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May 9, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:43
May 9, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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And welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
You are tuned to the most listened-to radio talk show in the country and the most talked about radio talk show in the country.
This is the Rush Limbaugh program on the EIB network, and it is Friday.
So live from the left post at our satellite studios in Los Angeles.
It's open line Friday.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program and the email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
And Open Line Friday means there are very few, if any, real restrictions on what callers want to talk about.
That's it.
That's not the case Monday through Thursday.
800-282-2882.
Okay, let me conclude the detailed explanation of yesterday's activation of the right-side cochlear implant because there are other things I want to get to.
And I know you have questions about this.
I sent a long email out to people last night, hoping to anticipate every question that they had.
But still, somebody said, well, I don't understand why would you have to quit if all you had was the right side?
Or why would you have to quit if you'd have done the right side first instead of the left side?
Let me review.
When I say that the top of the line program for cochlear implants, the brand I have, which is called Hi-Res or High Resolution, the digital version, makes everybody sound like chipmunks.
I am not exaggerating.
I'm not trying to find a way to make you understand.
It literally makes everybody, everything, sound like little kids speeded up.
Like playing a 33 and a third RPM LP at 45.
It just, it just, it was, it's always been unusable.
And it literally made everybody sound like chipmunks.
So it didn't work for me.
When I first was implanted in 2001, the high-res wasn't even legal.
It hadn't been approved to the FDA.
All I could use was the analog, and it worked perfect.
I had 80% speech comprehension.
That's more than some people who can hear normally.
Over the years, I had to turn off some electrodes, which reduced my speech comprehension now down to 55% with the left ear alone.
Fewer electrodes, the less sound quality.
And I had to turn them off because they were causing facial ticks.
The cochlear implant impacts two nerves in the face, the auditory nerve and then the nerve in the jaw.
And they were causing facial ticks at normal volumes.
I had to go in and it's done with software, not surgery.
You go in and connect the implant to their computer and they turn them off.
So yesterday, just do the right side, the new one first, start with high-res.
The audiologist wasn't saying, we're not going to put analog.
That's 13, 14, 20 years old technology.
We're not going to do that.
I said, what if it's better?
We're not going to do it.
I was already dukes up the audiologist.
So turn it on, and it's horrible, folks.
It is literally indescribably bad.
There's no way I can make you understand it.
There's no way you can possibly know what it's like because I'm yet to find a proper description for artificial sound.
Just trust me, I would have had to quit if that's all I had.
I could not do this program, nor would I be able to communicate very well.
I'm doing a lot of writing with people.
But the magic happened I put my old implant on at the same time as the new one and set it also to the chipmunk setting.
Immediately, the chipmunk aspect vanished on the left side, the old, the current, it vanished.
Nobody sounded like chipmunks anymore.
Instantly, audiologist says she had never seen anything like this.
On the right side, the volume, which by itself is at 10.
How can I describe this?
The volume was so low that I could barely hear anybody or anything.
And turning it up did not increase the volume.
It just distorted what was there.
But with the left side on set to the chipmunk setting, the left side chipmunks went away.
Everybody sounded normal.
And the volume of the right side came up and matched that on the left.
Now, it really didn't.
It just, my brain made that happen.
Who can explain it?
There is no explanation for it, but it happened.
It was miraculous.
It was like magic.
Now, I said earlier, I don't know why, don't remember.
It was 2001.
It was December 19th when I had the surgery, first implant.
I don't remember why the late, great Dr. Antonio de la Cruz chose the left side instead of the right.
All I remember is we didn't do both because they thought they might have a cure before I died and had to leave one ear open and available if such a cure was developed.
So we did the left side, and all there was available was analog, and it was perfect.
Instantly out of the box.
No education, no learning, no training, no nothing.
It was just instant, it worked.
And I thought, well, I mean, it worked, and it had its problems, environmental sounds.
I mean, it wasn't, but there was no chipmunk.
There was no, people sounded pretty much normal.
It was not perfect in your sense.
But for what my expectations were, it was right on the money.
High-res supposed to be better.
For me, it's a thousand times worse.
