The Eric Metaxas Show - Pedro Gonzalez

Episode Date: March 19, 2022

Pedro Gonzalez from Chronicles Magazine covers two big topics -- Russia-Ukraine and the trans tyranny in schools; plus, a quick-quiz Fun Facts Friday.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. As you know, every single week on this program, I have our friend John Zmirak. We value him tremendously. And every now and again, again, John insists that we have a certain guest on, and we take that seriously. John was insisting that we have on Pedro Gonzalez.

We weren't aware of Pedro until John brought him to our attention. He's a senior writer for Chronicles, a magazine of American culture. But I think that's just the most tremendous credential you could hold, is that highly recommended by the great John. John Zmirak. So Pedro Gonzalez, with those in Comia, I welcome you to the Erkmataxis show. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on. It's good to be here. Well, thanks for what you do and for being worthy of John's praises, because that's not a small thing. You write about a lot of different things at Chronicles. By the way, what's the website for Chronicles

in case people want to check that out right now? Chroniclesmagize.org. Chronicles Magazine.org. Why don't we start with the Ukrainian-Russian situation? There's been so much confusion on that, so much propaganda. So let's start there. What do you have to say on that issue? That's a very wide open question. What I have to say is that we need to remember the American interest and we need to remember the mistakes

of Iraq and Afghanistan and all of the tragedy those things entailed for everyone involved, Americans, Afghans, Iraqis, and everyone else, because it seems like we are not remembering those things. By we, I mean, are leaders. And they are doing everything they can to morally blackmail and emotionally manipulate us into another war. This time, a war between countries that have nuclear weapons. It is not less than arresting to think about why we go to war, what happens when we go to war. It's one thing to go to a war with Iraq. But yeah, when you're going to war with Russia, which has nuclear weapons, the situation has

changed. It's the same with China. It's been a long time, I think. since we in the United States have grappled with the question of nuclear war. I mean, it's the kind of thing that we talked about a lot in the 1950s, a little bit into the 60s. We remember the famous Barry Goldwater or the ad against Barry Goldwater saying that, you know, he's a bellicose individual. If you don't elect Lyndon Johnson, we're going to have a mushroom cloud.

It'll be the end of the world. Stanley Kubrick makes Dr. Strange Love. There was something in that time, maybe because nuclear weapons were fairly new. But we seem to have forgotten about the specter of nuclear war. And suddenly what you're saying and what others are saying is that it's actually real. It's actually on the table. It ought to give us pause. Yeah.

That's right. giving his pause. Instead, we're using the language of people that live in bubbles, war games, chances, percentage. That's how we're discussing nuclear war. You have experts. Many of these people have never fired a shot in anger. I've never been to war. And my very simple philosophy is that I don't support wars that I wouldn't fight in. And you have these people who wouldn't fight in any war. And they're saying that, well, you know, we have to make the gamble. That doing these things, like establishing a no-fly zone, which I think this is a really insanely irresponsible thing that the media is doing and that pollsters are doing.

They're calling Americans, they're asking Americans, do you support a no-fly zone? And Americans who don't know anything about what that entails, they'll say, yes. What it entails is shooting down Russian aircraft. I mean, this is what John has said this, and it's almost funny because we're living in a world where people use these anodyne, happy-sounding terms like no-fly zone. Isn't that great? No-fly zone. It sounds neutral. There's nothing neutral about it. If somebody, if a Russian plane enters the no-fly zone, we are obliged to blast them out of the sky and potentially launch a nuclear war. So it's kind of amazing that the same media that was calling Trump bellicose that have called any other Republican president,

bellicose, saber-rattling, cowboy, maniac. Suddenly, grandpa in the White House is more bellicose than any of them. Yeah. And so you have these people that write for the Atlantic or that are part of the Atlantic Council. And that's the language they're using is that we, well, we have to take the risk of nuclear war in order to save democracy in Ukraine. And so they're willing to gamble with millions of lives. And some people have pushed back. on me when I say that. It's actually billions of lives. I don't even want to imagine that. But I mean, that's ultimately what these people are doing. They're telling you that we're willing

to risk. Although they've been wrong about so many other things, just a long, decades-long record of being wrong about important things that have catastrophic consequences are now telling you, trust us. We're going to make, this gamble is worth it. And anyone who doesn't, Anyone who disagrees with us on this is unpatriotic, is a Kremlin stooge, or just is afraid. You know, you're a coward for not wanting to gamble with all of these innocent lives. Well, it's interesting. I think Americans have learned the harsh lessons, you know, whether it's Vietnam or the Iraq War or Afghanistan. I think people are much more realistic about what may be more jaundiced.

