First Draft

Two sides to the fight

The Texas State Board of Education enjoyed its fair share of bad press lately, and rightly so. 

Strike 1: In Friday night's Worst Person in the World segment, Keith gave the finger to Goodhair for considering Cynthia Dunbar as a leading candidate to head up the SBOE. Not just any old run-of-the mill religious conservative, Dunbar is in the Obama-is-Hitler cult and also thinks (when she thinks at all) that public school is a “tool of perversion,” “unconstitutional,” and “tyrannical," choosing to homeschool her own offspring rather than subject them to actual education.  So naturally, our august governor thought she'd be a grand choice to chair the SBOE! 

Strike 2: Actually, Olbermann was a step behind since Perry had just chosen conservative Cynthia Lowe as chair of the board. Arguably, Lowe's a few degrees better than Dunbar, but not by much. 

In 2004 Ms. Lowe opposed requiring that publishers obey curriculum standards and put medically accurate information about responsible pregnancy and disease prevention in new high school health textbooks.

In 2008 Ms. Lowe voted to throw out nearly three years of work by teacher writing teams on new language arts standards. Over the strenuous objections of teachers and curriculum specialists, Lowe instead voted for a standards document that the board’s far-right bloc patched together overnight and slipped under hotel doors the morning of the final vote.

In 2003 and 2009 Ms. Lowe supported dumbing down the state’s public school science curriculum by voting to include unscientific, creationist criticisms of evolution in science textbooks and curriculum standards.

Strike 3: Conservative members of an "expert" curriculum advisory panel appointed by equally conservative members of the SBOE recommended that Texas social studies curriculum standards be altered so that certain historical figures — deemed by said conservatives to be poor examples for Texas schoolchildren — receive less focus. Among their targets: César Chavez, Thurgood Marshall, and Anne Hutchinson.  Ms. Lowe offers context: 

“Certainly those are historical figures that students should be aware of, and their goals and their place in history, but it needs to be in the context of what those people were known for. And so if the example is someone of good civic involvement, then there may be a different type of historical figure and leader that would be more appropriate.” 

Hear that Texas schoolkids?  "Good civic involvement" means conformity. Shut up, stay in line, pick those grapes and don't bitch about your living conditions, vote with the majority, don't think independently, and don't diss the preacher and run off to Rhode Island. That kind of thinking is just not appropriate. Also, when possible, be white. 

But rather than the  "So ... What Did my Asshat Dickhead Idealogue fill-in-the-blank? post that I am wont to do from time to time (and probably could do at least once a day) in response to the conservative and/or religious right trying to drag Texans back to the 19th century, I'm gonna change it up today.  I'm going to shine a bit of light on some good guys in this fight, the Texas Freedom Network.

TFN is one of the examples I offer when otherwise intelligent people dismiss Texas as a bleak cultural wasteland devoid of strong progressives.  TFN has one simple mission: "The Texas Freedom Network advances a mainstream agenda of religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the religious right." They fight the godbags* on many fronts throughout the state but education is a major battleground. Their site, and the TFN Insider blog, are the first places I turn to when I want to know the latest on the antics of the SBOE. Of particular interest are the annual State of the Religious Right reports. Bookmark TFN, learn from them, send them donations if the spirit moves you. 

Lastly, those of you in the immediate area, make a difference and do something. The SBOE is formidable but it can be changed, from within. Next week, TFN offers a SBOE Candidate Training workshop for those interested in running as a candidate in the SBOE elections in 2010.

* "godbag" ™, courtesy of Twisty Faster

Yankee Stadium Uber Alles

If you love baseball and you aren’t a tool, chances are you hate the Yankees. If you are from New York or you are a front-runner, chances are you love the Yankees. In either case, you have a choice as to whether to cheer for them because America is all about choices. You can read this post or skip to the Friday Ferretblogging because you have a choice. You can thank God for this right or you can thank the framers of the Constitution because you have a choice. You can choose to choose, or you can choose to have someone else choose for you. With exceptions of laws made by the people for the common good (theoretically) of those who live here, you’ve got a hell of a lot of freedom to do what you’d like.

What you apparently don’t have the right to do is choose to take a leak during the 7th Inning Stretch at Yankee Stadium.

