Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 713 | No Admission of Guilt | Guest: Brad Meltzer

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

Instacart workers / delete app… RIP George Holliday / you remember him? California cyclists and rolling stops… Lady found in drain… Man steals prosthetic leg… Twitter settles class action… Emmys viewership went up… Subscribe to the YouTube Channel… Email to [e-mail] Subscribe www.blazetv.com/jeffy Promo code jeffy… Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty in L.A.… R Kelly case / prosecution rests… Now they want the McCloskeys law license… Brad Meltzer stops by to talk book banning… www.bradmeltzer.com Fat Bear Week coming up… Bees killing Penguins… Koalas may going extinct… Monkeys on tour / Eagles and Genesis... No Mask Policy / get out… Meteor Crashes to earth… Jet crashes to earth… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This was according to a non-profit gig workers collective as there are longstanding pay and safety concerns. Beyond low pay, they released a letter with five points of interest, specifically what they want. They want to pay shoppers by order, not batch. If we shopped a single order, they write the base pay would be $7. But if we shopped three orders at once, the base pay would be $7 for the lot. Reintroduce item commissioned, and nearly every order now pays $7 regardless of the size.

A single two item order pays $7. A triple 50 item order pays $7. Reform the rating system, which unfairly punishes shoppers for issues outside their control, provide occupational death benefits and raise the default tip to 10% up from the current 5%. Now, Instacart has responded by saying we've invested in countless new measures to support the health and safety of the shopper community. We take shopper feedback very seriously and remain committed to listening to and using that feedback to improve their experience. Now, according to this, I guess it's from gig workers' collective, they claim that, well, Instacart has not, in fact, taken their safety seriously. What's more?

The letter says that the company has structured tips in an exploitative way. It lays out those five demands and asks for customers' support by deleting the app. But that defeats the purpose. If customers delete the app, then they're not going to be using the product so you won't have a job. Not quite sure that's the best way to do it. But hey, good luck to the Instacart shoppers. Welcome. Welcome to Chewing the Fat.

So I want to say rest in peace to George Holiday. George Holiday. Rest in peace, George. Now, you may say, to yourself, well, who is George Holliday? Well, I'm going to tell you, okay? He is the plumber who recorded

the video of Rodney King being beaten in 1991. So, you can well understand why this is news. It's sad. I don't want the guy to die.

And, you know, he died of complications of COVID. According to one report, he was in his 60s and unvaccinated. But, I mean, is it huge national news? Is the guy, was he the hero? I guess. I mean, if it wasn't for him, if we hadn't seen the actual beating,

a number of things probably wouldn't have happened post Rodney King beating. So rest in peace, George Holliday. Okay, so you know that no one supports bicycling more than me and more than chewing the fat. No one. I love bicyclists from no matter where you bicycle or cycle, I love you. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And you know that I appreciate you riding in the roads and slowing down traffic because we have to treat you just like an any other vehicle on the road.

You want to be treated that way. I got you. But now you want to have your cake and eat it too. So apparently in California, they are looking to pass a new bill law that would allow cyclists to come up to a stop sign and roll through it if there's no traffic.

You can just get to come up. And if it's, there's no traffic, you get to roll right through it, and it's called an Idaho stop. Wait, what? Yeah, they decelerate, but they don't fully stop before crossing stop sign intersections. If there's no traffic, I mean, it's the best safety practice when approaching stop signs, and it still, of course, remains illegal in California, although many bicyclists, you know, still do it, and they do whatever.

I get a ticket in an automobile. and have, by the way, received tickets for rolling through a stop sign when there was no traffic. There were no cars. The last ticket I got for rolling through a four-way stop is because a car in front of me stopped completely. And there were no other cars in either direction, in all directions. Okay, all three directions, no other cars. And that car went ahead. So I pulled up behind that car not completely stopping at the stop.

sign and then going through the intersection, I got pulled over and given a ticket for that. And I said to the police officer, dude, you saw there's no traffic. I, of course, I mean, I didn't come to a complete stop, but I was prepared to stop if there was another car there, but there was no other car because the car in front of me completely stopped. And we all saw there was no traffic. Well, you got to stop. That's the law.

Okay. So now the bicyclists want to be able to do that. and have it be legal. But I'm supposed to treat them just like a regular automobile on the road, but they want to be able to just roll through stop signs? Well, yes, look, you're still going to have to stop if there's traffic, Jeff. It's not just giving the rights to bicyclists to go right through the intersection. I'm sure that many of the bicyclists believe that there are plenty of occasions.

where it's safer for them to just roll through that stop sign, ah, without coming to a complete stop. Because why? Oh, that's right. Because if you come to a complete stop, then you might not be seen by motorists. Wait.