So my point was, what if we had, and yesterday, after turning the high-res on the right side, it was a disaster.
I asked the audiologic, can you give me the analog map that I'm using currently on my left side, put it on this new one?
No.
Why not?
Because you can't leave it there.
It's incompatible.
Besides, you are going to learn this high-res.
But what if it works?
What if it's no.
So I feel like I'm dealing with a radio engineer who's ignoring everything I say and looking at a meter and saying, it's fine.
No offense, Brian.
So she did.
She put the old, the thing I'm using right now on the right side, and it was a disaster.
It was horrible, which I was totally unexpecting.
I was expecting the same thing.
I thought that would be a fallback if this vaunted high-resolution thing didn't work, which it didn't by itself.
But it was just bad.
So then I thought, now, what if 13 years ago we'd done the right ear first?
And if 13 years ago the results were like they were yesterday, I would have had to retire 13 years ago.
That's what I meant.
Now, there's no way of knowing if 13 years ago the right ear would have performed as well as the left did because the left ear was only deaf for two or three months.
It had not, quote, forgotten how to hear.
My brain did not, but on the right side, just in terms people understand, my brain's forgotten how to hear.
The auditory nerve has been dead.
It hadn't been used.
It's forgotten how to hear.
It hasn't been used and dormant.
So that is theoretically the reason why it's so bad.
And I'm told that if I keep using this new thing, that it's going to get better.
It's like working out muscles.
They get stronger, better, and it'll improve.
She assured me of this.
Six months from now, you won't believe you'll never want to go back to the analog thing at all, which I think is true.
I now believe that that's right.
I've been laboring under a misconception for 13 years that you couldn't learn, that whatever it was when I turned it on was it.
But the reason I was wrong, my left ear was not deaf long enough to forget how to hear.
So it didn't need any training.
The right side does.
It's been dormant for 13 years.
But the magic is inexplicable.
The right side, what happened yesterday is so bad if I use it alone.
It's indescribably bad.
In fact, having it on would be worse than being totally deaf in the ear.
It is so bad, it was such a distraction.
It's the best I can describe it for you.
But used together with the left.
In fact, I'll tell you this.
One of the things I'm now worried about is as I continue to use the new, what's going to happen to this one that I'm using right now?
Is it going to end up sounding odd after I get used to the new one?
Because the new one can't be put on this thing I'm using.
And it won't work in one ear alone.
And I can't do both ears when doing the program.
Technologically, that's not, there's no way to do it yet.
So at 11 o'clock today, Eastern Time, an hour before the program, I took off both implants set to the high-res setting and put on the radio show implant, which is the old one.
And in less than 24 hours, I can't.
It's amazing, folks, how empty everything sounded.
I mentioned that with both implants set to the chipmunk setting and using both sides, there's a new depth and a new presence and a whole new world has opened up with both of them.
Went back to the thing that I loved and thought was the best and couldn't be improved on, and it just sounds half dead.
Voice quality is the same.
I've already re-acclimated to it, but the first half hour from 11 to 11:30 Eastern Time, just dead.
The voice quality was there, sound quality and all that, but the volume was not as high, it didn't seem, and environmental is just all different.
But now it's back to normal at the way I sound.
So when the program's over and I go back and put these two new things on, they're going to sound totally weird.
It's going to be a balancing act because I have to use the new ones for them to work.
So it's going to be an ongoing process.
But the bottom line is that it was an overwhelming success, but the first 20 minutes were, well, just total depression because my expectations were so high.
And then it eventually ended up working like a champ.
I mean, it's not perfect.
There's still, everybody on my right side sounds chipmunk, but the left side overpowers it, overrides it, dominates it.
The right side is still there, provides the high frequency, all my bass perceptions on the left side.
For me, you can understand where I'm coming from, total deafness without any of this.
For me, it's miraculous.
I still am in awe of the coincidence or the blessing that in my little speck of time to live on the earth, it's at the same time human beings have advanced to the point of inventing this technology.
If I were a radio man 30 years ago and this had happened, it would have been the end of me as a radio man.
