|
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, it is just unconscionable what we are doing to our children. I am reminded of the great Meryl Streep during the Alar hoax, asking on 60 Minutes, "What are we doing to our children?"
 From Providence, Rhode Island: "Faced with soaring diesel fuel costs, school districts are forcing students to use the old-fashioned way to get to class: on their own two feet. Many schools are eliminating or reducing bus service because fuel had jumped to $4.50 per gallon." In California it's happening. "Worried parents in Massachusetts have called WalkBoston, a nonprofit group that promotes walking, asking for help after their communities cut back on busing. Health advocates long have encouraged students to walk, stressing the fitness benefits. But school and transportation officials say they fear that abruptly reducing bus service could lower attendance rates, increase traffic congestion--" how's that with fewer buses on the road? Parents driving them to school? Well, so what, the parents are driving anyway, somebody is leaving the house to go to work, we damn well hope. "'If you remove a school bus from the road, you're adding 40 to 50 cars in the morning and in the afternoon,' said Bob Riley." Look, all this is skirting the point. This is all being reported from the context of how painful it's going to be on the adults and how painful it's going to be on people who are not parents because their traffic is going to go up.
What about the children? What are we doing? We already know that they are having to wear last year's clothes. You know how humiliating that is for your average high school kid? The rich are able to buy their kids new clothes. So once again the stigma of being poor or middle class will sock these kids right in the eye, and we don't care. We're doing it out of selfishness. (interruption) Kids can get jobs? Snerdley, you are exhibiting an insensitivity that stuns me. Kids work? You have lost touch with what America is. Well, you may have paid for your clothes. It doesn't happen that way anymore. I am stunned what we're doing to our kids. We're making 'em walk farther to the bus stop, we're making 'em wear last year's clothes and it's happening all over the country. "The Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County, for example, has eliminated 44 of its 62 bus routes to save an estimated $3.5 million, district spokeswoman Julie Hatchel said. The cuts will affect an estimated 5,000 students from kindergarten to high school. Leaders in three communities served by the district have threatened lawsuits, saying school officials are ignoring traffic and pollution implications. While cutting bus service is unpopular, Hatchel said it is better than firing teachers and increasing class sizes. ... Small towns are feeling the pinch, too. Short on cash, school officials in Shirley, Mass., a small town about 40 miles northwest of Boston, are going from eight buses to four starting this school year. Students who live within two miles of school must walk, bike or get a ride."
Folks, these kinds of hardships have not been known to exist in our country in I don't know how many years, and now we simply tell them to walk two miles in Boston, in cold snow? Well, it may cure the childhood obesity crisis, but it's going to increase pollution and cause global warming with all the additional cars, and then the traffic and then the road rage and so forth. "Parents in Shirley are worried about safety and seeking help from WalkBoston." Do you believe this? There's a special interest group called WalkBoston, and its job is to help people walk, and so they've been asked for help, to help the students walk? "As a single, working mother, Day said she can drop her children off at school in the morning but cannot pick them up. Her street runs parallel to train tracks and she fears her 9-year-old and 12-year-old sons will be tempted to take shortcuts by darting across the tracks outside the official crossings." Mary, tell 'em not to. Just tell 'em not to. "'I remember being a kid,' Day said. 'Are you going to walk a half-mile down the street to cross in the appropriate way when you see a clear way right there?' Her youngest son, Quincee, isn't thrilled with the idea of walking, especially when the weather gets cold. 'I don't really like it because it takes like 20 minutes to do it,' he said." He's exactly right. We're pushing these kids too hard. I just do not understand why we are pushing these kids so hard. What's becoming of us as a nation, ladies and gentlemen? Have we lost our hearts? Have we lost our soul? Whereas everything used to be "for" the children, now it seems it's screw the children. |
 |
|
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let's go to Bill in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Bill, you're next on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hello. Rush?
RUSH: Yeah, hi. Rush here.
CALLER: Yeah. Good. What's the big deal about kids walking to and from school? Dear me, they have to walk. Let's see, at one time when I was a kid --
RUSH: I know.
CALLER: -- we're talking 50 years ago.
RUSH: Ten miles in the snow.
CALLER: Both ways against the wind.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And I'm in Minnesota, so that's saying something.
RUSH: I believe you.
CALLER: But they are missing out on the opportunity. Here you got all these left-wing Drive-Bys bemoaning the fact, and especially in California, I can understand that, after you spend a couple of months there you know that nobody walks, everybody drives --
RUSH: Bill, Bill, Bill.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Perhaps I wasn't clear. You know, I pride myself in being a master communicator, and I confused you, and that's not good. My point was this: We are the richest country on earth. We, in political terms, for the past 15, 20 years, have done everything for the children. We have pampered them; we have spoiled them; we have made them think that our country's very existence is for their benefit, and now, all of a sudden, when energy prices get too high, mean adults just throw the kids under the bus, except there's no bus. The kids are being made to walk. What has happened to our heart and soul and our conscience? Making them go to school two years in a row with the same clothes, in a nation that does everything for the children? We're losing what made us us. I had to walk to school, too. I had to walk a long ways to my bus stop, especially when it snowed, and sometimes when it snowed they never canceled school. And sometimes I'd go stand at a bus stop and a bus didn't show up and I'd have to walk all the way to school, and people who were being driven to school by their parents would roll down their windows and laugh at me and humiliate me because I had to take the hoof express.
We've gotten past that. We're now imposing hardships on our children, making them walk for something as silly as pollution, gas prices. We're gonna increase the chance some of these kids will be hit by cars because they're going to put more cars out there with parents taking kids to school. Not only that, school lunch has gone up in some places 70 cents, where it used to be $1.30, now it's two dollars, two dollars for lunch in the United States of America? My God, ladies and gentlemen, what has become of us? And then, there's this story, from Live Science: "As summer vacation ends and children head back to class, they might need a new school supply: face masks. About one third of American schools are within an 'air pollution danger zone' near major highways and the pollutants that stream from cars and trucks, a new study finds. Previous research, including the UC Cincinnati Childhood Allergy and Air Pollution Study (CCAAPS), has shown that exposure of school-age children to traffic pollutants near main roads is associated with a greater risk of developing asthma and other respiratory problems later in life. 'This is a major public health concern that should be given serious consideration in future urban development, transportation planning and environmental policies,' said study leader Sergey Grinshpun of the University of Cincinnati. Other research has also shown that children are exposed to pollution on school buses and that one way to reduce their exposure is to stop idling the buses as they wait for their charges to board."
We had no idea we're killing our kids. We're idling school buses. Now we gotta turn 'em off and restart them after the kids -- except there aren't going to be buses anymore because they're pulling back on bus service for kids because of high energy prices. And of course there's no mention in this story, ladies and gentlemen, of the stupid mandate from years ago to bus kids all over creation for societal reasons that the liberals made up. Most kids could be going to a school up the street, but no. At any rate, ladies and gentlemen, we need to rethink the way we're dealing with the kids. We're pushing them too hard. Hardships like walking an extra block or two to the high school is just too much. |
|
|
| END TRANSCRIPT |
|
|
| *Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time. |
|
|
