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WMDX.
No.
Apparently somebody else does.
Somebody thinks that's a good way to save the headphones.
Apparently we're
on the air and, you know, we're
both of
our headphone things
are down.
Yeah, we're waiting for the
music to
start.
What the heck?
You know, there's etiquette here, you know?
Studio etiquette.
Leave the studio how you found
it.
Yeah.
It
wasn't me,
guys.
I
promise.
We weren't accusing you
of anything.
Just because your
shirt's shrank in the dryer, don't take
everything so closely.
I just don't know how to do my laundry, guys.
I don't know.
Use cold water or lukewarm warm water.
Yeah, I get to start doing that.
Now if you do that, you know, you're
Obviously, someday you're going to have to disinfect your clothes because it's not hot water anymore.
And that bacteria builds up over time and starts smelling, so you're going to have to do that.
And that's the way it normally is now with these new washers and the new temperatures they're using.
And everybody's saving their clothes that way.
Do you have the heat on with your dryer?
I, yes, yes I do, but no, not all the way up.
I don't use that anymore.
Yeah, don't do
that
either.
Yeah, that's crazy when I think about it.
No wonder I destroyed so many shirts and pants.
Just baked them, you know.
And they do have elastics in pants and shirts now.
And when you do that hot, a temperature, then it's just, it destroys the fabric.
Here you
go.
All right.
We're
resetting the computer.
Everything's a little off here this morning.
Well, you know.
We're
searching around for some other discussions in regards to Charlie Kirk.
We'll be talking about Charlie Kirk a little bit later on.
Yeah.
And by the way, good morning.
Happy
Thursday.
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy Young.
Dominic Lee is in the air chair setting things up here for us.
Getting
it all
set.
Okay.
All right.
We're almost ready to start the show.
Are we?
I think so.
It's the 11th day
of September.
We've got so many things coming up today.
We've got Tim Slecker in from Busted Pencils and you have it right next on the sheet here.
It says, Idiocracy.
Tim Slecker.
That's not right.
Let's see here.
And then, of course, we have Jim Santel will talk about legal stuff, which has been building up over the last
couple of weeks.
Yeah.
Well, the Supreme Court's, you know, in line now to get the decision on tariffs.
Yeah.
Eventually.
We don't know
when, you
know, probably a shadow docket thing.
And they'll just come out with a decision and no explanation for it.
But they keep giving the president more and more powers.
And yeah, is that a good thing?
I'll say I'm working out for us.
Amy Coney Barrett had that interview with Brett Barrett and it was very revealing because she says, well, you know, we're making decisions not just for this president, but every president after her.
So all of this applies to all those other presidents.
Really, you think there might be a president after this guy?
Not sure about that.
So, you know, just handing people these decisions without any facts.
Okay, you're you're making these decisions.
You're giving more power to the president But you're giving more power to all the presidents after that.
Is that still a good idea?
No, it's the same thing You know, you don't want the presidents to have power that is not vested to them in the Constitution and
I wish the questions had gone that way just a little bit with Brett Bear.
He did ask good questions.
He just avoided some of the more important ones.
How'd you come to that decision?
That was an easy question.
That's the way
it goes
over there on Fox.
I know, I
know.
We got a text here already here.
Mark from Prairie to Sack up early this morning says the heat even on the low setting should take care of the bacteria.
No, it doesn't.
Yeah.
No,
it
doesn't.
You don't think so?
No.
I've had experience with it.
I'm buying gallons of this disinfectant now.
I get the unscented.
I can't stand scents in anything at all.
So
no dryer sheets with scents
in them?
Oh, no way.
Do you use dryer sheets?
No.
Really?
Not at all?
No, not at all because it leaves a coating in the dryer and you don't want a coating on some of the stuff.
Now we put our
eyeglass towels in there as well.
So if you put your eyeglass towels, you know, you clean them off with these towels, and you have that coating on it, the softener coating, it just smears it.
Come on, yeah, I mean, really.
Eyeglass
towels?
You guys are so guy-like, you know.