about the idea of sending our kids to die. And so, yeah, when you hear people speaking about this cavalierly, you really wonder why that is. I am still myself puzzled about why the media and others are portraying Ukraine as this, you know, bastion of democracy that is worth. sending Americans to die for. It's just, it doesn't add up, I guess, at least, at least it doesn't add up. There's been a lot of talk about how the rights or conservatives project fantasies onto Russia about what Russia is, and I think the most common one you hear is that people on the

right think that Russia is a, is a bastion of Christianity in the last, the last part of civilized Europe, truly civilized Europe, right? Now, I don't believe that. that there are some people that do, but you hear this a lot. This is a drumbeat that has been pounded continuously since this whole conflict started. And it's used to somehow make the anti-interventionists look delusional or pro-Puton or something like that. But I think the opposite is actually, or I should say the inverse is actually truer that like you said, there are people, we'll call them liberal interventionists who project all sorts of fantasies onto Ukraine, that it's a bastion of democracy, that this is a battle over nationalism, that Zelensky is some kind of paragon of

freedom and liberty, and, you know, he's an anti-corruption crusader. What is true is that there are Ukrainians who I deeply sympathize with who are fighting for their homeland, but that is separate from the actual Ukrainian government itself, which is deeply corrupt. It's as corrupt as all of the previous Ukrainian governments that were supposedly more corrupt. It's the same. It hasn't really changed at all. And to say that this, to frame it as a battle, as is this Mnitian conflict between good and evil, it actually totally misses what's at stake here.

And say that the Russian army miraculously collapses tomorrow, we've only actually dealt with the symptoms. we haven't actually addressed what got us to this point, the Western liberal interventionist elites that made this collision course inevitable. Well, that's that is the question and that's something that I've been talking about. We know that if Trump were president, this wouldn't be happening,

that he projected a kind of strength that kept figures like Putin and the Chinese communist in check to some extent under Biden. The opposite is true. We'll be right back talking to Pedro Gonzalez. You can find him at chroniclesmagine.org. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor

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We need everyone to participate. If you haven't yet participated, please do so. Go to metaxis talk.com. This is very important. We really need your help. I have the joy of speaking with Pedro Gonzalez, who comes highly recommended by our dear friend, John Zmirak. think of no greater praise than the idea that you've been praised by Johns Merak.

Pedro, you write for Chronicles Magazine, Chronicles Magazine.org. You've written a lot of articles. Let's finish up a little bit on the Ukraine thing and then get into the issue of parents fighting against CRT in their schools. But let's continue. Anything else you want to say about the Ukraine-Russia dynamic? No, apart from the fact that, like I said, to your audience, to anyone who's willing to listen is put your hands over your ears when you hear the siren songs of war again

and remember what the actual price Americans and people around the world have paid for things like Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember that I think a good way to think about this or a vivid way to think about this is the, I think it was the third Rambo movie concluded with a still frame of the Mujahideen fighters. this film is dedicated to the brave fighters of Mujahideen, who we had armed and trained against the Soviets. Fast forward, we withdraw from Afghanistan in a really hasty, haphazard way, and the United States government launches a drone strike that wipes out a family of 10, I think seven, including seven children, somewhere around that, just this tragedy, right? And before the dust even settles,

what does General Mark Milley say about it? It was a righteous strike. Those same people are now telling you that you have to listen to them and basically go back into Iraq, except, like I said before, this time with nuclear weapons. And you should listen to your gut when it's telling you that there's something wrong here. Well, look, the headline to me, correct me from wrong, is that the more we see and hear, the more we know that there are people in the leadership class in the United States, in the military, in the Pennsylvania, Pentagon, who do not represent the best interests of the American people? We the people who are the government have allowed these people to take control of the levers of power, to take control

