Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 08-21-25_THURSDAY_6AM

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

08-21-25_THURSDAY_6AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klauser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausordrilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. So great to have you here this morning on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Join the conversation at 77056633. 770K.M.D. My email at Billmyershow.com.

Read them all. Try to answer as many as I can. If I don't answer you right away, just know I did see it, you know, for the most part. and, hey, I just do the best. I am a staff of one. I love it when people will say, hey, get your staff to get back to me. Okay, I'll get right back to you, okay?

Anyway, 11 minutes after six. A lot going on on today's show, and I'm looking forward to you. Let me tell you who we had coming up. Paul Runco is going to join me. He's the director, well, he's one of the directors over at Defending Education.

It's a grassroots group trying to get parents back in control of our public schools. And when it comes to trust in public education and trust in our public institutions in general. Government school education, especially in the state of Oregon, it's real tough to have a whole lot of parental trust in that system if you've been paying attention. And one of the big challenges is that Oregon is all into all sorts of anti-family and arguably anti-people of faith and very progressive positions.

And it's kind of baked into the system. and you're not really supposed to ask many questions about that. And Paul is going to address something. He ended up putting on an op-ed piece on Heritage Foundation. I thought it was really interesting. He says a real key to getting controls of schools is getting control of the teacher union contracts. Because according to him, and he'll explain more about this coming up, a lot of the challenges we have in government school are baked into,

some of these progressive agendas, as you say, are baked into, to the teachers' union contracts. And those need to be stripped out over time. And, of course, at some point, we'll hear about somebody going to renegotiate a contract again, and these are things that need to be considered. In fact, there are many teachers' union contracts. Now, I don't know if any of the contracts around here in Southern Oregon do, but I would imagine some in Oregon do, essentially embed diversity, equity, and inclusion, and all of the other political fad nonsense

that have been plaguing the country for quite some time. So Paul's going to talk more about that coming up after 630. I also have for a few minutes, Josh Phillip, who is a chief investigative reporter over at the Epic Times. And he also is a host of the Epic TV's Crossroads program, does the podcast too online. And I want to talk with him about President Trump's new election plan. He wants to get rid of Vote by Mail.

And I love that idea. I've never been a fan of Oregon's Vote by Mail system. it is absolutely convenient and it is absolutely not secure there's no way anything by mail with with no chain of custody isn't potentially ripe for hinky it's just a matter of common sense right you know there's no other i mean even in france and these other progressive places over in the in the u k european union and things like that they get together they cast physical ballots in person now i know there are some people who are shut-ins and are carrying people who are really upset at the concept, well, I don't want to vote by mail to go

to go away. The way I understand it, I'm trying to think of what happened before, how you ended up dealing with this before when we had only in-person elections. And did we not have provisional ballots, but you had to ask for them. You had to ask for them. Everybody was not just sent an automatic ballot just for supposedly being on a voter role. So there are ways to take care of that. But I would be a big fan of going back to voting in person. Voting in person with the big thing and yeah, you show

your ID. Everybody knows it's on the up and up. You know, we don't have the purple finger like we forced them to do in Iraq back of the day. Yeah, we were more concerned about the Iraq, about the Iraq voting irregularities than, you know, back during the Grand War on Terror,

right, that sort of thing. We were more concerned about Iraq's purple fingers than we worried about stuffing ballots or any potential hinky in the United States. It's quite interesting. I once joked that since the United States doesn't seem to like to use its constitution, maybe we should have just transferred that over to the Iraqi people and let them deal with it.

Who knows? Anyway, we'll have a lot of conversation with Josh about that. Mark Hutto is going to be in. Now, Mark, you know, he is with Jay Austin. He's the guy that runs Jay Austin along with Andreya, one of my sponsors, a big sponsor, talked with them a lot. But he's going to be here today talking about land use. He has a piece of property up on the plateau, the Dead Indian Memorial Road plateau.

I guess he always had to put memorial in there. Be that as it may, he's had just a devil of a time working through the land use situation. And he just wanted to talk about the frustrations and the ins and outs of working with county planning. And it's not necessarily something controlled by county commissions, but kind of the system set up, like the frustrations built into the system. And some of it can be eye glazing, you know, the stuff that makes you roll your eyes like, I can't believe they do this kind of stuff.