But
I can't believe you don't use dryer sheets.
I'm so domesticated.
What's that I can't believe you don't use dryer sheets though.
I doesn't that feel weird I thought that like makes the fabric feel really weird At least for me one not not having dryer sheets.
Yeah, you're fabric
feels weird
if you
don't have softener in it of some sort, right?
No, I don't think so.
If you just dry it normally and not at a super high temperature and you dry it longer but at a lower temperature, your clothes turn up perfectly and you don't shrink all of the polyesters and everything else that are now interwoven in your cottons, it doesn't hurt that stuff and you save your clothing for a longer period of time.
You know, a texture from Catherine says, leaves a coating on clothes too.
It does.
Well, that's, and that's the point of it, right?
And you don't want that.
You don't want it, it leaves a coating in the dryer drum and it puts coating on everything.
So again, if you don't want coating on whatever it is you're drying, you're stuck.
Your dryer is all coated up with that gunk.
I'm learning more here.
So
am I. I really need to know.
She says dryer sheets are terrible.
Makes towels smell.
Use hot dry on towels only.
Yeah.
Okay.
Hot dry.
Yeah, because they, you know, again, if they're not dried thoroughly at a lower temperature for a longer period of time, you do kind of keep those bacteria alive and well in your towels.
over time it builds up and it starts smelling.
So you have to
You have to do the towels a little bit differently.
Sometimes you put it on sanitize, which is another setting.
Hey, guys, have you ever looked at that?
Fascinating.
No, what?
Never looked at the part of the dial that says sanitize.
No, tell us.
I have
no idea what you're talking about.
That's
it.
You guys
are really
deep
in the weeds on this.
What about to?
Yeah, I just looked at
the dial on the dryer.
That's all.
What about washing blankets?
coats blankets what
about to give us your what about your
flannel
shirts how do you do now so you're pretty much the same as any other thing made of material confusing confusing me now
What do we have?
Look at that, there's a new feature right there.
Just ask
Catherine.
Just ask Catherine.
Alright, so for some household hints?
Yes.
Things like that?
Well, I hope I'm filling in fairly
well here, Catherine.
Just filling in as many in
on us.
Do you use Windex for your windows, or do you do vinegar and water?
What do you do?
Actually,
I...
Now you just how about cleaning the refrigerator.
I could give you an opinion on almost all this stuff, you know Okay, you asked about the windows.
cinch since you like Windex.
It's better than Windex Windex sucks cinch is so much better
Cinch I've never heard a
cinch.
That's why you know The thing is with cinches it really does make your window shine it makes glass shine and it's just super clean and shines It's it's really really great stuff and used it in the cleaning business.
She had for just a little while Okay, so we're very familiar with that one of the things though that a lot of people don't know and you get all these the spray cleaners right and
at the store.
You don't need that for all you need is what I use is, uh, is straight vinegar.
Okay.
Straight vinegar.
Straight vinegar because straight.
Yeah, it does, but then it doesn't smell, you know, dries and goes away.
I put it, sometimes I put a little dawn on it just to kind of add a little, you know, soap to it, but you can use that amazingly.
You get all of that crud around your handles, your sink handles and
You know, I'm on the sink surface.
That's it takes it takes it away.
None of the stuff you buy in the store to clean your countertops is
Works.
None of that works.
Only vinegar does.
How about cleaning your oven?
Just ask John.
How about your microwave in your oven?
I use the oven cleaning setting on the oven.
How often do you do that?
Everything burns to a crisp and turns into powder and dust.
No, you don't have to do anything.
There we go.
Just ask John.
If you have any carpentry question, just let me
know.
Yeah, how do you clean your carpet?
How
often?
No, I... Okay.
Let's move on to... Would you rather... What do you think?
They're Dominic Lee?
Let's do it.
The Italian Stallion?
Yes.
Oh, man.
Actually, I like that.
I like that nickname.
Do you?
I love it.
Yeah.
Okay.
They overused it with...
Who
gave you that name?
Yeah, Todd Alba.
Todd Alba did, yep.