So you're not coming to a complete stop just means that we'll see you and you'll be safer. Not following the rules of the road means that you'll be safe. for. Okay. All right. So the proposal gives the cyclists the freedom to use reasonable judgment and stop or yield at an intersection if there's no oncoming traffic, allowing them to maintain momentum. Well, I would like to say I want that law to. I want that law to. I want to be able to use reasonable judgment at a stop or yield sign when there's no oncoming traffic. So that I I could maintain my momentum in my vehicle as gas prices go through the roof and it costs more for me to accelerate from a dead stop at a stop side when there's no traffic.

And I think I want that right with red lights as well. All intersections. I want the I want the right to use reasonable judgments to stop or yield because I can't tell you how many mornings I have to stop. at 4.30 a.m. in the morning with no traffic and a side road light turns red. It is insane for me to have to stop and other vehicles to have to stop at those red lights at 4.30 in the morning when there's no traffic. It's a waste of gas. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of energy. The only thing it isn't a waste of is a city, municipality, enhancing revenue when the police pull you over for running a red light. And that's a way.

all it's there for. It jives me insane. And we have, you know, may have touched on that subject before. But now the bicyclists in California want to be able to do that. And you know that it's coming to a state near you very, very soon. I can't take it. I'm not sure if this is a crime or not, but it is, I don't know, a fascinating story. So in Florida, investigators are looking into the case. of this transient woman who was found bound and naked inside a storm drain. All right. So right there you're thinking, whoa, man, is she okay? What happened?

So a man was leaving a local Fort Myers restaurant and he heard this woman's low-pitched calls for help. And he, you know, goes over and he looks and sees a woman inside a drain at the parking lot, you know, where the water rolls into. and so he, I guess, couldn't lift the drain or didn't know what to do. So he called police and they show up and they see that her legs are bound with straps. Okay. So the fire department was called to remove the iron gate.

So I guess nobody could remove this iron gate. We needed to get the fire department involved. So the guy couldn't lift the iron gate, couldn't get other people to help him. The police were like, no, we're not lifting that. Sorry, you're all bound with straps down there and that. down there on that sewage drain and that water drain, but we can't help you.

So we're going to call the fire department. So the fire department comes and they remove, we finally find somebody that could remove the iron gate. And they pick it up and then they get the woman out of the drain. And the woman then is uncooperative. She refuses to offer any information about why she was in the drain, why she was bound with straps, anything. They realized that she had been staying at a nearby,

motel the month before. So they took her photo to the hotel and the staff didn't recognize the woman. And they took the woman to the hospital to receive treatment, but we have no idea why she was in the drain strapped, having her legs bound with straps in the drain. So I don't know if a crime was involved. I don't know why this lady is in the storm drain. Well, it's just a fascinating story, and it does make me miss living in Florida.

And if I told you about a guy by the name of Kevion Hooks, who was arrested for armed robbery in which he took a backpack and the victim's prosthetic leg. So apparently he came up to the guy with a large metal spike and took the victim's backpack and also took his prosthetic leg. and he asked the victim how much the backpack was worth, how much the stuff in the backpack was worth, and how much the prosthetic leg was worth. Now, the police apprehended him. When they found him, he had the victim's leg strapped to his head.

So I guess it makes it easier to carry. If you strap it to your head, I don't know. Maybe there's, you know, something more wrong with Mr. Hooks than just the criminal element. But police say they took the leg off hooks and gave it back to the victim. Isn't that special? I guess they kept the backpack for evidence. So instead of keeping the leg for evidence, they said, there you go. You can have your leg back.

But if I told you that that didn't happen in Florida, you'd say, no way. That's a Florida story. But it did. It happened in Oklahoma. It didn't happen in Florida. Sad. Sad. Some of these stories are now breaking out of the state of Florida.

I don't know what else to tell you. Sad. All right, let's go to the break room. I did something cold to drink desperately. Oh, my gosh. That's so good. All right, as long as we're in the break room, remember, you can follow me on Twitter at Jeffie, JFR.

You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram, Jeff Fisher Radio. You can email me chewing the fat at the blaze.com. You can leave a message on the fat line, 214, 7359356. I get to those not as often as I would like. And if you are a subscriber to the show, make sure you leave a message or, I mean, you know, you leave a review.

You're going to leave a message. I don't know that Apple or Stitcher or Spotify, let you leave a message. But if they do, leave one and tell them, hey, chewing the fat is the podcast to listen to. I see, speaking of Twitter, I see that they paid, or they're going to pay.