But he wanted to share his story, and I'm happy to have him share his story with you. And maybe we'll have some time and take some calls, and you can share some of your frustrations in how in Jackson and Josephine County things are being challenged when you try to use or change the use of any of your property. Yes, you own your property until you actually try to use. use it, then you find out who really owns it, right? All right. Other challenges we're looking at

here this morning? Unemployment rate? It's edging up here. We now have the July numbers which came in here. And overall, we're at, what, 5%? 5% unemployment rate in the entire state of Oregon. We're higher than the national average. I ended up getting these statistics from the state. They send those out every now and then. And every month, actually, I get them. than when they put those out. It's worse in Jackson County, 5.4% unemployment rate. So that's popped up a little bit here. Josephine County, considerably more problematic.

6.8% the July unemployment rate in Joe County. That's number two in the state of Oregon, number two. And this was something that, well, what was the peak here? What was the most we ever had? I was looking at his OPB article two. outside of the COVID spike, which pushed unemployment up to a high of nearly 14% April 2020. That's when we decided that we had to shut the economy down in order to stop the spread. Remember those dark days?

Boy, that was spooky, wasn't it? I remember being one of those people. I'd be going out, driving around 5 o'clock in the morning going to work, and I'm like the only person driving to work during that time. I'm the only person. It's like everyone else was you staying home or their business was shut. down. I'll never forget that. Never forget that. Yeah, I mean, you're the only one out there. I had those. But anyway, back to the unemployment now, though. A greater share of Oregon's workforce

unemployed than any time since 2016 other than the COVID spike, other than that. So we're looking at challenges. And you know how Oregon works? We've been talking about this for years off and on two. Oregon tends to be the first to enter recessions and one of the last states to exit. And some of this could be that we're relatively business unfriendly. Well, Intel's going to be taking off. Dutch Bros. took off. Everyone's saying, hey, we don't want to pay your crazy taxes or deal with the rules and regulations. Fortunately, though, I guess we're still better than California. I guess that's something which is something worth saying, hey, you know, we're pretty bad at Oregon, but at least, you know, we're not like those crazies in California.

And the latest coming out of California is that Bed Bath and Beyond, I was reading, is not going to have any stores ever again in California because they say that the political risk, the risk to actually hiring people, trying to deliver value to customers, the regulation, the ability to hire and fire, it's so crazy that they're just pulling out. They're just not going to do that anymore. So at least already, California may help us out because, okay, or, Oregon's bad, but it ain't nearly as bad as California. So people say, okay, come to, come to Oregon.

Maybe that's what Travel Oregon can then use for its nationwide motto what it does advertising for California, or for Oregon, rather, you know, travel Oregon. And we'll say, come to Oregon. We're not as bad as California. And then you put a little registered trademark next to that. We'd probably laugh at that, even though it's not funny, right? We wouldn't laugh at that. But there we go.

That is some of the latest here. Ashland. Dot News has an interesting report this week, but the Ashland City Council has been up to. They've approved about a million bucks in shelter upgrades. Boy, this is real money that they're spending for the homeless deal. The temporary emergency shelter on Ashland Street was forced to close earlier this year because it didn't meet the fire codes for having people there overnight. And so the public works director said the facility, which was originally designed for commercial office space, will meet bad weather shelter standards for up to 32 people and a couple of staffers with up to 52 with four employees.

He said the 3,000 square foot building will also be available for office space. And they're going to start working on the shelter here pretty soon. Finish it up by November. Main shelter anticipated to be opened by November 1st. Where does the money come from? Well, Ashland doesn't care about the money usually, but it's pretty close to a million dollars from city money, state grants, and opioid settlement dollars. At least there's something semi-positive coming out of the grift of the opioid grant stream funding. That could be a bit helpful.

All right. It's 21 minutes after six. More information coming out there about President Trump, Vice President Vance, wanting to go after the Smithsonian. do some reforms there. I have a little chat about that, and there's some people writing me upset about a federal land closure where they like to go

Huckleberry picking. We'll talk about that too. We're here with Mal Sanford. 7 KMED. 23 minutes after 6 on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Join in at 7705633. If you have a conspiracy you would like to add to, we're also going to have a diner 62 real American quiz.

Probably to be about just before 7th. I think we're going to make sure we have things all cleared out. We're going to have some fun. Another great question. Smithsonian Institute is coming under a lot of pressure lately from the Trump administration. Rightly so, and I'll tell you why I think that here in just a little bit. There was an earlier story earlier in August.