Oh really?
Yeah, the Italian stuff.
Yep, yep, and he says it every single time he comes in.
Okay.
All right.
Boy, that guy.
And he tried to steal Sam away from us so many times.
Now he's going for Dom.
Okay.
All right, first question.
Yeah, go ahead.
Would you rather live in an all-glass house or a house
Completely without windows just sure brick no windows all
glass house
really all glass I don't think I would I think I would do house without windows.
Yeah, I think I would too.
I love the darkness.
I thrive in the darkness.
Well,
they do make shades
A little tip there, but if it's an all-glass house you shades everywhere, that'd be yes very difficult,
right?
No
What's the next question all right next
question
Would you?
You're just leading me on.
Make John talk some more.
Second
question.
Would you rather crow like a rooster after every sentence?
Or act like a duck?
I feel
like I really want to try doing that or
quack like a duck.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
Can't do a duck noise.
Something like that.
Yeah.
Do you ever see the movie Howard the duck?
I
heard that it
was like terrible.
It's horrible.
No,
it isn't a horrible movie.
It is.
It was very interesting how they did that duck.
Okay, but he didn't quack every time he talked so no You know, I'm just like I don't know the rooster thing would be interesting to do an entire show where we make a statement and then
we I think I would do the rooster though.
Yeah, I was sure like a rooster.
Yeah, I think Catherine would like that if we tried that once
After every sentence
Okay, that would be really difficult.
Yeah
Where's your clothes?
Would you rather?
Where's the new clothes?
Oh, right here.
Did you use it?
Yeah.
Let's use
it.
Do you understand what he said?
I didn't understand the last word.
You guys will.
I didn't understand the
beginning or the end.
He hates the feature.
Okay.
I hate this feature.
Is that
what
he said?
Really?
Yeah.
I'm mad every time
I
have
to make it.
All right.
We're coming back with more.
We're just getting warmed up on this Thursday morning.
It's John Peterson and Gordie Young and Dominic Lee on WMDX.
Stay with us.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
That's really what's trending the edge of stupid.
Why is it ever?
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy young WM DX 92.7 check us out on the civic media app if you
can weather for today mid 50s this morning clear skies I'm seeing a few clouds from our window though But hopefully those are clear out for sunshine and highs in the mid 70s today out in some of the low-lying areas.
There's some
dense fog, so watch out for that.
Don't lie in those low-lying areas.
That's what I
always say,
yeah.
We used to always say that way out in Sun Priory, you know, the middle of a cornfield.
It
was foggy out
there.
It
was.
And we realized that the fog's only around us, the cornfield.
That's right.
Everything else is fine.
And we kept seeing children out in the cornfield.
Yes,
it was so creepy.
It was.
Yeah.
That building is still out there.
I
don't know if their
corn is still there because I think they built buildings all around
there.
Yeah, I think I don't know.
Yeah, there are buildings all around it, but that building is still there for some reason.
Pretty sure that building.
I thought we destroyed that while it was haunted.
A lot of bad mojo there.
Yes, yes.
I doubt.
Okay.
Yeah.
What do we have here?
What
do we have?
I don't know.
What's up?
What do we talk about?
I don't know.
It's the age of stupid.
And that's what it's really all about.
You know, all the accolades for Charlie Kirk.
I mean, it was, it was wall-to-wall last night.
Yeah, it was.
And you wouldn't have expected something like that.
I mean, this was just Charlie Kirk.
Yeah, but he had a, I mean, he started this turning point thing the day after high school, 13 years ago.
And it just grew and grew and he was really kind of the I mean, I'll kind
Rush Limbaugh and you
kind of went in but for younger younger males mainly on the Republican side And he decided to do the college circuit.
Yeah, that was his
thing.
Yeah, but he that turning point thing, you know at the podcast he had a lot of other I mean I'm like a
political action yeah group a hundred million bucks a year he was raking in
should we should we bring up our little discussion about Charlie Kirk's studio we I don't recall we had been using books for our microphones
hold up our microphones for so long before our actual mic stands arrived from wherever they ship and I just accidentally saw a
podcast of Charlie Kirk and his studio was just unbelievable.