I mean, the big timeline of humanity, however long that is, our time on it is infinitesimally small, and mine happens to coincide with that kind of technology being created.
How can you not believe in God?
Okay.
I hope I've answered questions, probably have created some at the same time, but the bottom line is that it ended up being a profound, really uplifting, positive, and inspirational experience yesterday after starting off disastrously, which I guess in its two-hour microcosm is its own lesson.
Sit tight.
We'll be back.
There's much more out there to get into, plus your telephone calls, which we'll get into next.
If people have been waiting for a while, we'll get to that.
Mix the rest of it in here.
It's good.
All of it's good.
Hope to cram as much of it in as I can, so don't go away.
Uh-oh, uh-oh, CBS News out of St. Louis.
An unnamed NFL executive has been quoted.
He's unnamed, and it better stay that way.
An unnamed NFL executive is quoted as saying, Michael Sam is not a really good athlete.
No, they better, better.
Whoever that guy is, he better hope and pray that journalist is willing to go to jail to protect his sources.
Oh, man, because Michael Sam wasn't drafted yesterday, and that means he's going to be drafted today.
No matter how it happens, it's going to happen.
I hope it's the Redskins.
The Pope, ladies and gentlemen, is back saying, demanding a legitimate redistribution of wealth.
You, Papa, Pope Francis, called today for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the economy of exclusion that is taking hold today.
The Pope is describing charity, and that's what the church is for.
And the Vatican is a country.
But the Pope is demanding that the United Nations somehow use its influence to get member states to redistribute wealth.
That's Marxism.
That's socialism.
That's not charity.
The church is the place where that kind of thing, charity, should come from.
And he is in charge of that.
And the Catholic Church is how many billion, what, what, what, what?
You think I'm getting in trouble here?
What have I said that isn't true?
What have I said that's politically incorrect besides all of it?
All right, to the phones.
Here is Andy in Fort Worth, Texas.
Your first on Open Line Friday.
Thank you for holding on.
Welcome.
Thanks, Rush, for taking my call.
I'm a rush baby and a longtime listener.
I'm a pediatric audiologist in Texas, and I just had to call and tell you how truly tickled I am to hear how well your activation went yesterday.
I'm sitting here nodding my head to everything you're saying, and you're right.
It is miraculous.
Hearing is such a miraculous thing that our bodies can do.
And your story is very interesting to me by nature anyway, but I really wanted to thank you for openly using your platform to talk about your hearing loss and the impact it has on real life, because I think it's an issue that gets downplayed for the most part, almost like hearing is the lesser of the five senses.
And it's wonderful how you've addressed what a quality of life issue it is to have hearing loss, but then also to share your successes in pursuing treatment and technology.
And I didn't know if you knew, but May is better hearing month, so I think it's the perfect time to be talking about this.
No, I did not know that May is better hearing month.
But I'm glad that you called.
To me, talking about it is the only reason I do is, I'll be honest, is because of the bond I have with my audience.
I know that they've been 25 years, they're interested in it.
And if it helps, that's cool.
I've not had a lot of inquiries about that.
To me, it just makes all the sense in the world to do what you can to maximize your life.
And you talk about when you lose your hearing, people can't relate to that, Andy, as I've said, because nobody can create it.
You can't create artificial deafness.
Like you can't pretend to be blind or paralyzed.
You can.
And people do, they just can't relate to not being able to hear.
And therefore, they cannot relate to the absolute disaster it can be for personal relationships, particularly intimate ones.
It can break them up.
It can be absolute disaster.
Yeah, and we see that with families all the time.
You know, when we diagnose, since I work with mainly infants and children, when we diagnose a child with hearing loss, some parents take that very seriously, and then there's others that do kind of sadly put it to the wayside and think, well, I can manage this, or it's just hearing loss.
It won't be that bad as long as they can hear something.
It's fine.
But those kids that don't get services or even adults that don't get services, like you said, those results on relationships are catastrophic.
And it really does create a social barrier for children and adults as they grow.
And so I'm still happy to hear you talk about that.
If you're not careful, it can cause you to shut out a tremendous portion of living.
Refuse to go places, don't experience this or that, use it as a crutch or an excuse not to do things.