They want to settle a lawsuit, alleging, now they're just alleging that Jack Dorsey and others misled investors. Get out of here. They wouldn't do that. Well, they're going to go ahead and settle that class action for $809.5 million.

Now, you say to yourself, well, there's admission right there. Well, no. The final settlement agreement will not include or constitute an admission, concession or finding of any fault liability or wrongdoing by the company or any defendant. Oh, okay, so you're just going to pay the $809.5 million just to get rid of this case off the dockets, right? It hasn't been approved by the court yet, although it probably will be. Did you know that right now Twitter has four, as of June, the end of June 2021,

4.13 billion dollars in cash and equivalents as well as short-term investments worth 4.48 billion. Oh, that's it, though? Yeah. Twitter said it had average monetizable daily active users of 206 million, up from $199 million in the first quarter, end up 11% over year to year. Wow, with international markets accounting for all of the growth, as the U.S. DAUs declined by a million. Wow, going down. Yeah, something to think about it.

Now, the two people, the two plaintiffs in the securities fraud class action suit against Twitter were the National Elevator Industry Pension Fund, represented by Robbins, Geller, Rudman, and Dowd, and KBC Asset Management, Nevada, or I'm sorry, I don't know that it's, it's, KBC Asset Management NV, NV, represented by Motley Rice LLC. So if that's it, the pension fund and the KBC Asset Management NV split up $809.5 million.

That's not a bad payday, although this original lawsuit was filed in 2016. So it's been, you know, hanging around for a few years. apparently Dorsey and others, including former CEO, Dick Costolo and board member Evan Williams, hid facts about Twitter's slowing user growth while they sold their personal stock holdings for hundreds of millions of dollars in insider profits. But remember, them settling this case. It does not include or constitute an admission, concession, or finding of any fault.

liability or wrongdoing by the company or any defendant. So don't think they're guilty. Just think they're paying this $809.5 million to get this nasty little bug off the table. So I see where the Emmys, we talked about the winners and the losers yesterday on chewing the fat, but I see their ratings went up a little. They've got to be kind of happy about that. It's still, I mean, I know that they increased by 16%. but 7.4 million viewers really isn't that good.

But last year, I mean, they had 6.4 million. I mean, it felt like nobody. So this year they had, you know, a million more. And that doesn't count the streaming. That's just CBS. So in 2018, the Emmys were on NBC, and that brought in 10.2 million. And then in 2019, it was 6.9.

So it went from 10.2 to 6.9 to 6.4 and then we're back up to 7.4. I will say that that's good. It means that more people are watching the shows that are being honored or trying to win awards on the Emmys than they are at the Academy Awards. I know we're still want people to go to the theaters, but it's not going to happen. These people are creating great content and people have been watching it. and this content is really, really good. I'm very, you know, I love to send the content that they're providing. But also, I want you to know that the show set a record for diversity,

which I know you cared about, and I did. Of course, they had 49 black or indigenous people of color nominated across all categories. However, the bad news is the big, the main wins. The main wins were received by men. mainly white entertainers. You bastards. I see where Harvey Weinstein, you know him, you love them,

again pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault yesterday in L.A. His defense attorney complained that prosecutors are training a water cannon of uncharged allegations at him. Now, he pleaded not guilty to the same charges in July shortly after being extradited to Los Angeles from New York,

but prosecutors have brought a new indictment against him. They brought it in August, and they want to try to salvage a charge that had been dismissed on Statue of Limitations. So he was, again, wheeled into court, wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and a mask below his nose. He spoke briefly agreeing to waive trial deadlines, and the trial's not even expected to start until next spring

at the earliest. Why did we need to get him to L.A. from New York? I don't know. He's struggling. He's got, they're saying that it's akin to solitary confinement because he's held away. He's at the Twin Towers Jail in downtown L.A.

So we'll see. I mean, he may not even live to see this trial even come to fruition. There you have it. He pleaded not guilty, and he's still in jail. So don't worry about it. The prosecution also rested its case against R. Kelly in the sex crimes and racketeering trial.

That's the prosecution. They rested their case. It's been five weeks since that case started. And now we have the defense that's going to start their case and present their witnesses. So no telling on how long that's going to go on. But we'll see how that. unfolds. Not to worry, R. Kelly is still in jail.

He was moved from the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center to a Brooklyn detention center ahead of this trial. So you can rest assured he's being, he's being kept in jail. He's not out on the streets. We don't want that to happen. And you know who are out on the street? The McCloskey's.

