¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Community Impact and Volunteering
Uh laying the groundwork for this, Patricia. By the way, our friends uh my friends. James, Gordon C. James.
He's listening.
Yeah. They uh responded about
Same visit De Paul.
Um yeah, we wanna get someone on the air, but more than anything else, I wanna put together a group and go serve a meal. so maybe they'll hook us upyesbecause
No, you're listening, Gordon.
Yeah.
If if they can help us with that, because um
Incredible.
It's that eye opening experience for someone to be there and do it. You feel like you've done a good thing.
I would love to take Katie.
Oh one of the things we did and it was with uh um the United Food Bank. We went on a Saturday and we filled they do they don't do emergency food boxes like St. Mary's. They do food bags. So we were filling emergency food bags and they do them a little bit differently, but it was a fun day. There was a a a a nice lady there and she had brought her son and I think her son was around your daughter's age. I think he but he was I think he was maybe a little older, he was about ten.
Cool kid wearing an MTV t-shirt, just a cool kid. And she said to me, He didn't want to come today. I made him come. He wanted to stay and watch cartoons. He walked up to her and said, I never realized there were this many hungry people.
Sh yeah, it's very eye opening.
It's gonna make me emotional because that kid's perspective completely changed that day. What's that on the world?
Yeah.
Yeah, because you know you're locked in your world and what's normal to you is normal. So anyway, so the kid came up to me later on and I wish I could remember his name calling him just calling him the kid. He came up to me and he shook my hand. He said, I'm having a great time. Thanks for doing it.
That's awesome. See, it's all all we need to do. Yeah.
¶ School System Accountability and Transparency
Uh the topic is schools. And so I wanna preface this because as much as you hear me say I'm critical of things, and I am, I'm critical of a lot of things that happen, it's not because I'm trying to be critical of human beings or or it's because we want what's best that As much as we you might be involved in engaged parent and if the schools are falling short, you make up and you you kind of fill in the gap.
We I don't believe we are doing things. Matter of fact the statistics prove it. We are not setting our children up for success. We're just not. Kids are not reading at grade level. They can't perform math skills. And I was one of those at-risk kids. A lot of it was my own doing and my own choosing, but you know, my parents divorced. There was nobody around to control me. I was the oldest and I was a maniac. I I wasn't a criminal, but I was just a bad kid.
And it wasn't until I found something. I found my niche. I didn't Seek it out. I I fell into it. It was, you know, God was with me. I I don't know how else to say it to you. As an 18-year-old kid, I fell into a trade that I was good at. I was an electrician and I was really good at it. And so I found a way to make a living and God protected me from myself. Giving kids an opportunity to have the skill set to learn is the best thing we ever do for them.
Let them figure out their political alliance. Let them figure out their political beliefs. Let them figure out their sexual identity and and all that stuff. Teach'em to read. And we've got stories here. We uh we have a story that school boards are some school boards are not uh doing what's obligated when it comes to open meetings and posting their meetings and uh and and so it lends itself to people asking
What are you hiding? And I don't know that they are, but it it's not a good look. And there's a reason why there are rules in place for keeping things posted. If there's one thing that parents should be the most concerned about. is are the schools doing what they're supposed to do? What curriculum? Do you have any idea what curriculum your your school uses? Do you have any idea what your child is learning?
COVID opened up a lot of eyes for people because school is different than it was in the eighties when I was in in high school. And we have this false sense, especially at the elementary school level, we have this false idea that the schools are being taught the way we were taught, whether you like it or you didn't like it.
things are different. And if you believe that uh the schools are doing something not in the best interest of your child, you have to know that early. You've got to intervene. If you've got a child that's uh entering kindergarten uh a or they're approaching the third grade and you don't know whether or not they can read at grade level, that's on a parent to figure out. But it also is to ask the question about whether or not the school is taking it seriously enough. Is that the priority?
We argue about money. We're always gonna argue about money in schools. I think it's a valuable argument to have. W do we have enough money? We've proven over and over again that it's not just a financial issue. That finances are a part of it and we should be paying our teachers more. I I I think a good teacher
is like I say good cops and good firefighters. It's a calling. It's not a job. They do it because they love it. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay them more. It will attract better people into the industry, I believe. But it's not just money. It's focus too. What are what is the focus of your school district?