Well, sure.
I mean, it was gorgeous.
It was beautiful.
Just very simple, but perfect.
All the stuff was there.
Yeah.
I'm just like, did he have his microphone on bookstand?
And it showed everybody here.
I showed the studio to everybody.
I took a little screenshot of it and look, this, this, this is Charlie Kirk podcast.
And, uh, you know, I thought we could do better than that.
I see.
You
were.
You were encouraging the engineers to arrange our studio just like
just like Charlie yeah, that's that's my tie-in.
So that was the
Charlie Kirk inspiration.
Yeah Interesting,
but I
didn't I didn't I must have missed that meeting.
I don't
remember you showing those pictures
now, you know Charlie Kirk said a lot of very controversial things we'll get to those a little after seven but I was listening on the way into NPR and
Steve Inskeep has been a reporter there for ages and he gets all the big interviews and he was talking to a Republican, a very young Republican, a Jen Zier, who's running for Congress.
And Charlie Kirk was his mentor, helped him out, helped
for some of the things that he wanted to do before he ran for Congress.
He started a group.
to encourage Gen Z individuals to run for political offices.
And Charlie Kirk helped fund that for him.
And then Steve Inkscape said, well, you know, Charlie had said a lot of controversial things, but he always went out there and he had these discussions and these debates.
And he went out to the college campuses.
Was there anything that he learned from that?
And this guy went off on Steve in Skipe.
He just said, are you kidding me?
Is that what you're getting at here?
And he was never like that.
Boy, you guys, you and the media, you always do this to people on the right.
And it's just like it was one of those.
those moments where poor Steven's kid was just trying to say, do you think he learned any lessons or maybe, you know, changed his mind about a few things?
Very innocent question.
But this guy leveled off on him.
That was just uncomfortable.
I wish I'd heard that.
Yeah, I'll try to find that.
I actually try to find it on the way in driving.
You know, it's not easy doing a search.
When you're driving the space car.
space car.
Oh, I gotta tell you this.
You know, the space car comes with a certain connection.
It's called Kia Connection.
It's software.
It gives you the ability to do a few things like
run your car remotely.
I could be in the house, I could turn it on, I could get the car warmed up before I go out there.
And you can do all these things with Kia Connect.
Well, it's a pay service, get that.
So now this is another pay service.
I might as well have another streaming service.
Everything,
everything is a pay service.
Ridiculous, right?
And YouTube TV was how much?
$50 a month?
Oh, at least.
No, it's actually... No, it's about 80 or 90.
Yeah, it's about 80
or 90 bucks a month.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was checking last night after we talked about it yesterday.
Yeah, because I had it and it cost that much.
And the thing is, after you watch a show, it keeps it.
You know, you can't delete it from your...
From your library
sitting in those big long history trying to find the shows It's just what show was it that I like so much, you know You can't just save the ones you like but yeah, it's it's pretty expensive But now I'm you know I'm Kia connect Kia connect and I had to get a special bad I had to come up with a certificate.
This is my story I had to come up with a nickname for my car.
Oh, and you know what it is space car
space car
Like it.
That was easy.
Okay, we've got the Midwest Farm and Food Report coming up and then Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils will join us on John and Gordy on WMDX.
92.7 WM DX.
When you hear that music, you know who's coming up.
Tim Slecker.
Really?
Is that his theme?
Busted pencils.
Okay.
That's what it means.
Uh, John and Gordy in the morning here.
It is full
day
so
far.
Yeah.
6 35.
We've got some early morning clouds.
We'll see sunshine highs in the mid seventies right now.
56 degrees.
Tim Slecker is with us now from busted pencils.
The podcast
that you can
listen to on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Yeah.
So
good morning,
Tim.
Good morning to you.
We understand that test scores are out.
Yes.
For high school
seniors.
What?
How are we doing?
Yeah.
Well, it seems that last year's graduating class, they can't read.
Really?