On Aug. 26, Brandon Campeau-Laurion was taking in the action when he decided to use the extended 7th Inning Stretch break for a pause for the cause. In attempting to make his way to the restroom, the Red Sox fan (OK, now we know why he was in trouble) found himself confronted by a police officer who wouldn’t let him move because it was time to play “God Bless America.” According to Clyde Haberman's article:

“He sort of raised his hands in a ‘Stop’ fashion,” Mr. Campeau-Laurion recalled. “I said: ‘Look, I don’t care about “God Bless America.” I’m just trying to go to the bathroom.’ I tried to keep going, but no sooner than I did, he got a second officer over, and they just wrapped me up and dragged me out. They shoved me out the gates and told me to get out of their country if I didn’t like it.”

I’m sorry? “Their country?” Hell, even John Cougar Mellencamp knows “This is OURRRRR country” and since Yankee Stadium has yet to attain the “country within a country” status of the Vatican, I’m pretty sure this guy didn’t check his Constitutional rights at the door. In many cases, the security detail restricts movement during the playing of this vocal blend of God and country by chaining off the aisle. (See the photo with the NYT story)

According to a NYT article, Campeau-Laurion received about $10,000 plus legal fees from the Yankees, while the team admitted no wrongdoing. The details of the settlement, which were revealed this week, smacked of that old money phrase “the cost of doing business.” The whole affair came across as, “We did nothing wrong, but the settlement costs about what we paid Robinson Cano for one at bat last year, and he’s not even in our top ten salaries, so let’s just pay the guy and hope he goes away.”

We could write this off as just another case of a guy making $9.50 an hour acting on a power trip because he didn't like the attitude of someone he figured he could push around. We also can't underestimate the Red Sox/Yankees thing (the Sox were apparently kicking the Yankees' ass at the time of the incident), but in doing so gives the Yankees a pass and we are no better than they are when they figured buying this guy off was the easiest thing to do.

I’m a fan of God and I love my country, but the reason why I love both is because I choose to. Those of you who choose a different faith or choose not to believe at all, that’s your right under the governmental structure of this fine country of ours. Those of you who question our country, that’s your right too. We are not, nor should we ever be a “my way or the highway” kind of country.

Unfortunately, over the previous eight years, we seemed to slide that way due to terrorism, escalating international tension and a president who wanted to “smoke ‘em out” all the time. Perhaps that’s why conservatives were going so bat-shit insane when Obama won: they figured he’d be as intolerant of them as they were of others.

Instead of subjecting people to “God Bless America,” let’s try something more inclusive like “This Land is Your Land," which Woody Guthrie wrote in response to that complacent and arrogant tune.

Then again, if it weren’t for being complacent and arrogant, what would the Yankees do with themselves?

I just need you to tell me how to get to the time machine...

Yeah, I know, this is popping up everywhere this morning, so maybe you've seen it.  But..but...I just cannot pass it by. 

People always wonder what the hell happened to the brilliantly off-kilter Victoria Jackson between Saturday Night Live (she was Toonces' mom, ferchrissakes!) in the late 80's and now. Kidnapped by a cult? Psychiatric hospitalization? Gone Galt? Head trauma? I choose Attacked by Zombies. They ate most of her brain, leaving just the amygdala. She's just a series of autonomic fear-based tics now but I have to give her credit for the timing. Coming on the heels of the Michael Jackson Death Spectacle and Fishin' with Sarah, she's obviously another testament to the Good Doctor's famous utterance about the weird going pro.

Social Security and Medicare are broke. Baby boomers, like me, are getting old and will soon be asking for it. Socialized medicine makes people die. You stand in a long, long line with a breast lump, clogged artery, or sharp pencil stuck in your eye, and someone like the DMV person, who can’t speak English, has chewing gum, an attitiude, really long fake nails that curl up at the end, and is talking on a cell phone, enjoying their power trip moment, is finally face to face with you. They mumble something incoherent about paperwork. You die. One less person in line for Social Security and Medicare!

 Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas!

Someone Bring Me A Sword

I'm at a conference in Atlanta this week (love your city, Atlantans!) so this'll probably be my only post today, and a  week-late one at that.  But I couldn't pass this one up.  My favorite Glenn Beckism yet didn't get nearly as much attention last week as I thought it should have (it got drowned out by the Sotomayor nomination).  But you should see this, because this time, Glenn really brought the funny:

The Empathy of Solomon

For those who don't want to sit through the trainwreck that is Fox and Friends, Glenn asked rhetorically, and I quote, "Was Solomon empathetic when he said 'cut the baby in half'?" 