But it's more than that.
It's the only, I've said this a number of times, but it's true.
It's the only disability where the disabled gets blamed for it, where people get mad at the victim.
And so it just leads to people being distant from one another.
The one thing that's happened, I don't understand, is people have gone deaf.
You think my son should get a cochlear?
Heck yes.
There's no reason if you have the ability to restore hearing, there's literally no reason not to do that.
And yet there's some people who are not convinced of it, but I'm a firm believer in that.
Okay, it's a couple of questions here.
Rush.
Do you mean that your hearing is now back to normal?
No, no, folks.
With the new chipmunk on both sides, it's not anywhere back to normal.
I don't mean to say the improvement baseline is, well, the baseline I'm using is the first 20 minutes was an abject failure.
It was disaster.
It was horrible.
Then use the two together, the improvement was dramatic.
I still am going to have to ask people to repeat what they say.
I mean, I've got a long way to go.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm just saying that the improvement that I experienced in the span of two hours yesterday was unimaginable.
Another question, what do you mean hearing problems cause problems in relationship?
Let me explain something to you.
One of the most irritating or unpleasant things to have to do is ask somebody to repeat what they said.
And I have to ask everybody to repeat what they said, nine times out of ten.
And they get so mad after a while, they lose their patience that I eventually don't ask them what they said and I end up not knowing.
And I guess.
I'm sorry, that's not communicating with people.
That's just that, and that's what happens because people get so irritated when you ask them to repeat things.
And it's not their fault.
It's this everybody does.
It's just a fact of life.
Something people take it personally when you don't understand what they say.
And in my case, it's not a function of not trying.
It's not a function of not paying attention.
It's just inability.
So rather than irritate people and rather than feel like I'm three feet tall with people smirking and acting irritated and upset at the fact I'm around, I mean, that's what it adds up to.
You end up feeling be better off if you weren't around.
People wouldn't be so irritated.
That you'd end up faking hearing what people say.
You make them think you heard what they say when you didn't and you move on.
And then later on, they'll tell you something and you, what?
What do you mean?
Well, I told you 10 minutes ago.
Didn't you hear what?
It's just, it's horrible, folks.
You can't, I'm sure you experienced this in your families.
Everybody's got somebody in their family hard of hearing.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
So if you, that's why all this is so important to me is to is to take steps to make sure that I can maximize whatever ability I have bionically to hear people because the end result is no communication.
What is murder for me to hear?
Low frequencies are the easiest to hear.
High frequencies are the toughest.
But it's when I'm out in public and doing a personal appearance and there's a lot of noise and people saying, I never hear what they're saying.
I haven't the slightest idea.
I've just gotten a habit of saying thank you.
I'm assuming they're complimenting me.
And some of the expressions I get when I they could be to, you're the biggest blowhard of thank you.
Thanks so much for coming.
They look at me like that's how I know that I didn't hear what they said.
That's impossible in a lot of noise.
So I don't go to a lot of social things just for that.
A, I don't want to, I don't want to feel small.
B, I don't want to irritate people.
I don't want to be around people who are irritated because of me.
So it leads to, I don't know, not hibernation, but withdrawal from people.
And there's no point in that.
That's not necessary.
So that's why all of this is so important to me to try to maximize my ability to communicate with people.
That's what life is all about.
You get right down to it, particularly if you want to have, and I'm not talking about marriage, sexual, intimate, I'm just intimate, getting to know people, you know, learning who they are.
What's the point of having a friend or group if you don't know them?
And the only way you're going to get to know them is to communicate with them, be able to associate what they say with their facial expressions and all that.
It's crucial.
So that's why all of this is important to me to try to maximize it all.
Here is Jill in South Florida.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great.
Good morning to you, Mr. Ross Limbaugh.
It's an honor for the first time to be able to speak to you.
Well, thank you.
Ever since I came to the United States, I've been listening to you.
Thank you very much.
That's since 2008.
As you might know from my intonation, I'm a legal immigrant from an ancient country who had spent 22 years in the Middle East.
And after picking up the language and understanding and speaking it fluently, I became a journalist.