The simplicity is that.
I mean, yeah, you know, so any, uh, so that would mean freshmen this year in college, um, have gone to college without the ability to read.
Wow.
Well, that's pretty, that seems like that's not great information.
Yeah.
Yeah, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the NAPE, it's called the Nation's Report Card, released scores last week.
And the highlight, or was it earlier this week, I forget, but the highlight was is that the reading assessment portion of the test for high school seniors indicated that a whole entire third of high school seniors
read Below basic levels and that's that's one of the the bars that they put in the name basic and Below basic is you know an indicator and a third and you go, okay?
What's what's going on there?
Is this really a drop in test scores and you know typically Johnny and I really rail on
test scores as, um, and, and again, these are really worth railing on too.
But, um, they are actually lower than the test scores of high school seniors in 1992.
Wow.
Yeah.
And so what's going on there?
Um, good question.
Are you thinking cell phones?
I was seen and that's we do a lot of reading on our cell phones Well, there's a there's a big issue right now With this that it has brought up is is that well, of course, they can't read we don't ask them to You know, we don't do any You know reading they don't read books
Wasn't
it mandatory to read a few books or?
Yeah, that's the you know kind of the reality there in this move over the last 40 years to get test scores up One of the tactics was is to break reading down down down down down So that we were actually doing this thing called close reading
where we don't ask people to read long works of fiction or anything like that.
You teach them how to read paragraphs to elicit good test scores.
And it seems that the high school, the senior level reading assessment for the NAEP is really geared towards actually seeing if kids have an ability
to understand deep meaning.
Well, they don't.
And I'm kind of looking at this going, well, why would they?
Because we've spent 30 years trying to tell them that deep meaning in reading, that's not the goal.
The goal is to read short passages and remember which colors were mentioned in the first three sentences.
Wow.
That's not good for people with short term memory.
It seems counterproductive.
It really does, doesn't it?
Now, OK, I hate to say this phrase.
Go for it.
But when I was in school,
remember doing book reports as early as, like, second grade.
And then all the way through school, you did book reports.
You would have to, you know, an English class or whatever.
You would have to go to the library, which was down the hall in
school.
You checked out a book, you read the book, and in a couple of weeks you had to give a book report, and maybe in front of the class, or at least a written book report, and then that would be great.
Do they not do that anymore?
Well, no.
Come on.
There's what you guys, like what we all remember, and then actually it was my first years in teaching, and I was teaching second grade and fifth grade, Pizza Hut.
had a reading initiative and so every time kids came in and let me know they read a book.
You know, I gave them like a free pizza coupon.
Wow.
That's nice.
You know, and I'm still to this day pretty convinced that most of the parents who signed that their kid read 13 books overnight, they could get 13 pizzas.
I'm pretty sure that that was the parents saying, get these free pizzas.
And a whole stack of cliff notes.
You know, but
Pizza Hut
is not really well known anymore.
I mean most
of them are
closed.
They went
out of business because they were giving
away free
pizza.
They weren't
known for
reading
either.
All those books read.
We brought this up though on the Wednesday show and actually because
I admit this we had we have great gas and put people on make sure you tune into the show on Saturday Randy Weingarten president of AFT me and she but this came out because she has a new book out why fascists fear teachers and Kind of coming into it.
Wow.
I admitted that I don't read books anymore Myself
Let me get this frog out of my no
My only input on that I stopped reading books as well.
My wife is a writer.
She writes fiction
read one book of hers partially her first book, but I really do have to finish that one of these days
But it's true this goes back to what you kind of the original part of saying it's like has reading itself also changed in the air cell phones social media.
Yeah
You know, we read we do a lot of short reading nowadays.
we're information gatherers we're we don't get in depth and you know, hey, guess what when it when it comes to being deep Netflix But but I brought this up because I said, you know, I hadn't read a full book and I couldn't remember how long until we got
you know, an advanced copy of Randy Weingarten's book, and digging deep into that, it was a great book.
