no marriage is still bad. The reluctance
Speaker 1: to say anything positive about marriage emergence emerges from Cosmo's
Speaker 1: fatal allergy to sexual ethics. Cosmo includes a two page
Speaker 1: piece by Nell Seeler, who quote felt like a virgin
Speaker 1: again after an eleven year long marriage ended. She provides
Speaker 1: an account titled the True Tale of My Alright, any
Speaker 1: kiddos in the car, you might want to cover your ears. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: She has a whole article about hooking up with her handyman,
Speaker 1: explaining that she slept with a fifteen years younger guy
Speaker 1: in his yurt while traditional Romanian dance music played. There's
Speaker 1: another article entitled Announcement The Time to Pleasure Oneself is Now,
Speaker 1: with the subheading Seriously, what are you waiting for? The
Speaker 1: writer who advertises about being all about sexing the shame
Speaker 1: away and sells erotic oracle cards state that there's something
Speaker 1: of a global masturbation gap that might be attributable in
Speaker 1: part to a lingering stigma or shame surrounding women's self pleasure.
Speaker 1: Blissfully unaware of Christianity, the article asks why aren't all
Speaker 1: of you masturbating on a regular basis? It's just going
Speaker 1: on and on and on. This just total smut, Like
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. To top it all off, it's like very
Speaker 1: badly written. So just a word of advice for parents,
Speaker 1: don't let your kid get a Cosmo Holy smoked, like
Speaker 1: the amount of just pure smut that is in one
Speaker 1: of the and it just makes me think, like you know,
Speaker 1: every polling trend indicates that Kamala Harris her strongest base
Speaker 1: of support is single young women. Well, no, dove, this
Speaker 1: is the kind of drek that they're reading. Anyway, needless
Speaker 1: to say, don't read Cosmo when we return. I think
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna win. Next on the John Girardi Show, Oh
Speaker 1: grant that this is not exactly mind blowing election analysis
Speaker 1: and that frankly there's a fifty to fifty shot here
Speaker 1: that I'll be right. I mean, there's only two options here.
Speaker 1: Will come like win will Donald Trump went? I think
Speaker 1: Trump's gonna win. I kind of think that him doing
Speaker 1: that rally in Pennsylvania this weekend, in the same spot
Speaker 1: where he got shot with one hundred thousand people there
Speaker 1: is kind of badass enough to remind Pennsylvanians that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, that was kind of an impressive thing. I
Speaker 1: think that is gonna hugely help him in Pennsylvania, and frankly,
Speaker 1: the whole election pretty much is decided on Pennsylvania. Just
Speaker 1: that's the long and short of it. I also think, frankly,
Speaker 1: in spite of conservative conspiracy theorists who are like they're.
Speaker 2: The liberals are controlling the weather, they sent Hurricane Helene
Speaker 2: into North Carolina and to take out Conservative controlled areas
Speaker 2: so they can't vote.
Speaker 1: First of all, that's idiotic. Secondly, it doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 1: I just think, I mean, a hurricane hitting an area
Speaker 1: six weeks before the election, they're going to have the
Speaker 1: resources ready for those people to vote. And if anything,
Speaker 1: I think that the Harris slash Biden response to the
Speaker 1: hurricanes has been not super impressive to a lot of
Speaker 1: North Carolinians and Georgians and guests. What are sort of
Speaker 1: two big old states that Kamala Harris needs to win.
Speaker 1: She needs to win North Carolina and Georgia. I mean
Speaker 1: she needs some combo of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada.
Speaker 1: Those are the states where if you win most of those,
Speaker 1: you win, And basically Harris's path to elect though, if
Speaker 1: Trump just wins Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina. She almost
Speaker 1: has no path to victory, so I kind of feel
Speaker 1: like Trump won the whole thing. I still have my
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still nervous about what Trump's doing with
Speaker 1: his abortion stance and all, but I'm just saying, I
Speaker 1: think he's gonna win. That'll do it. John Dirolady Show,
Speaker 1: See you next time on Power Talk