Dear Glenn, when an agnostic who never attended a single Sunday school class in her life understands the Bible better than you do, perhaps you shouldn't quote from it.

Then again, where would all the fun go if you stopped?  Please, Glenn, tell me what you think Job was all about.  And that whole, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone..." thing.  C'mon...please?

Chicken wings places: Hetero gay bars?

A buddy of mine here where I work likes to lunch at a chicken wings chain, Buffalo Wild Wings.

We've eaten at a handful of them, and while there are not bevies of buxomly waitresses, we have noticed that there usually are way more guys at BW-Squared than women. In fact, on some occasions its been about 95 percent men there, including wait staff and management.

I made the observation one time, as the sound system was blaring disco beats, that the place could pass for a straight man's gay bar.

So my question is,  What makes chicken wings guy food?

Could it be the TV sets, too, or is there something in the sauce? Is eating messy food just a guy thing?

Do gay guys know that if they want to scope straight guys they should come to places like this, thereby bumping up the already high numbers of guys. I have this from a secret source (whom I will NOT call Deep Throat) that this might be the case.

Or do wings make you gay? I mean fat friends allegedly mean you have a good chance of being fat, so why not get some money to test this theory.

Self-Censorship

You people call yourself scientists?

The Smithsonian Institution toned down an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic for fear of angering Congress and the Bush administration, says a former administrator at the museum.

Among other things, the script, or official text, of last year's exhibit was rewritten to minimize and inject more uncertainty into the relationship between global warming and humans, said Robert Sullivan, who was associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Also, officials omitted scientists' interpretation of some research and let visitors draw their own conclusions from the data, he said. In addition, graphs were altered ''to show that global warming could go either way,'' Sullivan said.

''It just became tooth-pulling to get solid science out without toning it down,'' said Sullivan, who resigned last fall after 16 years at the museum. He said he left after higher-ups tried to reassign him.

[snip]

Sullivan said the changes in the climate-change exhibit were requested by executives who included then-museum Director Cristian Samper and his boss, former Undersecretary for Science David Evans. He said several scientists whose work was used in the exhibit objected to the changes.

What Did I Miss? Not Much, Apparently

I'm back.  After a week of rubbing elbows the Have-Mores in Vail, careening down the slopes in blissful ignorance of the events of the world outside the high country I suppose it's time to get up to speed on the issues I once thought were important.

What did I miss?  The world's most desiccated racist is now temporarily unemployed.  I bet most of you out there in blogland wish you had missed that episode as well.  The surge is still surging, Big Time Dick is still playing the Terra Card despite the fact that our only ally is dumping the Assministration's nomenclature of fear and the Iraqi government is on the verge of collapse over the lack of a timetable for withdrawl that Cheney opposes with all his spittle.

Karl Rove is still a crook, Spit-Comb Wolfowitz is an incompetent crook (is anyone surprised at all that Wolfie has to pay a woman $200k to be his girlfriend?), and Alberto Be-Out-Of-Your-Office-By-Five is giving roadkill a bad name.

Oh, and this guy is still president.

Larry Downing/Reuters

In other words, I didn't miss much except for the fabulous guest-blogging of the talented Maitri.  Sigh.

Boomin'

Yet another Pew poll shows that the Internets are booming as a news source for the well-informed.

Just after the midterm elections in the fall of 2006, the Pew Internet & American Life Project polled Americans about their political news sources. We asked people if they were getting most of their election news from the television, newspapers, radio, magazines, or the internet. As ever, television was the walk-away favorite. Over two-thirds of respondents (69%) said they got most of their political news from television; about a third (34%) said newspapers, and 15% said the internet.1

But the underdog internet is gaining quickly. Compared with data gathered after the most recent mid-term election in 2002, the percentage of Americans who reported they went to the internet for most of their political news in 2006 more than doubled, from 7% to 15%. During the same time period, the percentage of those getting their political input from TV and newspapers remained essentially static, increasing from 66% to 69% for TV, and from 33% to 34% for newspapers.