Yeah, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, remember them? They confronted a group of most, black protesters who entered their gated community in route to demonstrate in front of their nearby home of the former St. Louis mayor. Remember when they brought out their weapons? And we thought it was

all said and done and over. Yeah. No. They've, I know that they went ahead and pleaded guilty. And they cut a deal for, well, Mark pleaded guilty to misdemeanor, fourth degree

assault. he paid a $750 fine. Patricia pleaded guilty to the same date to misdemeanor harassment and was ordered to pay a $2,000 fine. Mark is now running for U.S. Senate, which, you know, may have something to do with this, but the governor pardoned them, both of them, in July. But according to this guy who is going after them, pretzel. I know it's not pretzel. Alan D. Pratzel, P-R-A-T-Z-E-L.

He cited the couple's guilty-pleased to misdemeanors, stemming from the incident. He wants them to be suspended from practicing law. He wants their law license. Huh. I wonder if it has anything to do with him running for Senate in the state. Anyway, it just shows he claims that their indifference to public safety and involved moral turpoles.

prud warranting discipline of the pair. Wait, the governor pardoned them. Yeah, well, so what? Just because he pardoned them, according to pretzel, he claims that the pardon erases a person's conviction, not the person's, no, I want to quote him, okay? I want to quote him, that while a pardon erases a person's conviction, the person's guilt remains.

Does it? Does it? Pretzel? When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. It's just $39.99? How could I resist?

This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard? At these prices, could I find something for everyone at winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting.

Winners, find fabulous for less. So I wanted to take a couple of minutes and talk a little bit about book banning. Yes, book banning. I know that it's not a big topic here on chewing the fat, but it has been a big topic around the country, in particular in Pennsylvania,

where they're banning books. And one of the authors is Brad Meltzer, who had a book of his band in Pennsylvania. Brad, welcome to chewing in fact. Good to talk to you. How are you, my friend? I appreciate it. Good to be back. And I will tell you in the time since you and I planned this, and, in fact, in the last hour or so, I found out that not only did they ban one of our books, they banned two of our books.

Oh, my gosh. Which is unbelievable to me. So, and I say banned, and I hate to, you know, I don't want to break. Yeah, let's talk about what they mean. Yeah. Bog you down with facts, but, you know, it's just frozen. Right. So, yeah, so let's talk about it.

So right. So the school board says, we didn't ban anything. We just froze these books because we want to be able to go through these lists of resources, which sounds like a very fair thing to do. And I would absolutely. It does sound like a fair thing. Right. You do not give books to kids without going through them first and making sure these are the

appropriate books. the problem arises is the freeze started last October. And it's been now 11 and a half months of quote unquote freezing these books. So I'll give you a little time. And you know what? It's not like these are all novels that are 500 pages. These are kids books. The majority of them are kids books.

You know, there are Malala's autobiography. There's the book about hidden figures, the women who help NASA. There's, you know, books by Sonia Sotomayy or. And I think truthfully, there are some things on here. There are some things you may want to look at twice and say, what's that book? I don't know that book. But the majority of these books are pretty basic, obvious books. There's a Sesame Street book on how to talk to your kids about racism.

It's Sesame Street, right? It's not a culture war. It's not critical race theory. It's just basic stuff. And I think where they messed up is they took a year to do it. And when you take a year where you have your librarians don't know if they can order it and you have teachers going, am I going to be in trouble if I talk about it? Now you've got a problem. And that's why we're calling it a ban is because they took a year.

So if you freeze it for a year, guess what? You've got a problem. It's a ban. And also the problem that looks as though, although they deny it again, that it was based a lot on race. Right. I mean, at most, all the books were either about people of color or written by people of color. And listen, they say that's a coincidence. Maybe it is.

I mean, and that's my thing. My thing is, is I don't ever try to presume what's in someone's heart. Okay. I don't want to look at someone and shout, you're a racist, you're a horrible person. It's just not productive. And, you know, again, it's just stupidity in optics here is you have an all white school board who basically, as you said, takes this list. where every, just about every single book on there is by someone who's a person of color or is written about a person of color.

Right. And, you know, you do the math, right? It's not, it's not, and it's just a bad look. Again, just anyone who would advise any of these people, like, listen, take your time, look at the books, make sure we have good books for our kids. The reason why you and I are talking right now, and this gives the best example of all, is truthfully, they picked the wrong book. They picked our book on Rosa Parks.

Hello. And they picked our book on Martin Luther King, Jr. I am Rosa Parks. I am Martin Luther King Jr. And the reason why we're talking is because that made national news. Not because I wrote something that was so great or anything else, but it's a children's book about Rosa Parks. It's the one person where everyone knows.