What does your what is the focus of your principal? What do what does that administration do? What do they do for professional development for the teachers that are teaching your children? How supported are those teachers for professional development? Those are great questions. And if they have school board meetings and you want to know if there's an issue going on at your school or your district.
and they are addressing it at a school board meeting and you can't be at the meeting and that school board videotapes their board meetings, they're required to post them for about three months. And there are some school districts that haven't, including a major school district down in Tucson. I'm not making an accusation they did anything wrong. But it sure looks like they did, doesn't it? I mean, if you're proud of the way the meeting goes on, you leave it up there.
If I come on the air, Patricia, and I say something dumb, which is very likely. But if I come on the air and we say something inappropriate or we say something that we need to apologize for. We're probably not going to keep that.
I'm posting it all over the internet. I don't know what you're talking about. Need those views.
Yeah.
That's true. If it gets us clicks, I'm all for it.
No, but yeah, why why would they take it down? Right. What for? You know, if there's nothing about it, then just leave it.
And the information that's there and I think that more than anything, there's gonna be situations in every in every organization, but you know that you're gonna get heat. Like, you know what? We're gonna hear about this one. And I'm sure I mean I sit on a couple of different boards. If you're involved with the public
And
You say, okay, we're gonna we're this one's gonna be dicey. There's gonna be a lot of controversy with this. But that comes with the job. It doesn't mean that you aren't obligated to make sure that the parents know what your stances are. What are you doing in your meeting? And if it was an oversight, great, correct the oversight. But if it wasn't an oversight.
You gotta train people better. You gotta make sure that there's transparency. You gotta make sure that the that even when people the you know what's worse than them disagreeing with you? Hiding it from them so that there isn't a fight. There's nothing worse than that. The parents have a right to know, and if that isn't in your mind at the front of your mind, there's a problem there.
And I don't know how deep it goes, you know, whether whether or not, you know, we should have stiffer requirements or penalties when they're not followed. But when it comes to the schools, we know that there are doubts right now and the reason why school choice is so popular is I think parents feel like in many cases the schools are just not doing what they're supposed to be doing for kids.
And so they're trying to look for other options. But more than anything else, a transparent conversation goes a long way. And I would imagine with you too, Patricia, that if there's a conversation that needs to be had, you would much rather hear it from a teacher saying, Hey, listen, we gotta talk about something.
Or vice versa. If you say, hey, I I need to talk to you, that you've got enough of a good rapport with the teacher that Or the school board if it goes to that level that you can walk in and say, We need to talk and they say, Okay, sit down, let's talk.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
You know, and I don't think you have an expectation. You would expect anything less than that. I would imagine that's the bare minimum of an expectation, as involved as you are as a parent.
They're basically my parent when when your ki your kid's not with you.
They spend so much time with your child. All right. We uh of course we've got Did You Hear This coming up in just a few moments. It's how we catch you up on the biggest news stories of the day. We'll get to it here in just a second.
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Strong Values, Strong Opinions, The Mike Brumat Show, KTAR News 923, and the KTAR News App.
All right, let's get caught up on our biggest headlines. We call it, did you hear this?
Did you hear this? Roomed reacts to today's hottest news story.
¶ News Headlines: Economy and Environment
Alrighty, so on everyone's mind, the Social Security Administration is suspected to run out of its trust fund reserves in twenty thirty-two, which could cut retirement benefits nearly twenty-five percent across the board. The nonpartisan committee for a responsible federal budget estimates nearly one point four million Arizonans could lose more than five hundred dollars a month on average. So how does this make you feel and how does it affect Americans just like you? What can be done?
Well the uh Birth rate problem in this country. We are not having as many children as we used to, and we're living longer. So it means older people are taking from the system and younger people aren't feeding the system. That's all a big part of the problem. We've known it for a long time. There are going to have to be things that change. And what bothers me about this is I have worked hard my entire life. I have been gainfully employed. Cutting my
managed money doesn't seem like an answer. So what are they gonna do to fix it? Are they gonna raise taxes? Are they gonna say that the, you know, you pay up to a certain dollar amount that you're gonna pay into the system? Or what do they do? I don't know what the answer is, but I can tell you this. The people that vote in the largest numbers are older Americans. And if you're gonna tell people that me, I'm in my late fifties.
