RUSH: This is amazing. Here’s Oprah Winfrey. The Drive-Bys, I’m sure you’ve all seen this now, reporting that the Oprah donated 40 million to build a school in South Africa for a small and select group of impoverished girls. Most of the Drive-By Media, however, did not make the connection with this quote from an interview that Oprah did in Newsweek. This was on American schools. She said, quote, “I became so frustrated with visiting inner city schools, I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there. If you ask the kids in the inner city schools what they want or need, they’ll say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school.”
This is quite Cosby-esque of the Oprah, and it’s in Newsweek, and the fact that there hasn’t been any hubbub about this proves nobody reads Newsweek. If she had said this on television there would obviously have been a bigger reaction to it. (interruption) No, she’s not out of touch. The Oprah will never be out of touch. Even if she is out of touch… Well… “iPods and sneakers are school uniforms here,” Mr. Snerdley said. Fine and dandy, but she’s saying that’s wrong, and she’s not going to fund that! That’s all she’s saying. “I became so frustrated visiting inner city skrools that I just stopped going. The sense you need to learn just isn’t there.” By the way, it’s iPods and sneakers in schools. Try this from the Associated Press story out of Michigan: “A man who awoke inside a garbage truck that was about to compact its load on Thursday in Oak Park,” this is last Thursday, “was rescued after making a cell phone call to the cops. The man was scavenging for bottles…”
Can we assume he was homeless? I mean, the homeless have seen the Dumpster Diving Video. He’s in a Dumpster. Actually, he’s in the garbage truck. He’s in an actual truck, “scavenging for bottles when he fell asleep in the Dumpster, said…” Actually he was in the Dumpster and a truck came by and picked up the Dumpster, dumped it in the truck and that’s when he woke up. “He awoke when the container was floated into a truck. He told the cops he didn’t know which truck he was in but gave a dispatcher the location of the Dumpster he fell asleep in. The police checked several trucks including one in a parking lot. An officer went, pounded on the side of the truck; somebody pounded back. He was buried in the garbage.” Cell phone, though, still got a signal. Here’s the thing: This is a homeless guy with a cell phone. A homeless guy with a cell phone. You people won’t remember this. We did a series of homeless updates, but there were homeless advocates and activists years ago who wanted to make sure homeless people had a computer so they could use e-mail, to stay in touch with relief agencies and authorities. Everybody laughed about it. Now they got cell phones. So homeless have cell phones; inner city schools have iPods and sneakers, and Oprah is in South Africa because nobody hear cares about learning.