Epic Times had been writing that it was not compelled by any presidential administration or government official to remove references to Donald Trump's two impeachments from an exhibit and they plan to include them in an updated display in the coming weeks. So that part, not the scandal that they first were trying to make out of it. But there is a big review going on and President Trump ordering the Smithsonian to essentially examine its soul and do something about the overt bias. Vice President J.V. J.D. Vance rather is really.

really in charge of this. And I'll tell you, I have mentioned this. And National Park Service, frankly, needs to be examined on something like this. And nobody wants to have the Smithsonian or the National Park Service, or anybody else, whitewashing truth about American history. Because American history, like all nations, it's complicated, wouldn't you agree? But generally speaking we're a pretty good people and we've had a really good run and we've had a lot of good things that the united states has brought into into existence and principles that we try to live by not always successfully but you know we do our best but when you go to some of our national parks and you head over to the smithsonian and i did this a few years ago well i'll tell you about

even National Parks first. I ended up making a wrong term going back to the D.C. Beltwake, visiting my brother in North Carolina. And then I ended up in Charlottesville. And going, oh, wow, there's Monticello, Jefferson's home here. So Lyndon's, I said, let's go. So we went there and we really enjoyed seeing Jefferson and finding out more about him.

And it was astounding, though, the overt bias. was probably six, seven years ago, maybe it was a little bit longer. I don't know. My time frame is starting to get a little fuzzy on when we actually went to Monticello. I could look it up, but still one way or the other. I'm sure it's still the same. The thumb on the National Park Service about everything Jefferson was squarely on the side of the scale of Sally Hemings, slave. Slave, slave, slave, slave. Oh, did you forget that Thomas Jefferson, even though it was his brilliant mind, wrote the Declaration of Independence, slave, slave, slave owner.

Well, yeah, he let them go after he died and this and the other, but still, slave, slave, slave, whitey, slave, slave, slave, slave, and it got really fatiguing after a little while. Sometimes let's just, you know, let's stop trying to take everybody from 300 years ago or 200 years ago or 150 years ago or heck even 60 or 70 years ago and trying to run them through the lens of the woke to puss, the woke to puss. the octopus of wokeism, which is just about everywhere. It's like, come on, Jefferson, for all this failings in his faults, it was a brilliant mind and a brilliant man and a brilliant writer, too, for that matter. Maybe not as good of a president, but we'll sit around there and argue about that. And I believe it was that same trip that Linda and I took a day. We didn't have a lot of time left, but we went into the American History Museum.

the Smithsonian and the moment we walked through the door the woke and the anti-white hatred was absolutely everywhere privilege vote privilege da da da da da da da inclusion i mean it was everywhere and this was a number of years ago this was prior to covid by the way too i know it was uh you know before that point and once again exhausting and it's not that you don't want to acknowledge the parts of our history that were not quite so good, but they were way overboard on making sure that if you didn't hate America when you came into the Smithsonian Institute, that you would hate America by the time you leave. It was just like, oh, why the heck would I ever want to be in this godforsaken place?

Just a bunch of racist Nazis everywhere who hate people. That was it. and I don't know if President Trump really has the power to do this. This is what I'm going to be talking with Josh Phillip about after 7 o'clock this morning because he's doing a lot with executive orders. I don't really know if he has this. I would have consumed or assumed rather it was more about Congress to get involved in this kind of thing. But it needs to be done.

And there needs to be balance in the presentation. Give us the American history. The good and the warts, warts and all. And don't just, you know, try to, it's almost like it's about discouraging any kind of American spirit. And that's evil. That's just an evil agenda. It really is.

Ideological discouragement. We're just going to get you and, I don't want to do anything here. We can't make a murder. good great because it was never great, that kind of thing. I think a lot of a Smithsonian is run that way with that mentality. That's just from my observation, having gone there. This is the Bill Meyer show.

It is Conspiracy Theory Thursday. I'll grab one quick call. I don't know who it is, so we're just going to hit the line. Could be one of our early, our normal early rider, riser regulars. Hi, good morning. Who's this? Hi, Bill. Chris.