This may not be there for me or it's gonna be a much smaller amount. It is gonna affect how I vote. I don't care what party you're in, it is gonna affect how I vote. They better jump on this quickly because this is gonna blow up in their face if they don't do something quick.
And conservation group, the Center for Western Priorities is reporting high wildfire risk this year in Arizona and nationwide. Aaron Weiss what the center says is due to staffing cuts at federal land management agencies, including more than seven hundred positions in Arizona.
States can't pick up that gap. Arizona doesn't have the money to take over those kinds of wildfire responsibilities. This is a problem that has to be addressed with Congress and with the administration.
He's urging Congress to boost funding levels so those agencies like Forest Service can restore staffing levels. So with wildfires obviously heavy on Arizona's mines, what can we do to mitigate through these cuts and fire threats at the same time?
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More than anything else, we know that there's this operation going on in Prescott. I heard you talk about it in the news earlier that they are gonna be doing something to get rid of some of the fuel where the fire starts.
Reduction.
Yeah. We should have a thriving logging industry in Arizona where we are thinning and managing the forest, like they do on the Apache tribal land, uh the San Carlos Apache tribe up in northern Arizona. Phenomenal job. They've got plenty of animals. The hunting is great on their lands, but they take a much better care of the forest than we do. So yeah, I would say budget needs to be there, especially in a state like ours.
gotta be a bigger part.
That's gotta be a bigger part of this conversation if we're ever gonna really address the issue.
¶ News Headlines: Safety and Lost Items
Thank you.
You are listening to Did you hear this? Yeah.
In Deland, Florida, is that how you say Deland. Deland, thank you. In Deland, Florida, please say a three year old girl left inside a hot car is lucky to be alive. Thanks to the quick thinking of good Samaritans. Here's ABC's Michelle Franzen. In Florida.
Police say a three-year-old was left inside a hot car for several hours in a medical parking lot in Deal. Mark Tate says he saw the girl's mother pull her out of the car and run through the parking lot for help. One woman performed CPR. Tate says he threw cold water over the child. The girl responded and she was rushed to the hospital and is recovering. It's not true, and she's now facing charges.
Scary story like this, especially with the heat here in Arizona. So I know you don't have any kids, but what would you say to a parent or someone who's caregiving for a child to help them remember to never leave anything or anyone in a hot car, especially here in Arizona?
This is...
I know, right?
Because we know listen, I I I don't want to condemn everybody. Or, you know, again, you don't know, you've never been in that situation. It could be you. I guess it could be never say never. But when you say to someone, if you want to remember your child Put something important in the backseat with them. I shake my head. Like I've heard them say put your cell phone in the backseat because you won't forget your cell phone. This happens so often
Yes, we just need to raise awareness.
forgetting their kids
Think people realize how quickly it gets dead. There was just a story yesterday about somebody here in Arizona leaving a dog in the back seat of a car. And you just think, what have you never has anyone here not got
But even just sitting in your car getting ready to start it.
Yeah.
The beginning of that is just horrible.
I have that auto start on my truck. I start my truck before I walk downstairs because it cools it off a little bit. It's unbearable and it's deadly so fast. You just gotta be better.
Please be safe. And Uber has released its latest lost and found index. ABC's Mike Debuski has more.
Common items left behind in Uber's include phones, wallets, luggage, and of course, keys. Among what Uber calls the most unique items left behind this year: a toboggan, an ankle monitor, two wedding dresses. and two pounds of gushers, the blue raspberry flavor. It's the tenth year Uber has put out an index of items left behind in its cars. The top unique items from previous years include a taxidermied rabbit last year, five hundred grams of caviar back in 2022, and divorce papers in 2018.
So can you guess the forget most forgetful city according to Uber?
Most forgetful city according to Uber. Um
I'm gonna
The guess older population. Sorry, I'm part of that group, but I'm gonna guess older population. I'm gonna guess it's in Florida, uh Miami.
And you were wrong, sir. It's New York.
Really?
No, and you know what I can only chop it up to is that there's a lot of people that are taking Ubers and taxis and drive because that's just the nature there. Yeah, that's just the how New York is. But I know you're not a ride shear guy, but have you ever lost anything like that in this situation?