And so, you know, kind of thinking about this and putting the test scores in there together, and kind of, you know what, maybe the test that is testing for something we don't really do anymore, which is this kind of deep reading.
And now we can criticize that, the fact that we maybe don't do that anymore.
But
the reality is, is what we said is, you know, we're not doing in depth, deep book type of reading.
And if that's the type of reading we're trying to assess, seems to not make sense.
And so maybe these test scores are suspect from the standpoint of going, you know, were they really testing the things that kids are doing today?
Because, you know, short form reading is what we do.
But anyway, you know, put all that together.
But why fascist for your teachers now if you want to start reading deep long books not again not really really long Randy Weingarten's new book is fully worth Sitting down John and I know your wife might get mad that you read this book over hers.
Oh, yeah, but but I would take the opportunity to read this book
I
think it's a great book at least.
It sounds like a good book for the times, right?
Oh, you know, something
we
need to kind of know more about.
It
is.
And, you know, yeah, we started off with a little bit of the lightness with the NAEP scores, but why fascist fear teachers
then, you know, the horrendous...
episode that happened yesterday, you know, in Utah Valley University with the political assassination of Charlie Kirk.
And recognizing where are we at in these times that actually education places where, you know, we said, and this is what we really liked about what Randy talked about, is that schools and teachers for the longest time have been inviting people
with differences to safe spaces to have critical, sometimes uncomfortable conversations.
And that's the work of a teacher.
And the reality that we've now been facing is that, you know, welcoming differences was this kind of like, well, that's diversity, equity and inclusion.
That's woke indoctrination.
You can't do that.
and mix that in together where we've got these, you know, political extreme conversations happening on the fringes that, you know, is there a safe space?
And this is frightening to realize that college campuses and, you know, let's not forget that yesterday there was another high school shooting in Colorado.
Right.
Just after the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
are spaces of where we're supposed to feel safe because you can't learn if you don't feel safe.
These places now have been fully now put up to say, yeah, guess what?
There's there's no safe place right now in America for for us to have conversations about potentially critical topics, things we disagree with.
And
How did we get here?
You know, how did we get to this point that now it seems that your political opposition, the way you engage with them is to take them out.
Right.
Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs.
You know, we have these free speech zones, but when they had those, then they banned firearms near them.
And they kind of suggested that.
They were dangerous areas to be in if you were in a free speech zone because you weren't armed.
And then, of course, I think all of these speakers, like Charlie Kirk, way back when, maybe 10, 20 years from this point, they all
played up the fact that they were in danger speaking on campus.
I don't
remember it was the academic freedom movement and they invited these very controversial guests and the conservative ones played up the fact that their lives were threatened and they had to have these huge entourages of protection around them.
The universities couldn't even afford the protection for some of these people.
their requests for protection.
They couldn't afford it so they didn't invite these people on and then they got in trouble for not doing that.
So it became a badge of honor having a lot of protection around you because your life is always threatened.
I think they brought on a lot of this by suggesting that, you know, maybe you're a target.
Just a theory.
Gordy.
Yes.
Well, I want to get
back to reading books and how
some of
that's on the parents.
I don't want to blame the
schools.
I think I
summed it up.
But I'll tell you what, we're going to come back after this break and we'll continue
with Gordy's point.
Yeah.
Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils stays with us here and we'll be right back with John and Gordy on WMDX.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
in WMDX 92.7 and on your Civic Media app as well.
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Give us a text or a voice note.
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you.
It is 6.52.
We've got partly cloudy skies this morning.
We should be in for a good deal of sunshine mixed in with the clouds.
Highs in the mid-70s today, right now, 56 degrees.
We started out this conversation talking about reading skills and tests that have recently shown that- And not reading books
anymore.
Kids
don't
read anymore.
And I think, this is maybe just my opinion, but I think a lot of this has to do with what environment did you grow up in?
at home.
Did you have parents that read books?
I did,
there were books all over the place.
I remember big bookshelves in just about every room of the house.
And so I grew up in that environment and, you know, the library was a place to go to see all the different books and just see the thousands of books out there that have been written over the ages.