Hey, Chris. How are you doing this morning? Fine. I listen to Jesse Kelly show. He's talking about the very same thing you're talking about white males. It's a reverse discrimination going on in this country right now. I recently applied for the VA hospital in Seattle in Deep Blue Seattle. And I usually get the job hands down. And they did not select. They put me to the hiring manager and did a direct hire authority and hired probably someone else that's not a white male. And so I'm in the early stages of having investigated for them to look at the certification if they did it properly because if you're over 30% service-connected, you get 10 points over anyone else that applies for these jobs. Now, I serve my country in the Navy, and those jobs are for veterans, and for them to just pick someone just that quick without even interviewing is the wrong process through the...

Yeah, so you're already suspicious then that the... woke-tipus has put the big the big deal. Oh, here's a tidy whitey guy. So what if he's a veteran? Yeah, that's what Jesse Kelly's saying. He's on his show on 99.5. He's on from 9 to 12. Hey, hey, Chris, don't talk about

other talk show host in town on my show, okay? Well, he's talking about, he's talking about the very same thing that is reverse discrimination. It's a cultural thing right now and it needs to be reversed. That I will agree with Jesse Kelly on that, okay? We're in agreement on this. And the Smithsonian is just a symptom of a much larger disease,

and the Trump administration working to root that out. And by the way, that doesn't mean that we don't acknowledge the flaws and the warts that we have here. But this idea that you just go, and like I mentioned before, if you don't hate America when you first go into the Smithsonian, you will when you leave if you're of a certain bet. You'll just think there's absolutely nothing worth worth celebrating at all about American history or the culture.

Appreciate the call there, Chris. Good luck on getting your investigation successfully done, okay? 631, you're on KMED. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, and I'm with Cherise from No Wires Now. Body and Paints on Bullock Road in Medford. The Bill Myers Show on 1063, KMED. 634. Just the other day I was heading back home and driving by

McLaughlin School. just around the corner from where I live in East Medford. And there's the big sign out there. Of course, multilingual, because you have to do that. And it was talking about school starting. And then soft start for kindergarten coming up there. And I'm just thinking, okay, what kind of schools are we going to be bringing forth? Because one of the challenges we have in Oregon, very progressive control of the educational system,

a lot of state control, and a lot of it filters down in here. And a lot of conservative or people of faith parents don't have a lot of, lot of trust in the public school system and how could that be restored how could things be reformed rather how could there be a bit of balance in this situation and joining me is paul runco paul runco is the director of strategic initiatives in k through 12 programming for defending education morning paul good to have you on the show morning bill thanks for having me tell me more about defending education what is the uh the basic mission here i have a feeling i tell just by the name but i'm sure there's a little more to it you can flush that out

Yeah, so we are a membership organization of parents who help parents figure out how to get politics and ideology out of schools and bring schools back to places of academic excellence. And we do that through several ways informing parents of their rights and helping them figure out the best way to engage with their local teachers, administrators, and school boards. In some ways, could you think that what happened during COVID, as bad as bad as is now, And, of course, I have a feeling that we're going to see a lot of these super young kids that were in the COVID generation coming in. We'll see how they end up performing over time. But at least parents are paying a little more attention now based on what happened then. Would you agree? Absolutely, yeah.

When COVID happened and all of the schools shut down, parents had a front row seat into what their children were learning through, you know, the computer screen through Zoom schools. and parents were shocked at what they saw. And so our organization started shortly thereafter, and parents are super engaged in all 50 states, and we've seen some great wins in all of these arenas, but particularly against taking a little bit of chip off of the teachers' union influence in public education. When it comes to woke progressive ideology,

which is a political agenda, It's been a political agenda. We've been talking about this now for, I want to say, about the last 10 years, it feels like. I don't know. You have an op-ed piece in the Daily Signal on Heritage. That you think that one of the secrets for parents getting more control is to be more involved in the collective bargaining. It's like teachers' contracts and union agreements. I was wondering if you could explain how and why.

Yeah, sure. So to set the stage, I think when the average American parent hears the words, teachers union. They think of, you know, their children's classroom teacher who's nice and kind and helpful. And I think they assume that the teacher's union is just a big group of these types of people. And what your typical parent doesn't realize is that the teachers unions, like you said, have become very ideological and focused on radical left-wing ideology instead of academic achievement in schools. And so our organization, depending education, recently put out a report detailing many instances of how teachers' unions in their collective bargaining agreements with schools embed this

left-wing ideology in their agreement with schools. So essentially this choice, but to agree to, you know, critical race theory and gender ideology-type initiatives, or else, you know, the teachers a strike and the kids won't be in school. Okay. That makes it pretty tough to have any real parental control over what's going on. Eric, could you give me some examples of maybe some contract language, which would be used and maybe some school districts that defending education and them getting involved with concerning this issue?