of these narratives. But I think that the more we hear, the clear it becomes that they're manipulating us. And I just want to say, I think this is hard. If you're a cynical person by nature, and many people are. They're already there. But I have to say most good people would like to think that the people in the military, the people in our government, generally speaking,

are telling us the truth, are representing the founder's vision of this great country. That is not the case. And so it's very hard right now when you see figures like General Millie and others, you kind of, I don't know how to put it, but it's like there's a reckoning that is happening in the United States, where you would have granted the CDC or people like that,

some level of authority. And now you say, no, we have been lied to. It has led to horrors beyond imagining. And now we need to do something about it. So the first thing, of course, is to acknowledge that these people are not representing our interests. and we have to resist, basically. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Well put. That was a true or false question. True or false. So you give me true. I'm sorry. I thought that was a rhetorical question because, yes, they're not. No, no, no, no. I'm just teasing you.

But I honestly, I just want to say that it's hard for a lot of us to think that we've been lied to through the decades, that there are still good people out there, but that the good people have to wake up. We have to wake up and we have to push back against figures like this who exist in both parties. And we have to look, John Zmirak, I remember one of the rare voices way back in 2002, giving me his perspective on the Iraq war. He was the only person I was hearing this from. And at the time, it didn't make sense to me. Unfortunately, now I understand where he was coming from.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I just revealed my. cynicism, by the way, of the U.S. government. But I think you're right, it's difficult because we've been for so long led to believe that you have to, basically, you have to agree with everything an institution like the Pentagon says, otherwise you're not a good American. But it's important to actually separate the American polity, the American interest, from these institutions that no longer actually serve the American interest, although we would like to imagine that they do, and in the past they in fact did, but no longer. I think that is a difficult

task, but that's the duty of every American to take that risk, to speak out against figures of authority like Mark Millie or Fauci. I mean, setting aside the war stuff, we just live through the horrors of what happens when we all go along with things like these lockdowns and what else. So all of this is related, including the stuff that we're going to get into with CRT and transgenderism. All these things are related. Well, go ahead. Pull them together.

Yeah. Well, I think because I'm on the rights, I, for whatever that term is still useful for, so I'm a Republican, or I vote Republican anyway, the GOP is actually a perfect example of an institution that doesn't really serve the needs of its base. And in the case of Ukraine, the GOP is inching us closer and closer towards intervention. They're using euphemistic language like, well, no fly zone. Like you said, it sounds neutral. It's not.

Obviously, that is not consistent with the American interest. And in the same sense, with things like critical race theory and LGBT ideology, this stuff is, it's, on the one hand, it's proliferated everywhere, not just in blue states. Like, you can find it in Texas. And I think what's really interesting is the only reason that you're seeing real pushback, a meaningful pushback against this stuff, is actually not because of great political representation, but it's because of parents. It's because of normal Americans who are going to school board meetings and getting rid of these people and challenging them and basically taking back control of their lives and their communities, which is actually separate and sometimes against the interests of

their Republican Party. And so I give you an example of this, if you'd like me to get into it in Texas. Please, yeah. So I reported a while ago about these books that were depicting graphic sexual behavior. I think one was called genderqueer. And these books were showing up, books like genderqueer were showing up in public schools in Texas, not just in high schools, but also middle schools. And so I made a bunch of phone calls to talk to parents where these books were popping up and asking them, you know, tell me what you're going through. What has it been like pushing back on school districts?