It's not an agenda book. It's not like some high school book that's talking about, like, you know, it doesn't rewrite history. It's a book that has been out for seven years now. If you go on Amazon, it's literally listed as a teacher's pick. It's read all over the country. People know the book as being like a basic story for little kids, four to ten years old to teaching who Rosa Parks is.

And that's on the list. And now everyone goes, you messed up. Like I was on CNN and Fox News, right, within 24 hours of each other. Those two networks agree on something, you screwed up. It's a problem. You got a problem. And I know, look, I guess we're okay with, and I don't want to, it's not banning. It's just age appropriate, right?

We say, you know, we have certain books that are age appropriate or documentaries or online resources that are all age appropriate. But when you start taking things away, that's a problem. That's a huge problem. Now you're limiting education. Right. And again, we all have our opinions on what's too much and what's not enough. But I don't think there's anyone on the planet that with a right mind says, you know who we should ban Rosa Parks?

I know we should ban Dr. King. Those are the troublemakers. And again, it's not like we're talking about the controversial figures here. And listen, race is a hard subject. I'll be the first to say it. It's a hard subject. I mean, when I did our Rosa Parks book, I went for help. You know, I was like, I need help here. I had John Lewis, you know, literally representative

John Lewis read our Rosa Parks book and liked it so much and he agreed to be our advisor and read an early draft of the I am Martin Luther King Jr. book. We work really hard to make sure we're doing it correctly, being fair, showing exactly what happened in a way that's age appropriate with like advisors to advise us on, you know, how can kids understand race or not? You know, when we do our PBS TV show that's based on the books, we have, I couldn't tell you how much. many countless advisors that are in there making sure we're doing it in a way that it won't be objectionable, it's not political. And this whole book series was designed to teach kindness and compassion and empathy and talk about hard subjects with kids.

I mean, you started it so your kids would have heroes. That's incredible. Right. And if you're not, but my point is, is race is hard. It's all hard, but nothing good comes from not talking about hard subjects. that's why we wrote the books. So you can teach your kids how to deal, give them heroes to deal with, you know, issues of race, issues of being different, issues of what it's like when you're being bullied. You know, we do in the Abraham Lincoln book.

We try and give kids these great lessons. And you have a school board in York, Pennsylvania, who just is like sitting on these books for a year. You know, and they know what they're doing. They're not stupid. They know what they're doing. So since this has become big news, have you or any of your people heard of other school districts around the country that have been kind of doing the same thing? You know, it's a good question.

You know, it's a good question. The sad part is, you know, so two things. One, the one thing we've heard is how many people are fighting back. If you go to our Facebook page or our Twitter page or Instagram or anywhere else, you know, we basically found two women who are working as like kind of covert librarians who are making sure. And again, not to just buy I am Rosa Parks or I am Martin Luther King Jr. But all the books on the list, you can pick out your books. You can go on their list and they're going to put them in libraries across the county so that kids can see these books.

Because they're really sweet books. They're sweet books about these issues. You know, you want your kid to have Sesame Street. You want your kid to have Malala. These are basic, you know, bread and butter. Yes. But to answer your question as to, you know, so that's the first thing that we've had push back to, which is good.

but as for other places, you know, I just want to be honest about it. Like, I fear that we're going to see more of these arguments. I do too. The reason we're going to see it is because critical race theory has become the new boogie man. It's the new thing to rile us all up as a wedge issue and make us all hate each other. And it's like, remember when, remember when Tipper Gore was rounding up all the records and being like it's going to, you know, rap music's going to rot our minds? I wish I was enough to remember that, Brad. Right, right.

What are you talking about? Yeah, I'm saying, but you look back, right? I look back at those. I just saw like some images of it when they said that, you know, rock music, rap music is going to rot our kids' brains. And you look at it and you go like, wow, that was like such an of the moment thing that was such a bad call. Right. And I think, listen, critical race theory when you look at where it comes from, from like, you know,

the high levels of academia. have you talked to any teachers, especially elementary school teachers, they're not interested in indoctrinating people. They just want to teach their kids how to share. They want to teach their kids kindness. And you know what? If you're not teaching race and issues of race to your kids, you're doing them a disservice. And it doesn't mean you bab and half the country.

I agree with that. It doesn't mean you have to undo like who we are as a culture. But if you just show how everything is great in America. and nothing's ever been bad. That's not history. That's propaganda. And if you just show that everything is all about race and everything's all about, like, again, you'll have the other side, but like we got to get out of this extreme back and forth.

Because what I've seen happen is, you know, you have the conservative side is like critical race theory, we've got to be done with it. And then you see the liberals go, what are you talking about? Aren't you the ones who always complain about cancel culture? And then the could have say, you're the ones who are cancel culture. And it goes back and forth. And what we lose sight of is we lose sight of common sense. We lose sight of, and that's where we wind up banning Rosa Parks and banning Dr. King.