Absolutely. So the big school district that we highlighted in this report was the Denver Public Schools out in Colorado. And we, along with some Colorado parents groups, actually sent Denver Public Schools a letter saying, you need to stop doing these things. Please take these left-wing ideologies out of your agreement with the Denver Classroom Teachers' Associations and just some of the examples of what was in there. So race-based programs for teachers, so professional development programs that were only for teachers of a specific race.

they wanted to have specific increases of teachers of a certain race in color. They wanted to, they were mandating what they called equity training, and part of that programming was how to assess your unconscious bias or how you can be racist without knowing it. So those are some of the things that we've seen in, you know, many states, their teachers union contracts. There's also an example out of Davis-Douglas School District in Oregon, and very similar things. They wanted spaces for teachers that were only one type of color programs. Oh, really? Okay. I just want to be clear because it used to be that when I was growing up, this tells you how long ago it was, Paul,

that teachers were still smoking in their lounges back of the day. And that was the main thing. You know, the teachers wanted their own separate rooms so they could just smoke. like a chimney over their break time. But that was about it. But this school district in Oregon wanted separate break rooms for different color teachers. Is that what I'm understanding here? What they were looking for? The exact language, again, this is a report from defending education at Davis-Douglas School District. And the words say, resources to support and strengthen the Davis-Douglas staff of color group, which provides an affinity space and advocates for Davis-Douglas staff

who identify as BIPOC, which is black indigenous and people of color. Right. Wow. And so they want a separate. You know, for the longest time, we were working to integrate the society, and it appears that this ideology is about, I guess, separate but equal. Is that kind of the point of view they bring to it? Separate but equal?

Yeah, I honestly don't know how they justify it. I mean, this is racially discriminatory and likely unlawful. We've filed several civil rights complaints. against many school districts on these particular instances in these groups for students and staff. So I agree with you. It does seem like they're trying to go back to a time where they didn't want people, you know, integrated and want to keep people separate for some reason.

I'm not sure why. Well, I guess it has to do with political power more than anything else. That's the only reason. I don't think there's any evidence that shows that people of color would be better teachers if they don't have to hang out around their white colleagues. We'll just say it. We'll just go out and touch it, okay? You know, that's really what's going on, I think.

Doesn't this violate some title in the federal code of some point, whether it's Title IX or just the 1964 Civil Rights Act? What do you think? Yeah, we would argue at defending education, and it really depends on the specific instance, but most, if not all of these instances, violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. And so it's just, it's mind-boggling to parents across the country that the teachers' unions are focused on these types of initiatives when COVID learning loss is still a huge issue.

Academic excellence is dropping in the country. We want teachers' unions to focus on those things in their collective bargaining agreements and not on radical left-wing ideologies like critical race theory. Have any of the districts ended up responding to defending education and say, hey, you're right? And we're going to stay away from this and rewrite teachers' contracts. What level of success or challenge are you facing at this point? Yeah, we haven't heard specifically of any school district responding positively, although we are hopeful. Parents are really engaged on this issue.

They're starting to look at, okay, what does my teachers' unions' collective bargaining agreement look like with my school district? They know what to look out for, and they're willing to go to school board meetings and PTA meetings and say this is unacceptable. And maybe this is really going to be the tip of the spear, right? Parents at the school board meetings that are saying, hey, asking their school board directors at this point, what do these teachers union contracts look like? What kind of, is there any ideological bias which is being injected into the classroom through collective bargaining, I guess, in essence is what you're criticizing here, right? Yes, and I think it's important for parents and parents ask us this all the time.

You know, it's easy to point out what's bad, but how do we get in what's good? And so you mentioned my piece in The Daily Signal. That's what a lot of it was is, okay, we can call out the bad, but what would we like to see in these collective bargaining agreements? What should parents be fighting for? Yeah, and you have it. There are three suggestions or three big bullet points that you have in this piece, which I'm going to put on KMED.com on how to make it better. And I like that part. It's like an action plan here.