No, and I like rideshare. I t I've taken rideshare especially when I travel. When I go to New York, um I take rideshare a lot. Um and uh have I ever Oh oh I'll tell you what I did once. I returned a rental car
Oh something was in it?
Yeah.
Probably had like a knife or something.
Done.
I had my gun.
I had a gun in my bag and I got out of the rental car. I left my bag and then when I returned it, they drove it away. And I ran inside and I'm like, Hey, I need my backpack. Um, it's in it's in this car. Can you grab my backpack for me? And they said, well if it's got a firearm in it, we're not giving it back to you. We give it to the police. We don't give it back to the individual.
Oh my goodness.
That was that was the that was the worst mistake I've ever made. And it's it is a absolute no no to leave and I I'll I'll never I've
Don't leave anything in the car.
Yeah.
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By the way, that never happened. I made that up. That was just a fake story.
That's good. A good big story.
¶ Muhammad Ali's Enduring Legacy
Yeah, let's keep it that way. It was a fake story. I want to shift gears to something a friend of mine um just informed me about. And uh we're gonna talk about Jimmy, my friend Jimmy, who just sent me an email on an anniversary today. And it's an anniversary that's not a happy anniversary, but it's one I would like to talk about along with our other topic. Stick around.
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All different perspectives. Join us for the face.
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DAR YouTube channel.
I'm shifting gears, Patricia, completely off the track, but I think it's gonna be I think you're gonna like this. I think it's gonna be a worthwhile conversation. Um you do the timeline every day.
I do.
Um this one, uh I I'm surprised that this wasn't at the top of someone's list.
Okay.
Uh today uh is the anniversary of Muhammad Ali's passing.
It was probably there.
Yeah, it was probably somewhere on the list.
Exactly.
So Muhammad Ali passed away um t June third, twenty sixteen. He was seventy four years old. Um you grew up here, right?
No, I I grew up in Georgia.
Okay, how long have you been here?
A four.
years. Okay. So I've been here for a very long time. I've been here thirty one years. Muhammad Ali as much he was a worldwide still is, I think a worldwide icon. He was something in this valley. He meant so much to Arizona'cause he lived here for so long.
And um I have a friend uh named Ariel who was his barber and they used to shut down the barber shop t in order to for him to you know, he couldn't go anywhere without being mobbed. So uh someone that's been on the podcast, his name is Jimmy Walker.
Um and it's not the actor Jimmy Walker, but Jimmy Walker, who is known as kind of the most he's written books about networking. The guy knows everybody. Jimmy sent me an email talking about Muhammad's passing. You know Celebrity Fight Night? Are you guys familiar That started with Ali. And originally it was gonna be a goof I think it was gonna be Charles Barclay and uh uh Dan Marley, I think. But it was gonna be kind of a that kind of a deal.
But when Muhammad Ali got involved, the millions of dollars that they raised for charitable organizations through Celebrity Fight Night, and then you got people on board that were the most famous of the famous people because they wanted to be connected to Muhammad Ali.
Um Reba McIntyre would do like a dinner thing in her house that they would auction off. And I think even uh Trump was there long before he was president was there one night. It is i a who's who of celebrities all because Ali A. So you wanna hear a great a great story.
Power he had.
Here this is a great story. Um
So
Um, I guess and and uh if you wanna I'm gonna shameless plug for the podcast or the Amazing Arizonans podcast, go and look down the list and find Jimmy Walker's podcast with me as we talk about this. Jimmy's a again, a local legend here in town. knows everybody. Um and he was in, I believe they were in Beverly Hills. And he was with Jerry Colangelo, another guest on the podcast, Mr. Colangelo. And in the hotel lobby, getting on an elevator was Andrea Bocelli.
Yeah. So Jimmy being the don't take no for an answer, put your foot in the door kind of a guy, he jumped on the elevator with Bocelli and introduced himself. And I can't remember how the conversation went, but at one point Jimmy said, Uh, I do this event with Muhammad Ali. And Bocelli said You know Muhammad Ali and he said yeah, he says it's my hero.
And he said when you're in town to do a concert, it was gonna be in a couple of months, would you like to meet him? And of course, Bocelli said yes. And
What an interesting matchup.