Because you got everyone all ginned up. You got teachers worried, can I use this book or not? Am I going to get in trouble? And they're going to label a critical race theory, even though it's just a regular book on race. You have people on the conservative side all ginned up and all worried, oh, my gosh, they're indoctrine in my children. So everyone thinks everyone's going to kill them. You know what reminds me of? There's this great program.

I love that's in Israel. And it's this program where they take a bunch of Israeli kids and a bunch of Palestinian kids and they put them in camp together, summer camp. And they just put them together. They don't know each other. They're from opposite sides of the territory. And on the first night, one of the heads said that nobody goes to sleep. No one sleeps at all the first night because they're all worried that the other side is going to kill the other side. All the Jews think that the Palestinians are going to kill them.

All the Palestinians think that the Jewish kids are going to kill them. And then of course what happens is the moment they find their common ground, they're kids and they play and they play ball and they play baseball and they play whatever else being played there. And it's just human beings. And right now, my long window way of saying we're so at edge about this issue of race that all we're doing is finger pointing and we got to grab a little bit more common sense and middle ground. Amen. Amen. So are we going to grab some common sense and middle ground in Pennsylvania or are we still at war? You know, I will tell you, I am not, I don't hate on people like that. I feel, I feel heartbroken for what's happened in Pennsylvania. I heard through the Gravevine that there's another meeting that hopefully is coming up any moment now. My hope is that they're going to be shamed and to realize that maybe we should probably let some of these books go through so kids can have the books that are pretty basic and obvious. Pull the ones you think you've got to look at twice, but I looked at the list. I mean, you know, there's books like I am enough. It's like a book about empathy.

That's literally what it is. I mean, it's a book about teaching empathy to your kids. Like, if you're not doing that, you're doing it wrong. If you're not giving them Rosa Parks, you're doing them wrong. It doesn't have to even be our book. These are basic lessons for American kids to learn. And I hope that they find the common ground. They really do.

I hope so, too. I hope that we hear from Central York School District that they have come to their senses and actually have some common sense. Brad Meltzer, you can get anything you want from Brad Meltzer at Brad Meltzer.com. Like my favorite saying at Brad Meltzer.com is, we are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy.

We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day. And I love that because I realize every time I read that, that my days of the spectacular and the hero days are a lot, a lot less than the others. Yeah, and listen, and now, and for all of us, right, that doesn't make you bad. It makes you human.

Brad, I thank you very much, my friend. Thanks, my friend. Please keep us informed and let us know if there's anything else we can do. No, thanks for doing what you do. And I encourage everyone, go to our, go to our Facebook page, our social media pages. There's a link on there and buy some of the books on the list. You'll know which ones you like. Pick out the ones you like.

You'll see famous people that you know on it. Buy their books. If you want to buy ours, great. but the whole list is spectacular. And that's how you, you know, those books will go out into the community in York, Pennsylvania. To me, that's how we fight back. And we really should go out. You know, I was just so amazed at people that don't want, you know, that talk about banning things.

I mean, that's just incredible to me. Banning isn't the way to the future. No, no, listen, if you're banning books, you're on the wrong side of history. No kidding. That's it. Thanks, Brad. I'll talk to you later, my friend. I appreciate it.

So I talked to Brad yesterday afternoon about this. After we spoke, he found out that there was going to be a school board meeting that was virtual, obviously, and that it was a public meeting and that he was going to be involved in it. And he, of course, showed up and read his books. And then we find out that the Central York School District unanimously voted to reinstate the four page of diversity resources banned last year. Duh, I'm glad that they finally, you know, came to their senses. So they reinstated the full list of books.

And Brad communicated on his Facebook page that the York community was so inspiring. And they told stories of why talking about race is so vital. And I know that I wanted to talk to Brad and get his today feelings on what happened. And he's traveling. So bless his heart, he's on the road, and apparently there's no phone service where he's traveling. So all I know is that the York School District, the Central York School District, heard that Brad had recorded an interview with chewing the fat, and they did not want it to air without already acting on their ban by reinstating the full list of books.

So the York community has their books back And the band is over But it's still a little shady Maybe we get rid of the school board Just a thought on my part That could still happen by the way Anyway, thanks to Brad Meltzer And of course you can get any information on Brad

By going to bradmeltzer.com It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cado Cephora of the Fats that I just Denichie who me energize so much It's the ensemble. The formats standard and mini regrouped, and the aband.