I'm calling in you today.
Wait a minute.
Wait, well, hold it.
After learning our language, you decided to become a journalist.
It's not about deciding, sir.
It's about an opportunity.
Right.
Okay.
Because as an ordinary fast food worker, I was contracted for $300 a month.
And there's 7 million more like me down there.
Oh, okay.
For merely $300 a month, people go to the Middle East to work there.
Okay, so I consider myself very fortunate, like winning the lottery 100 times to be able to come to the United States.
So we have a journalist who listens to the program.
You may be the only or first one who is admitting it, and you actually called.
I used to be a journalist, sir.
I'm not a journalist anymore here in the United States.
Oh, okay.
I got it now.
Congratulations.
Okay, so I called you for the subject of Bokah Ram.
Okay.
I listened to you in the first part of the show, and you were mentioning about something that the reaction was kind of like a cosmetic reaction, as I can put it.
I don't mean to disagree, but the thing is, having spent almost more than two decades in the Middle East, where my experience as our my teacher, it seems that we're sticking our nose into something that is none of our business.
Well, young children, young girls are betrothed to Muslims.
No, no, no, no, no, okay.
Okay, I understand what you're saying.
He's saying, okay, so 300, 200 girls kidnapped in Nigeria.
What business is it of ours?
Happens all the time.
Why are we sticking our nose?
Nobody is.
Jill, look, here's my point.
I'm not suggesting that we do.
The president of the United States and his wife are attempting to make people think that they care deeply and are doing something about it by hiding behind the cosmetics, as you call it, the Twitter hashtag.
Now, to me, this is the typical symbolism over substance that characterizes the modern Democrat Party and liberalism.
They want to be judged on their intentions, not the results of their policies or actions.
And I think, I'm not urging the president to launch a military strike or any of that, but if you're going to do something, don't look impotent when you do it.
You know, it's okay for John Q. Public and Jane Q Public, who can't do anything about it, to get all excited about a Twitter hashtag movement.
Everybody wants to show they care and so forth.
But the most powerful man in the world looks impotent and pathetic.
And then so does his country when the Twitter hashtag becomes the instrument here.
That is the point that I was trying to make.
And there are all kinds of ancillary points to this, too.
This is not, as you say, this isn't uncommon there.
And so from a policy standpoint, why in the world did this regime not categorize this group, Boko Harrim, as a terror group?
And they didn't because they're pacifists.
They don't want to offend them.
They think peasing these people is going to make them less dangerous to us or whatever other convoluted attitude.
It was said by somebody else earlier today that since these particular al-Qaeda people are black, that we can't criticize them, particularly Democrats can't, because that wouldn't go well over well here at home.
I mean, this kind of thing is silly.
If you're going to act like you care, if you're the United States, by virtue of the Secretary of State and the President, are going to get involved by denouncing it or whatever, Twitter hashtag is a joke.
My point, for them.
That was it.
But at the same time, I'm not suggesting that John Kerry re-sign up with the Swift boats and launch and deploy to get them back.
That was not the point.
Welcome back, Rushland Boss, serving humanity simply by showing up.
Now, I want to go back to this Pope story.
There's a couple of interesting paragraphs here in the AP story, and we have to allow they could be totally wrong and incorrect because it is the AP.
However, the Pope is singing the AP's tune here, so it could be pretty accurate.
One paragraph is, Francis Il Papa voiced a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January in his apostolic exhortation, the joy of the gospel.
That document, which denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, provoked accusations that he was a Marxist.
I wonder who said that.
It doesn't say.
But trickle-down economic theories are proven, and they are not naive.
They happen to work, and it is the essence of economic growth.
Trickle-down is exactly what happens in a vibrant economy.
Anyway, Pope Francis urged the United Nations to promote development goals that attack the root causes of poverty and hunger and protect the environment and ensure dignified labor for all.
The UN is one of the root causes of poverty.
If you want to get down to brass tags, the UN wouldn't know how to properly identify the root cause of poverty if it had to, because the root cause of poverty is the isn'ts, socialism, communism, Marxism, liberalism, you name it.