Get this. So they're driving to Muhammad Ali's house. He's driving Bocelli to now these names are crazy, right? He's driving Andrea Bocelli to Muhammad Ali's house. And he tells Bocelli in the car, I think, are walking up to the door, it's Mrs. Ollie's birthday. So they open the door. And he sings happy birthday. Bocelli sings happy birthday to Ali's wife.
Wow, that's incredible.
He was at that time he was older and his voice had gotten very quiet. And um Ali asks Bocelli, he says, Will you sing for me? So here's this small group of people sitting in Muhammad Ali's living room why Bocelli puts on a concert.
That's incredible.
That's so cool.
So Jimmy knows all of these people, he's friends with Jordan and everybody else but That's the effect he had. You know, it's just uh y he couldn't walk in anywhere and not be anywhere in the world and not be recognized.
I know, I was so excited to meet his daughter. Yeah. I would not even him, but to meet Layla Ali. I was like, Wow, I'm in the presence of greatness right here.
And you know what's what w and I think this is about a life well lived because if if you guys know your history Ali was in a lot of trouble with Americans because he refused to go to Vietnam. So he stood up against the war, whether you're pro or against the Vietnam War, but he was at the time ostracized and he ended up being one of the most loved figures in American history.
I think we all should go watch Ali today. Yeah.
I would go I'm gonna I'm no I'm gonna probably make somebody angry. I think he's probably more well known than Elvin.
Oh no, I would I would put him right up there. Yeah.
I mean he's just Th the things he did for people and the way he wanted to just spend the rest of his life doing good things, and he did. He traveled all over the world using his popularity as a way to do good in the entire I just think it was a life so well lived, you know? And I didn't realize it till Jimmy sent me the email that today is the anniversary of him passing. He passed away ten years ago.
He's huge. I have a photo of him, the the classic picture of him standing over um what's his name?
Is it stand is he standing over Fraser or Sonny List?
No, it's Frasier. Fraser? Yeah, it's Fra it's Frasier. Yeah. So yeah, he's he's pretty big.
And and what was interesting is how he became friends with all those people the after and there's a cool minute, I don't know if you remember this or not, but he was on Mike Tyson was on the Arcinio Hall show. And uh or was Ali was already Tyson came walking out. So they were on the couch together and um Arsinio asked the two of them, If you two fought who would win? And they both pointed at each other.
I love the guy. I never I never got to meet him. And but uh it's uh tenth tenth anniversary of Ali Pass.
¶ Diverse Stories and Historical Trivia
Um coming up, we've got our story roundup. That's how we end our show. We're gonna do that here in just one moment.
He's Mike Brumed. Another story roundup.
We're gonna start off with this one. If I said to you blank number of trees every single day are cut down to make just make toilet paper.
Just for toilet paper. Okay.
I want to say that number's in like the thousand.
Okay. You're right. How many thousands?
Five, six thousand?
I'm gonna say fifty thousand, I'll go.
twenty seven thousand trees a day. So there is a company called Honeycomb that now has tree free toilet paper. Made from bamboo. Painful.
Interesting.
Painful.
Is it more pliable?
I don't I didn't go that far into it.
No more.
The bamboo. This is funny in three different ways. Bullhead city, Arizona. A man orders nearly eighty dollars worth of taco bell.
What?
Didn't you buy everything in Taco Bell for eighty?
Actually no, it's gotten pretty pricey.
I thought Taco Bell was the place you went because it was dirt cheap.
Not anymore, I wish.
Okay. So the guy went and bought eighty dollars worth of taco.
It's like two cheesy to Gordita crunches. Right. Ha ha.
And he used movie prop money.
What?
Fake money. Movie prop money.
They didn't recognize it was not real.
That's the other funny part, is at the time the store received the counterfeit money, the employee said she didn't notice it wasn't real. It says right on the bills motion picture purposes.
She wasn't reading, she was just rolling burritos.
Get through the day at that point.
Four twenty dollar bills, all of them fake. She if he bought seventy four dollars worth of Taco Bell. So now his pic they put his picture out to see does anybody know who this guy is
He had a Baja blast.