And what do you want to take a look at?
You know, you'd wander around the library and just pick out something interesting.
And also I still to this day, I guess, unlike you guys, I still, you know, read at least two or three books a year.
And I feel like I'm not I'm kind of lack.
in that.
I think I should be
reading more.
Man, I didn't realize that you were that old.
Yes, I'm that old.
Wow.
But I still enjoy
going, you know, Barnes & Noble is still a fun place for me to go.
I enjoy, you know, just seeing what's out
there.
Oh, I love going in there.
I
like to go to the library once in a while, but I guess, you know, you guys, library cards may have expired.
Well, I don't know.
Let me adjust my thinking
about you.
I thought you had
attention
deficit,
but
you can read a whole book.
Wow.
Wow.
Well, there are lots of great books out there.
Yeah.
Well, I think what you're, though, what you're talking about, Gordy, though, too, is there's a cultural shift that actually, you know, and it's worth criticizing.
It's worth knowing about.
And it's also kind of worth going
Huh.
You know, so maybe what I did isn't necessarily, you know, the way things should be done now.
That's not criticizing you for being, you know, a weird solo kid hanging out in the library when...
You know, other kids were out playing.
You know, it wasn't quite like that.
It was quiet.
Collecting the
weapons
at home.
Making
it sound creepy now.
But no, no, no,
no.
Well, the other thing is, you know, what about, I mean, come on, what about reading Rainbow LeVar Burton?
Do we know
are there still shows like that on educational television?
And I guess, you know, because PBS has had their funding cut, you know.
Well, there that goes.
We don't need reading rainbow.
We've got we've got Prager you now.
But you're right.
It
is a cultural.
My
son reads a lot of books.
My 40 year old son is, you know, he's deep into science fiction.
He loves it and he reads,
know, several books at a time sometimes.
But my daughter, just the opposite.
I
don't think she's a reader.
It is shifting.
Again, is it the information?
How we get information now?
How it's delivered?
Print reading, the idea of holding a book.
you get your book on your phone.
If you do want to read it, you know, the Kindle kind of in that sense.
And I remember, you know, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, you know, who were, again, voracious readers.
You know, they had transitioned though to the Kindle
not holding a book, you know, moving on and so thinking about now students and kids who are on their phones and they can get books and things like that.
So, you know, are they reading but then how much of that turns into
this kind of, you know, short form scrolling for information.
And then the ability and we even said, you know, so audio books, I mean, even back in the 90s, when I was driving back and forth the University of Maryland for my doctorate, I was doing books on tape like crazy just because I was spending it.
And so I was getting that that way.
And now here's something to throw at you guys.
I could take a book, I could throw it into my favorite chat GPT feature and I can ask chat GPT to read it to me with some some voice intonation that makes it
Fun and
actually load up my chat GPT and say actually what I want you to do with this book is actually Scale it down figure out where there are probably likely going to be test questions from this book and prepare me for the test that Obviously my teacher is going to throw at me for reading this book So yeah, so what does all this mean?
Um, and we said during the break, it might mean that we just go back to the feather quill.
I was thinking the same thing.
We got to start from the beginning.
I think a lot of people are using their phones.
I think social media has made things more immediate for people.
want to find out things immediately.
Read an article about teenagers now using their phone to get sexual advice, emotional support, dating.
AI dating.
Everything is kind of immediate for now.
What's happening socially.
and reading something long-term is much more difficult now.
Just the thought.
Well, I use it, you know, when my wife and I have our disagreements, I turn it on and record and then I have an earbud in and I have it say, now say this to her.
You know, and it helps.
Oh, that's
a good application.
We'll have to leave it
there.
Dr. Tim Slecker, thanks for joining us.
You can catch Busted Pencils on the Civic Media Radio Network on the website there on the app.
Tim, always great to talk to you.
There's a lot of fun.
Hey, Saturday show, Randy Weingarten.
Why fascist fear teachers?
Well, that sounds
good.
All right.
Good deal.
Jim Santel comes into our 7 o'clock hour next on WMDX.
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