And the embellage, too beau, who is practically to give to do it. And I know that I should be they offer. But I'm I guard the Summer Fridays

and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm, I'm sure. The most ensemble the gift of the fair

beauty, Way, Cifora Collection and other part of the VIT. Procurry you see for a standard

and mini regrouped for a better for a place or in magazine. So I see it's almost time

for Fat Bear Week to begin. if you're listening live to this broadcast today, it is the 21st of September 2021. And Fat Bear Week is the 29th. It starts the September 29th through October 5th. And we'll have fun going through the Bears and who wins and everyone can vote and how you can vote. And that's from the Cat Mai National Forest up in Alaska. And I'll try to reach out and talk to one of the Rangers there like we do every year about

Fat Bear Week. But they've added this year the Fat Bear Week Jr., which comes up the 23rd and the 24th. So just a couple of days from now where you're going to be able to vote. And they want to add a junior bear to, you know, who wins the fattest junior bear, then gets to go on to the Fat Bear Week polls. And, you know, it's going to be the first few votes probably will be the cuteness of, the cute little fat bear is going to win. But no, we better not have any pity votes for the little cuteness of the fat bear.

We want, this is supposed to be for fat bears, not for a little baby fat bears. Okay. So we have to definitely talk to Kat Mai about that. I hope they realize that they could end up with a pity winner and have the fat bear junior win. And so I hope we've found a way around that. Did you see where a bunch of penguins got killed by a swarm of bees in South Africa? I know. I thought that, wow, Mother Nature taking care of a little business, saying no.

Maybe you're caring for the penguins a little bit too much humans. They need to be gone. So 63 birds found dead because the bees, well, the bees know. The bees know. So a post-mortem revealed that all the penguins had multiple bee stings. Oh, wow. They had stings in their eyes and on their wings. It was ugly.

And one of the pictures showed the penguins on the beach. It's kind of sad, actually, thinking that they were all attacked by bees. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to be killed by a swarm of bees. but according to this, honey bees die after stinging and many dead bees were found at the site where the birds had died.

So they're being tested for other toxicity possibilities and diseases. So yeah, the bunch of bee stings all over the penguins couldn't be the cause of death. It had to be, and what caused it, maybe the penguins were sick

with some other disease, and the bees were like, hey, we're doing you a favor. We're going to put you down. okay and I know they're complaining look mother nature that's the way it works I see a big story about koala's going extinct in Australia so I mean I love them they're cute little things they're all we got them in zoos that's what we have zoos for but there's new data shows wild koala numbers have plunged 30% in three years okay well quit trying to

save them maybe they'll grow back and they're blaming it of course land clearing bushfires, dogs, disease. Yeah, that's called Mother Nature. And I know that, you know, we want to have the big Coala Protection Act. Okay, have the Coala Protection Act. Are people sitting down to Coala Dinner in Australia? I don't think so.

So, I mean, we're not eating them yet. But, I mean, the numbers have dropped quite a bit in Australia. There's no question. So they're going away. So be ready to. lose koalas in Australia if you, you know, if you, if you care. I know, they're cute. Shut up. Speaking of animals, I see the monkeys are on tour. I know. You'd think, wait, the monkeys? Yeah, the monkeys are on tour. They're in Texas this month. And I don't know they'd be worth

seeing or not. It'd be a fun kind of thing, I guess, but, you know, that's about it. And I see the Eagles are on tour. They're here in this neck of the woods this week today. I believe tonight there in Dallas. It'd be a fun show to go and see. Although, you know, I don't even know if Michael's going to be there, right? He's been sick. They had to cancel some shows.

He's probably back now. And I saw a big complaint about Phil Collins. Genesis is on their farewell tour. And they're saying Phil looked frail and he sat in a chair the whole show. Well, yeah. I mean, he barely went to prime. practices, right? He's been fighting with the X over the house in Florida, and he's doing this, and he was just saying, look, this is, this is it, okay? He's 70 now. He said, you know, he can't barely,

his arthritis is so bad. His fingers are all screwed up for, you know, drumming for so many years, and I guess doing it wrong. Yeah, he did it wrong. He's Phil Collins. Oh, my gosh. Oh, he didn't do it properly? Yeah, didn't he? Okay. Tell me about that proper way again. So he's, and he's not the only one. One of the other, Rutherford sat on a stool off and on through the show. Yeah, these guys, I mean, hello, they're like a hundred. Phil's only 70, Jeff.

I know. But you got the stones going on tour here pretty soon. And I don't know if the stones, you know, they don't sit down. And Mick, you know, is usually dancing around on stage. But we lost one of them. not too long ago so these are their final tours

okay so if you have an opportunity to see them now would be the time there's no question about that it'd be good to see I mean it would be fun to see Genesis too but I don't know

you want to see these old guys I mean I'm willing to watch it on YouTube I guess but to pay and go see them live I don't know I don't know Plus during the COVID world, that really is. I don't know.