Fire. All right. So we all know that Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. They're predicting he might be the world's first trillionaire. He's worth nine hundred and seventy billion dollars. Uh so this is what gets me. Over his to just to put into perspective how much money he has. He would over his career Made three point six million dollars an hour.
Dang me on that rate.
Uh SpaceX.
Yeah, his he has five hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars in pre IPO stock in SpaceX and a hundred and sixty seven billion dollars in Tesla. And a hundred and fifty doll billion or so stock options in those companies so you could exercise it any time you wanted.
For him.
You think he's got a Scrooge McDuck vault somewhere?
I hope so. Swimming and money? How can you not? You have everything in the world.
All right, so there's a study that says the most spoken languages outside of English and Spanish in every US state. If you don't know what Arizona's is, it will make sense when I tell you. What what do you think Arizona's most spoken language, not Spanish or English?
Mandarin.
Andarin okay.
My my neighbor was Russian. So I'm gonna say Russian.
No. Navajo.
Oh.
Right?
I was thinking of Mandarin because of the Taiwan semiconductors and yeah, I don't know.
So does uh uh that's also New Mexico is Navajo. Tribal land crosses into New Mexico. Right. Um what do you think is Texas?
All right.
Just kidding. Vietnamese.
Look at you. How did you know that?
I uh there's a lot of Vietnamese food in like the Houston area.
I was gonna say is there's a lot of like military stuff too? I don't know.
Um, you know, f uh obviously Louisiana's French, that makes sense, outside of English and Spanish. Um, what do you think it is in California? Chinese. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good guess. Uh Virginia is Arabic. Ohio is Pennsylvania Dutch. Florida is Haitian Creole.
What's Pennsylvania Dutch? Dutch. I don't know.
You're asking the wrong person.
The old timey the um Yeah, like the old old English almost.
Okay, okay.
What is the oldest um restaurant or bar in Arizona? Where would you guess it is?
I don't know. You guys are gonna have to guess that.
No, in the entire state. D.
Um that ghost town I drove through the other day. Yeah. No, it was um um something Wiki Up. No, not Wiki Up. Thatcher? I don't know. It was a really tall small town. I don't know what is it.
It's a place called the Palace in uh Prescott. Whiskey Row in Prescott. Oh yeah. Um established in eighteen seventy seven, it still has its original wooden interior despite a massive fire, and you can still see bullet holes in the ceiling. Wyatt, Virgil Earp and Doc Holiday all went there.
Now I must go. Yeah, yeah.
Super cool.
Yep. Okay, so what since we're celebrating two hundred and fifty years. What would a menu from seventeen seventy six look like?
I don't even know. What did they eat back then?
Right something called election cake. All right.
Yummy. Do you want an election cake tomorrow for your birthday, Mike?
No. Brunswick stew.
I've had that. That's good.
Okay.
It's like uh beans.
To have some'cause they don't have air uh refrigeration yet. Some type of bread?
Uh wilted salad sounds rustic until you realize warm greens dressed up with sharp acid and rich fat are still the backbone of half the appetizers farmed a table in America. Join your lunch and
Rich fat.
Turtle soup? Which I've had. Yeah. I've had turtle soup.
So you were eating in the seventeen hundreds.
Yeah.
Pasty.
Tasty.
Here's my favorite. Um I'm gonna get you the description as well. My favorite hoe cakes.
What'd you call me eating?
I told ya. I told you before the show.
Oh my god, Mike, why are we like this? Get out of my head.
🔊 Rapping
Mildly insulting. Not insulting. Just a little bit. A little mild. Oh, I love it. Yes. Good stuff.
Uh so I don't recommend that you go home and uh call your significant other hoe cakes. I don't think that's gonna go over well. But uh we had a little conversation before the show and I uh never mind. I'll tell you off the air, Paul. But I knew we knew it was going to happen. I just predicted it. I am I am as good as the m owes the mentalist. I knew it was gonna happen.
All right, tomorrow on the show, the county recorder Justin Heat joins us at nine a.m. We are gonna talk about the controversy and the battle over elections with the Board of Supervisors and get his perspective. Appreciate you listening to us. This morning we'll be back tomorrow morning at eight fifteen. Justin Heap happens at nine o'clock. Have a great day, everyone. God bless.
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