So what do you think we got to be doing? Yeah, so like you said, it's three things. First thing, I think we need to protect our girls in school. No biological men competing against girls in sports, locker rooms that are safe and fair for women and girls that are their own bathrooms, the same thing. So I think affirming Title IX, as it was originally written, is crucial. Second thing is, there's a big Supreme Court case this past summer, Mahmood versus Taylor, that guaranteed the religious parents the right to opt out of LGBTQ plus curriculum and materials in school. So making sure that parents have the right to opt their children out of that material. And thirdly, schools give these invasive surveys all the time. Oh, I always have parents every school year. They send me this stuff, Paul, about gender, sexuality, all sorts of, you know, right there on the edge of smutty kind of questioning coming from the school district.

And I think a lot of this, unfortunately, may be state ideology because the Oregon Department of Education, which controls our local schools, is so, well, is so far to that ideological bias, I guess, Paul. Right. But the Supreme Court has said, you know, religious parents, you have the right on religious grounds to opt your children out of this. So we're starting to see some school districts respond both positively and, you know, skirting around the issue. so it'll be, like you said, a school district and state-by-state basis on how they react to these things, but the Supreme Court says what the Supreme Court says. So there's more power there from even the federal court level than a parent may think in your local school district?

Parents have a lot of rights when it comes to what they can and cannot do in schools. And so that's part of what our organization does is we help parents understand their rights, whether it be First Amendment rights or things like the protection of people rights amendments that give parents the right to opt out of certain things in school. So it's really important that parents understand their rights on the federal level. Paul, I appreciate the take on this, and it's a great article. It is three ways new teachers' union contracts can respect families and respect the law. It's on the Daily Signal.

And Paul Runco is the Director of Strategic Initiatives in K-12 Programming for Defending Education. Where can people go to find out more about defending education? Yeah, our website is defending ed.org. You could find us on all the social platforms at Defending Ed. And if you're a parent is listening to this and something's going on in your school, please reach out to us. We'd love to help. What happens here? Is there anything that you can do to help maybe the Oregon parents who find themselves a little more under the gun, given that the State Department of Education is very much in this agenda, which you are fighting?

It's almost the equivalent of, have you thought about being trans? here, ask us, we'll help you. You know, we're the Oregon Education Department, you know? Yeah, one thing we've seen success in is activation of what is called FERPA. And the FERPA is a federal law that gives parents the right to know what's going on with their children at school. And our organization has cataloged a lot of school districts that have what we call parental exclusion policies that will not alert parents to when their child is, you know, thinking of becoming a different gender at school. And so the Department of Education is investigating Maine for these types of violations.

So it's not out of the realm of possibility that they might investigate Oregon school districts if they're doing the same. Paul Ronco, we appreciate the take. Thanks for being on the show this morning. Be well. Thanks so much, Bill. Paul Ronco at Defending Education, 648. This is the Bill Meyer Show on KM.E. 993 KBXG. A little bit of open phone time here if you wanted to join in on Conspiracy Theory Thursday.

The number here is 770-633-770 KMED. One of each K-4-V-N-1-S. You're hearing the Bill Myers Show on 106-3 KMED. 7705-633. A little bit of open phone time on conspiracy theory Thursday if you wanted to get a good head start on something. You know, so many challenges that we find ourselves in these days, It's great to be able to report an occasional green shoot. And this is one which I had saved.

I read it on OPB, and it actually does have a Grants Pass connection here. And this is, gosh, almost two months ago. And for some reason, it kind of got lost in my shuffle. And it just cheered my heart. This is something that I thought was really interesting. And it was a JPR-O-P-B kind of thing. It was their story here. And I thought it was a great story.

It really was. And it had to do about a program there that they're trying to get kids who are in youth authority, in jail, giving them a fresh start. And they're working on removing the tattoos. And they talk about this is how they started the story. Landon hopes to be a barber when he leaves the Rogue Valley Youth Correctional facility, even training at a small hair. on there but there's one thing he's worried about his tattoos i had at one point across on my middle finger landon said but that was when i was 15 i ended up covering it up because i thought it was kind of disrespectful when he first got into youth authority his hand was covered in crude doodles

mushroom his ex initials and the playboy bunny logo with the name of an adult film star and lennon said you know i i was embarrassed of having that tattoo. I'm a barber now, and so if I'm in a professional environment, I'm not trying to show up with a bunch of doodles on my hand. Not only immature, but the Playboy Bunny also happens to be a gang symbol sometimes, and then Landon has to explain himself when he got locked up, that kind of thing. And so Landon hopes to get out about this time next year. You know, July, August, something like that. He says that the tattoos are making it really hard to reenter society and this has been a growing trend i i'm not surprised this is happening at all it's