I mean, we have, you have to be vaccinated and you've got to be probed and wiped down before you go to these shows. I remember back in the good old days when you could just show up and spread your germs at these shows everywhere. You don't get those days back. I saw we're a restaurant. And I don't know that I agree with the restaurant owner, but it's his place and he can do what he wants. But and it's here in Texas, of course. The owner is defending his no masks allowed policy after asking a couple to leave when they refuse to take their masks off while inside. So a couple shows up at this bar and they put their mask out and they were asked, hey, we don't allow people to wear masks here.

We don't want people to wear masks here. And so they're saying, hey, we're fully vaccinated. We want to put our masks on. We have a four-month-old son at home. I guess the kid was at home. I don't think the kid was with him who is immunocompromised. And we just wanted to, you know, come out. And the manager's like, yeah, no, you've got to take your mask off or you're not allowed here.

So if you're going to put your mask on, get out. And the owner says, look, I spent my money on this business. I put my blood, sweat and tears. I don't want any masks in here. Now, and he thinks that the reaction with the, mask is ridiculous in the United States right now. I tend to agree with that. However, really, the argument isn't not wearing masks or wearing masks.

The argument is being forced to wear masks. So if he has a no mask policy and you want to wear a mask, let him wear a mask. That's the whole point of the whole thing. The thing isn't, don't, you know, we don't want to wear a mask ever. Well, I mean, kind of is. But if you're going to make a rule, make the rule your choice. We prefer you wear masks, but if you don't, so be it. Or we prefer you don't wear masks.

But if you do, so be it. I mean, it just seems a little much to kick people out for wearing a mask or to kick people out for not wearing a mask. It just seems a little much. Maybe it's just me. So I hear that we had what appeared to be a meteor explosion. this weekend or Friday morning, this past Friday morning, over the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. Flashes seen loud boom, ground shaking. Apparently, people saw a bright silver light pass across the sky.

One listener to Chewing the Fat contacted me and said that they were about 25 miles from where it happened. Nobody has contacted her, so I don't know how deep of an investigation is going on. but this listener claimed that there's big booms and explosions that happened, and she didn't think much of it because it happens often in West Virginia. I guess farmers are busy, you know, blowing up stuff in West Virginia. So she didn't think much of it. Okay, you know, if you say so, I guess NASA is currently investigating the incident. Yeah, you'd think that NASA would be investigating the incident because maybe that would be something

that they would, you know, like to know about. I would say that I would like them to know about it before it strikes the earth. But I know in the words from the documentary, Armageddon, it's a big ass sky. I got it. We also, this weekend, had a plane crash in Texas in Fort Worth or Lake Worth, not far from here. Not far from where I live. The plane just, you know, decided that it was going to crash. Nice.

It was a training jet. So two people, the instructor and a student, ejected from the aircraft. And they apparently were the only ones that were pretty hurt. One of the pilots landed on some power lines and got kind of burned a little bit. And the other one landed in some trees and, you know, hurt himself as he flew back to Earth. or, you know, at least, you know, glided back to Earth as soft as possible.

But no one was seriously injured in the neighborhood. Pretty remarkable. Pretty remarkable. And it talked about how the military at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth were prepared for it. They had nothing like that had happened before, but they were always prepared for the possibility of something like this happening where one of their planes would crash into a neighborhood that they fly over frequently.

Planes fly over my house all the time. And some days they're pretty freaking low. And I think about it a lot because I'm telling you, and when I drive to the studios from my house, I, you know, drive past DFW, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. And over the one interstate, most of the time, depending on where the winds are coming from, they land coming in over this interstate that I travel on.

And some days, I mean, they get them rowed up. We've talked about it before. They row them up. You look up in the sky and there's three landing strips that they've got planes rowed up and backed up in the skies, two and three deep. And they're just coming in and they're crossing that interstate. And, you know, it's been a while since one has crashed there, knock on, you know, some kind of wood.

but I think about it a lot thinking that that what would you do if it happened you know around you in front of you because if it lands on you, you're not doing anything, right? I mean, it's over. Have a nice day.

But if it's in the vicinity, you have to act. You have to do something. You have to help people, right? Or do you just, man, get out the phone and start filming. That's what you do. You get out the phone and start filming.

filming and now you've got some footage, then it's all. Then you help. Or you post the pictures so you make some money from them. Now you help, you help. That's it. Stream and subscribe to more Blaze Media content at theblaze.com slash podcasts. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets.

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