Are you getting support from Republicans? And in Texas, again, not in Austin, by the way. And the most consistent answer I got was, are Republicans helping you when I asked that question was no. Or they'll take our calls, or they'll shake our hands at fundraisers, they'll go on Fox News, but then when they come home to Texas and we're dealing with a school board that's trying to silence us because of, you know, we're pushing back on what is basically child abuse. We will not hear from our representatives. They think they think that we're like dirty rubs. You know, we're people that will offend their donors. We're these kind of out of control,

rebellious types that's, again, you're happy to shake the hand at the fundraiser and take their votes, but that's it. And this is, again, in Texas, it's not California. It's not, you know, because too often you hear that. Well, it's Austin. Austin's not real Texas. It's happening everywhere. Well, this is, it's dramatic stuff. This is dramatic, dramatic, dramatic stuff. But people are waking up. I mean, the idea that parents are waking up and realizing that, yes, they've been lied to, you, you basically entrust your kids to people. There's nothing more sacred than that. I mean, the schools are supposed to be operating in local parentis. And then you discover that, you know, not only are they not teaching your kids what you'd like them to teach your kids, but they are very actively and

aggressively training your kids away from what you would want your kids to learn, the ideas. It's really dramatic. The good thing is that parents are way. up to this. Yeah. Yeah. And when the Republican Party does change, like you're seeing a kind of shift in Texas, because I think Greg Abbott, he's politically clever. And so he'll kind of go where the wind is blowing.

But if that wind is blowing, it's not because Republicans are doing something. It's because these parents are acting a certain way. And some Republicans are smart enough to know if I want to stay in office, I have to actually, you know, at least throw these people some, throw them a bone or something. And I think Abbott is smart enough to do that. But the problem is that if he's a cynic, which I think he is, because then what happens is that you don't actually get follow through. And a great example, this is operations.

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They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-5281903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Folks, I'm talking to Pedro Gonzalez. He writes for Chronicles Magazine, chroniclesmagine.org. You were just making a point, Pedro, I want to let you finish that. So it's good when Republicans react to the base. And like I said, in this case, parents, you have Republicans in some cases reacting to the demands of parents, which is good. But the problem is that when you don't get follow through.

And so Operation Lodestar is a great example of this. Abbott decided that he was going to build the wall in Texas on his own because his opponents like Don Hoffines and Alan West suggested that if elected, they would do that. And, I mean, it's documented that Abbott never thought about this or talked about it until his opponent said they would do that. But the problem was that it was so, like, it was so political, it was so theatrical that when Abbott did it, it was totally haphazard and in some ways it backfired. Like in some ways, Operation Lone Star actually made the problem of illegal immigration worse in Texas. And so what I'm getting at with these parent movements is that I hope that that's not the case. I hope that when Republicans react to parents, that it's actually,

it's actually going to yield some good. And so I actually interviewed a friend. family in Texas, that basically for two years, their daughter was living an alternative life. I actually wrote about this for Chronicles Magazine. It's in the new issue. It should be online today, I think, but out from beyond our paywall, but basically for two years, for a freshman and sophomore year, every time the parents dropped this prolog in school, she became a boy. And the school's policy was to hide it from the parents. And the parents knew something was wrong for those two years because the girl had totally retreated from family life. She just stopped interacting with her family.

And the parents couldn't figure out what was going on because she didn't want to tell them. And the family, they were trying to be understanding, but this girl had just totally climbed into her shell. And during a meeting with a school counselor, a guidance counselor, the parents noticed that something was wrong, that the girl had a kind of rapport with the counselor that was really intimate. They were finishing each other's sentences. And again, this is happening at the same.

time that she doesn't really want to talk to her parents anymore. And so after that, they sit her down and they say, please, you know, what's going on? There's something you're not telling us. And then she says, well, at school is the only place that I can be a boy. And what the family figured out was that this school in Texas, and the family spoke to me on the condition of anonymity because they're terrified and I'll tell you why. But at the school in Texas, they basically encourage this girl and her gender dysphoria to become a boy. And when the family found out, they said, okay, we're homeschooling. So they did everything right.

They filed the proper paperwork. They even signed up with the Texas Homeschooling Association. And they told the school, this is their last day. You know, we're getting our kids out of the district. The route of least resistance, right? Well, so they pulled them out on a Friday. By Monday, they get a call from CPS saying someone has filed the report, alleging child abuse.