all changing because um there's one doctor they were uh interviewing on this one dr caroline hale holding the tip of a laser tattoo removal machine and so he was there for one of his uh tattoo laser tattoo removal things and we've been trying to get this this bad one removed and he's pointing at uh you know the the playboy bunny tattoo kind of scarred into the skin so we're going to have to go pretty high on it. And so anyway, they're busting this up. And I get that. I get that. That tattoo removal program actually started in the late 1990s. Gerselda Solano Salinas was the person who was spearheading that. Unfortunately, she has that title of Director of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations for the Oregon Youth Tattoos. But getting rid of the tattoos has

been a big thing. And that is, I understand. I understand the kind of challenge. You know, here it is. You were young, you were dumb, you were in a gangs, you were doing something, you're trying to improve yourself, and yet you're held back. And when you have that look, and let's be honest, I know tattoos are very popular, and gosh, you even see the grannies out there at shirms and with the, you know, covered in sleeves and everything else. It's an interesting cultural phenomenon.

Now, my body is so perfect, there's nothing I could add to it to actually improve it, so I never got any tattoos. But be that as it may, they're trying to help. And getting that out, I don't know, maybe we should be putting signs of tattoo parlors that are saying, warning, going overboard on something like this, could make sure that you aren't employable in the future. There's nothing like going out there with the look that you just killed your parents. And yes, I know I'm engaging in lookism, but that is the way,

A good portion of society was still a look at that. Back in my day, tattoos were usually something that were really only, you know, Navy veterans would have them. You know, they'd have the anchor, the U.S. flag, you know, that sort of thing. But it became a big cultural thing now. It became a big cultural thing. And at least you're trying to get some of these young kids that are in Youth Authority straightened out. They're saying, hey, listen, I'm a different person now and I don't want to be tagged with all that. I thought it was a relatively positive green shoot.

It was nice to be able to see that. 770563. Let me grab a call here. It is Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Morning. Hi, who's this? Good morning, Bill. Hi, Tom.

You know, the Tenth Planck or the Communist Manifesto is basically government education. Sure. And what do you think of having separation of government and education? because it doesn't seem to be working very well. And, you know, the communist maxim is the ins justifies the means. And also the hand that rocks the cradle, I would add, too. It tends to be another one. That's why there's been such a focus, I think, on the takeover and the hollowing out in wokenizing,

if that's a word, I don't know if it is or not, but we just created it. You just made it up, and I like it. Yeah, wokenizing. The wokenizing effects of Marxism in public. education. You know, the problem is is that, I know even the guy from defending education, we're trying to get ideology out of education, but education is an ideology, I think, too. There always is a point of view in which the story ends up being told, wouldn't you agree? So it's a matter of what is positive then for the, you know, for the long-term health of our people,

I guess. Isn't that really what we should be talking about? Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, and like I said, the ins justifies the means. So you have Republicans and Democrats, thinking it's all right for the government to confiscate your kids and put them in their indoctrination camps. And it's based upon force, violence, extortion. And we do that in so many aspects of our lives as a society is not using the power of government to stop people from hurting one another, doing bad things, but you're using the force and power of government to force people to do something like put your kids in government school.

Yeah, to believe. Everything about, well, of course, one of the origins, and I'm being in elegant as I'm talking about this one, because I'm just spitballing with you here. But one of the reasons that public education started getting mandated back in the early 1900s or so said a lot of it was about getting rid of any kind of religious influence and trying to to peel people away from those kind of allegiances. I can think of the anti-Catholic biases that were happening here with a lot of Eastern European immigrants coming in

in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that sort of thing. And then you also had other people that, well, really didn't want a smart people. They wanted people that were just willing to be an unquestioning kind of semi-dum cog in the corporate machine world, I guess. Isn't that really when you look back at the history of it all? Oh, yeah, you had Thomas Dewey called Father of American Education. He said the purpose of education basically is to turn children into socialist and so forth. And about the religion, you know, it used to be the McGuffey's reader back in, I think, the 1800s.

And the first line is something like, in Adams Fall, we sinned all. I mean, they actually used the Bible as the way. to teach reading and language and so forth. And you realize that back in those days, the 1800s, we think of it as such a backward time, right, 1850s, 1860s, the United States had an amazingly high literacy rate with books like that. 90%. Yeah, because people wanted to do it, and they found a way to do it themselves.