You want everybody to be poor?
That's what you do.
Take a look at Venezuela.
Now they're rationing about this to paradise, workers' paradise, nationalized all those industries, took over all the oil companies, nationalized this, nationalized that.
Hugo Chavez, now he's room temperature, but the country's, it's just a basket case.
It was supposed to be a socialist utopia paradise.
And it's now everything in the world being rationed.
Water, food, electricity is all being rationed.
That's exactly what happens.
There's your root cause of poverty.
The Pope said, specifically, getting to the root cause of poverty, protecting the environment, this involves challenging all forms of injustices and resisting the economy of exclusion, the throwaway culture, the culture of death, which nowadays sadly risks becoming passively accepted.
That's abortion.
That's going to sit well, but he may have covered his bases elsewhere.
Then there's this.
Friday's audience, where the Pope said all this, came just days after the Holy See was battered in a second round of grilling by a UN committee over its record of handling priestly sex abuse.
Aha.
So only days after the church was ripped to shreds for the priests and the sex abuse of children, we get this.
And I'm just going to tell you, redistributing wealth is not charity.
That's why a lot of people sign on for it.
They think it is, but it isn't.
It's income redistribution.
It is generational theft.
Charity is an entirely different thing.
Here is Doug in Ludington, Ludington.
I guess it is Michigan.
You're next on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Yeah, Rush.
It's good to talk to you.
Thank you very much, sir.
I just want to let you know that I had tears of joy when I heard your story about your implant.
I wish all the best for you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I shook your hand at the Philco store way back when you were in Reno.
What?
You're going back to 1989.
They maybe 19, the Philco store in Reno.
That was one of the original sponsors of my radio program in Sacramento.
It was an electronics store, F-I-L-C.
It's still there, I think.
And they had opened one up in Reno.
You're right.
Rush, I think it'd be a pretty cool idea if you were to make a video and put it on your website where you would address the youth of this country so that you can inform them about what a sovereign nation is all about and what America is all about, the exceptionalism, and try to get them to understand what conservatives are all about and the Tea Party so that they don't go out and throw their first vote away on the destruction of their own country.
And I was wondering if you've ever considered something like that, making a video and having it available on RushLimbaugh.com to follow up with your two books.
I'm encouraged to do things like that now and then.
Specifically, a video series on my website has not been suggested.
You're the first to do that, but many have suggested that I buy some national TV time and do it or create, back in the old days, a set of DVDs.
Others have said, why don't you buy a 60-second commercial, do a really good six-second video, put it on some TV stations or networks around the country?
A lot of people have come to me with ideas like that.
I appreciate it.
I do.
I mean, I'm sure that would have a lot of potential.
You know, video is a particularly internet video is the medium of choice for young people today.
The thing is, it would give a lot of people like myself a place to tell young people.
I could walk up to a few kids and just tell them, hey, go to RushLimbaugh.com.
Because he addresses you in a really cool video.
I mean, you're like the godfather, okay?
You're like the godfather of talk radio, and you're a good-looking guy.
So I think that you could really pull it off.
I don't think anybody else could, but I think you could.
Godfather of talk radio and a good-looking guy.
Well, I appreciate it.
That's very nice of you to say.
I appreciate it.
To get that point across to you, that maybe you could consider, I think the President of the United States would go there himself to see what Rush Limbaugh is telling the youth of this country because they're very concerned when Rush Limbaugh addresses the youth.
Yeah, he would have somebody tell him what's there, or he would go to Media Matters to find out what they say is there.
But that would be a way.
It's a good idea.
I have to admit, it's true.
Doug, I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for everything that you said.
I appreciate it.
It is true, folks.
People are always coming up with additional ways for me to work.
It's just never-ending.
Did you know that Eva Longoria is at her name?
Eva Longoria, desperate housewife, did you know that she opened a female-oriented steakhouse?
And did you, I didn't.
And did you also know that it bombed?
Well, you didn't know.
I didn't either.
I'll tell you why it bombed when we come back.
And have you ever wondered why are so many white men trying to save the planet without women?
Well, a woman is wondering about that.
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