By Tuesday, they're talking to a CPS agent at their house conducting the safety check. By Thursday, a second report is filed against them. And so the family, it suspects that someone at the school, a faculty member, staff member, counselor, or teacher, because the identity of the person who follows these reports in Texas is protected. So they can only speculate. But what they figure is that someone alleged that they were abusing their daughter to prevent them from pulling her out of the school. Yeah, abusing her by not letting her pretend to be a boy at home. I mean, this is hard to hear, but keep going. Yeah.

But fortunately, the daughter, although she was kind of alienated because, you know, there's a lot of confusion involved in this, she still loves her parents. And so when her parents came to her and said, this is what's happening, someone has filed two reports against us claiming that we're abusing you, that we're locking you in the house, that we're isolating you from your friends, and we're denying you medical care. And the daughter was just that the father told me that the daughter was just, like, shocked by and she told him who she thinks it could be. And again, all this is in my article.

And this story has a happy ending. They did finally get the kids out of the district. They're homeschooling now. And the reports were so egregious and so disconnected from reality, based on CPS's investigation, that the parents told me, and I obviously review the documents they had available, CPS closed the case and said, we found no evidence of child abuse.

And the parents said that a caseworker actually told them that these reports look like classic retaliatory reports against parents for, you know, some reason. And so this story has a happy ending, but there are a lot of other stories that might not have happy endings. And the turning point the father told me was when he sat his daughter down and said, look, these people at the school that claim to understand you better than we do, they're willing to separate you from your parents and your brother. They're willing to break our family up to get their way.

And he said that at that point was when she was just like, okay, I'm going to tell you everything and tell you who I think this could be. And the last thing, because again, I think it's important. In this case, there is a silver lining. They're working through things. They're all going to family counseling and they're kind of healing. But again, this is. terrifying stuff. I had to win the family's trust even talk to me about this because they're

terrified of what could happen to them. And this is in Texas. Well, again, this is horrifying stuff. This is classic cultural Marxism. I mean, we have really seen it come into our homes and into our families. This is the sort of thing that, you know, you would think that this is what goes on in the Soviet Union. This is what goes on in communist countries where kids in school are told to report on their parents. Yes. In America, that is something that never could happen. We are as far from that as could ever be imagined.

And suddenly now we've taken our eye off the ball and these things have come to us. And we're fighting this battle now. We'll be back. A final segment talking to Pedro Gonzalez. You can find him at chronicles magazine.org. Folks, this is important. Get involved. Get on. Get a rhythm.

When you get the blues A little shoe shine boy He never gets slow down But he's got the dirtiest job in town Bending low at the people's feet On a windy corner of the dirty street Will I ask him while he shine my shoes How'd he keep from getting the blues?

He grinned as he raised his little hit He popped his shoe shine rag and folks If you listen to this program, of course You've heard me talk at infinitum About my pillow and my friend Mike Lindell Well, Mike has just announced that you will receive one of his books, and the book is next level insane. It is called What Are the Odds from Crack Addict to CEO?

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products such as individual towels blankets comforters and much more or call 800 978 3057 that's 800 nine seven to use the promo code eric folks since today's friday albin and i thought we would do something we haven't done in a while it's called fun facts Friday albin are you ready to do a little fun fact Friday? Yeah. Come on and have some fun just for the fun of it. Just for the fun of it. Who can forget that theme song? Yeah. Except I did. Yeah. But we need to resurrect that theme song from the grave. Yes. Yes, we do it. Had Morocco's and it had slide whistles and everything. Maracas. Maracas. Maracos. That would be the country. But listen, you are Mr. Fun Facts Friday. And I just want to say that you mentioned to me earlier that

this week is Purim. I didn't know that. The Jewish holiday of Purim where we talk about Esther and Mordecai and Haman and that whole story. So did you want to do a Fun Facts Friday based on the Jewish holiday of Purim? Yeah, just a real quick one, because we do have Jewish listeners out there and people who are interested. And Anne and I go to the church that Jonathan Conn preaches at in Wayne, New Jersey. And so he had kind of like a fun quiz. His church is Beth Israel in Wayne, New Jersey. He had a fun quiz right before his sermon about Porum, which began Wednesday evening of this week. And he had a quiz, and he asked everybody in the congregation. He had some kind of fun questions. And then his bonus question at the end was he gave us