And you look at, gosh, what is the one book that I was reading and the style of writing back then, very long sentences. Oh, you're Last of the Mohicans. Last of the Mohicans, yes, yes, yeah. And what a tough read that is today. Oh, it is. It was loved, and everybody had it, and most people could read it at that time. That tells you what's changed since those days. You want your head, your brain to turn into knots.

try reading that book, and I tell you, because one sentence could be a whole paragraph and a long paragraph. So you're following that, and there's so many rabbit trails going off of one sentence to try to really reduce it and understand what the hell is this guy is saying. Your brain really has to be fired in all cylinders. Indeed. But point is well making. Separation of state and school would be perfect, a truly freedom and truly a wonderful intellectual experience, a better intellectual experience for the kids, too. Thank you, Tom. I don't know if America is ready for that kind of radicalism.

What? I'm responsible for helping my child be smart? That can't be. I need the state to make my child smart. I'm being sarcastic. But anyway, I grab another call before news. Hi, good morning. Who's this?

Welcome. This is Vicki from the Applegate. Hi, Vicki. What's going on? Well, I don't have a conspiracy theory this morning. but I do have a funny tattoo story. All right. My dad was in the Navy for 20 years, never, ever got a tattoo.

So when I was about 16, I went to my future first husband's house, and we had a party. We were drinking beer, and one of my friends pulled out an Indian ink needle with a little jar of ink, and we proceeded to tattoo each other. And she put one on my shoulder, and it's a heart and an arrow going through it, but she never finished it, so it looks really lame. Oh, no. But when I came home, after I was sobered up, I was like, oh, crap, my dad's going to kill me.

So I put a Band-Aid over it. Well, I had a Band-Aid over it for like two months, and my parents were finally like, what's going on with this Band-Aid, you know? Do you have, like, a sword? Do you have, you know, what's under the Band-Aid? And I was like, oh, I scratched myself or whatever. Well, they made me take the Band-Aid off. I realized I had a tattoo.

Well, half the time I don't even remember I have it because I mean 16 and now I'm going to be 61. And people will mention it and I'll say, oh, that's my prison tattoo. And they'll look at me like, what? You went to prison? And I said, no, I never been to prison, but it's a prison tattoo. And so, yeah, it's really funny how you can, when you're young and you don't think about the consequences of getting a tattoo. But since then, I've got a matching tattoo with my daughter. Is it also broken?

No. Okay. It's the seahorse. I love the ocean, so I have a seahorse on my ankle. But my daughter, she has tattoos, and she felt to tell me that that's one of the most painful, I mean, painful places to get one. And by the time I was done with it, I swear, I needed a drink badly, and I don't even drink, Bill. So, you know, getting... Now, where was it put, by the way?

I miss that part. And, Vicki, where was that tattoo put that you said hurt so badly? Where is it? It's just above my ankle on my right leg. So that's a really painful spot, huh? Oh, my God, Bill, I have... I wear ball caps, and I swear... The brim in my hat was permanently, like, turned under because it was so painful.

But the guy said, you know, for never having a tattoo, you didn't fat really. good. And I thought, well, I've had three kids, so I guess I can tolerate pain. Well, is it worse than childbirth? Was it worth? Worse than? Do you recall? Well, I was doing breathing, so I guess it's almost as bad, but not quite so bad. All right. Well, you medicine in the hospital when you have a kid. Yeah. Well, thanks for the tattoo story, though. You can understand, though. I'm actually happy, though, that, you know, if you got these kids that are in juvie, you know, the youth authority and things like that, it makes sense.

If you can get some of those, if you can get those tattoos off, I know the taxpayers are pain, but it might save you more trouble in society in the future, wouldn't you think? It seems like a good idea. Yeah, and there's a lot of people that have face tattoos that are really, like, wanting to get rid of those. Yeah, talk about, yeah, wanting to, uh, unfortunately, I know. know that we're talking about stereotypes, but there is a basis in the stereotype. And if you're trying to make yourself look fierce, and then all of a sudden you want to

get a nice job in the office there because you're 35 and trying to form a family, it's not helpful, is it? No, not really. Yeah, all right. Thanks for the story. Appreciate that, Vicky. This is KMED, KMED, HD1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass. Need a roof that performs...