four words. And he said, how do these four words relate to Esther, who's the kind of the hero of the story? And so I thought I'd throw out the four words to you, Mr. metaxus and see if you had an answer to this. Okay. So here are the four words. And people, you can play at home. The four words are this, asteroid, astronaut, astronomy, and asterisk. How do they relate to Esther? Okay. Well, first of all, I want to say people should read the book of Esther. It's in the Bible. And I reference it in my book is eight. atheism dead, which if you're watching on video, it's right behind me here. But it's a beautiful, beautiful story. And it's about, you know, this, the, the hoary old idea of wanting to kill all the

Jews. If they're God's chosen people, wanting to kill them is really a way of saying, I want to kill God. I want to hurt God. So it's important that everybody would be familiar with the book of Esther. But to answer your question, how are these words, astronaut, asterisk, asteroid, and astronomy-related to the book of Esther? Well, to Esther herself, actually. First of all, I would think that it's, that the word Esther and Astor is an etymological relationship or no? I think you're getting, I think that's the ballpark.

The Greek word star is Astides, okay? So astronaut is, you know, somebody who travels to the stars. an asterisk is a little punctuation mark or a typographical thing that looks like a star. An asteroid is a small star-like object. And astronomy is the study of the stars. So, I mean, those are all related because of the Greek word, Astaris, or, you know, the Greek word for star.

But I don't know how that relates to Esther. Well, Esther, her name means star. Aha. Will we solve that problem pretty quickly then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she's the star of Porum. It's not great. But what I don't understand is if the story of Esther is, it's in the Hebrew Bible,

and it's obviously, you know, some centuries before Christ, how do they, how do the, how do the, how did the ancient Hebrew people get that Greek word or was that word? I mean, now and now I'm really confused. Yeah, well, I think, you know how they gave the Israel, the Jewish people, they would give them their own names. They wouldn't give the, you know, I think this was in, and what's the, Xerxes? Yeah, Xerxes was the king back then, and she had to go to Xerces and plead for the, for the Hebrew people. Well, the problem is sometimes they refer to him as Ahasueres, which was this, the actual name, but Xerxes is the Greek version of it. Yeah, and I think that's what it is. Her name is not the Jewish version of her name. I think her name means star like in their language. I'm throwing that one out there.

I want to look this up. I'm going to look this up right now. I just looked it up, Albin. Okay. I just looked it up in that blink of time through editing. I looked it up. And it seems that the Persian word and the Greek word, I didn't get clarity on this, but it seems that the Persian word for Star is like the Greek word. So maybe the Greeks got it from the Persians. The Persians got it from the Greeks. They also wonder if it's related to Ishtar. I don't think it is.

And I think we need also to say that the Jewish name for Esther is not Esther. It's Hadassah. So a lot of people are familiar with the woman's name Hadassah. So, but anyway, okay. So I think we've confused people enough. Do you have another thing that you want to bring up? Yeah, you know, people love, they write in and say, hey, they love the music that you play on the show. A lot of it's a 70s music, but we also have music from your favorites, of course, Frank Sinatra. And one of the songs I heard recently, because I listen to the show every day too to make sure there are no mistakes in it. But there's the line that comes out where he, Frank is singing, make like a Mr. Milktoast and you'll get shut out. Now, does anybody know the name of that? that song.

Okay. Now, there's a couple of things. First of all, that song, I mean, I, you're asking that question, but nobody can answer because we don't have a live audience. So I will answer that this song is, blow your horn or come blow your horn. Come blow your horn.

So it's a Sinatra film. Yeah. And he's, he's kind of telling people to kind of, you know, blow your horn, toot your own horn. Don't be like a Mr. Milk toast. People don't use that term anymore, but to be a Casper milk toast,

it was kind of a funny name. I don't know if I don't even remember where it came from, but it was like in the funny papers or something or from some book. There was a figure named Casper Milk Toast and Milk Toast is something really bland and whatever. But you had someplace else you wanted to take this. Yeah, well, it, you know, it was in the movie.

There's a movie called Come Blow Your Horn. And it's from the screenplay written by Neil Simon. Now, Neil Simon was a big deal in my age and in your age, some of the kids will have quite like the odd couple, of course, was written by Neil Simon. Norman Lear wrote the screenplay for the movie. But with Frank Sinatra in the movie, I love this, was Jill St. John. Now, Jill St. John, probably nowhere most from the James Bond movie, Diamonds are Forever. Kind of a, you know, sexy, sultry. Well, she was a redhead in that movie, but Jill St. John. And Lee J. Cobb plays Sinatra's dad. And he's only a few years old.

Now we're at a time. Why don't we drag this into the next segment? We have a final segment coming up, folks. Don't go away. We'll be right back. And the songs you hear on the rock and roll. Folks, we're back. We're doing a short version of Fun Facts Friday.

Albin, you're bringing the fun facts. And some of them really are facts. Actually, all of them today are facts. So you were talking about, I mean, I'm getting confused, but I know that's not your intention. Well, you're telling me that part of the music we use on this program, the bumper music, is a song called Come Blow Your Horn or Blow Your Horn by Frank Sinatra, which he was in a film called Blow Your Horn.

You said Neil Simon wrote the screenplay, or was it Norman Lear? No, well, Norman Lear wrote the screenplay to the Neil Simon play. You mentioned Casper Milktose, and that's correct. He was one of those cartoon characters. kind of a meek and mouth cartoon character. There was an album that came out too that contained Come Blow Your Horn. And on that album was Chicago, that Toddlin Town, another big Sinatra hit besides, you know, and that was written in 1922. But of course, it was covered by Sinatra and made more famous.

And this was during the early 60s and Sinatra's kind of cool Capitol Records phase, I guess. 1963, yeah, the early 60s, like you said. Yeah. Okay. And Casper Milk Toast, yeah, it was a cartoon strip in the, I guess, in the early 50s. And again, milk toast, it's sort of funny how language changes. But to be a milk toast was really to be a bland kind of shy, fearful guy. In other words, a man who's not very manly, right?

to be sort of a kind of not not effeminate, but to be kind of fearful or something like that. And Casper Milk Toast, I think they said he was, you know, his motto was walk softly and get hit with a big stick. You know, he was like this sort of this. So that's where the term milk toast comes from. And it's woven into the lyrics of the song. Yeah.

Blow Your Horn by Frank Sinatra, which, gosh, I wonder who wrote that song. We don't know. Yeah. And by the way, yeah, the guy lacks gravitas, you might say. Yes. And we, you know what, we got to wrap up the weekend by asking people one more time this weekend for food for the poor to donate. Here's a fun fact. We need your help.

This is something that I guess I'll just put it out there. Many people can give $88. So if you can't do that, you give what you can. but I'm going to ask people if you can give $88 to food for the poor. Because of what's going on in the Ukraine right now, people have taken their eyes off the ball with regard to the starving folks in Honduras and Guatemala. Food for the poor is always there helping them. They are actually starving.

Children are malnourished, dying of malnutrition. It's, again, hard for us to believe in our neck of the woods that this is happening, but it's happening. And I want to ask you, folks, please help us in working with food for the poor. Please go today and just give $88 or whatever you can give. You can also give monthly if you prefer. And some people can give a lot more than that. But we want to encourage, if you can, to give $88.

It feeds one kid for a year. That is how far food for the poor is able to stretch our dollars. So you have to go to Metaxistalkis talk.com. That's our radio website. Metaxistalkis talk.com. Click on the banner. And you can give however you like. But we're asking everybody to participate.

It's urgent because giving is way down. They depend on food for the poor. And food for the poor depends on us, which is to say depends on you, our radio listeners. So I want to encourage you. Also, here's a phone number. If you want to go to the phone. right now, and I'm asking you, please do it because they need our help. 844-863, hope.

844-863 hope. We're going into a weekend. We really need your help. Yeah, one last thing, come below your horn, was written by the great Sammy Khan. Make like a Mr. Milk Toast, you'll get shut out. Make like a Mr. Meek. And you'll get cut out.