THOMAS JEFFERSON TO BE EXPELLED FROM TEXAS SCHOOLS!!!

[Fat Man]

Well, I always that that Texas is a redneck donkey fucking state, but now I know beyond all reasonable doubt.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/t ... d/19397481

Texas Yanks Thomas Jefferson From
Teaching Standard


David Knowles
Writer

(March 12) -- Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education.

The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of Education, the original curriculum asked students to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present."\


The Texas Board of Education is dropping
President Thomas Jefferson from a world
history section devoted to great political thinkers.

That emphasis did not sit well with board member Cynthia Dunbar, who, during Friday's meeting, explained the rationale for changing it. "The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based," Dunbar said.

The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, "Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."

By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase "separation between church and state."

According to USA Today, the board also voted to strike the word "democratic" from references to the U.S. form of government, replacing it with the term "constitutional republic." Texas textbooks will contain references to "laws of nature and nature's God" in passages that discuss major political ideas.

The board decided to use the words "free enterprise" when describing the U.S. economic system rather than words such as "capitalism," "capitalist" and "free market," which it deemed to have a negative connotation.

Serving 4.7 million students, Texas accounts for a large percentage of the textbook market, and the new standards may influence what is taught in the rest of the country.

Here's more.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/03/18/c ... index.html

Texas school board whitewashes history
By Daniel Czitrom, Special to CNN
March 22, 2010 9:31 a.m. EDT


Editor's note: Daniel Czitrom is professor of history at
Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
He is author of "Media and the American Mind: From Morse
to McLuhan"; "Rediscovering Jacob Riis"; and a co-author
of "Out of Many: A History of the American People."

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Daniel Czitrom co-wrote an American history textbook banned in Texas eight years ago
* Czitrom: Texas still putting hard-right conservative stamp on what students learn
* Writes: History according to Texas ignores blacks, women, Latinos, immigrants, pop culture
* It cheats students, trivializes history into pseudo-patriotic cheerleading, he writes

South Hadley, Massachusetts (CNN) -- As a co-author of an American history textbook that was effectively banned in Texas eight years ago, I get a strong feeling of déjà vu all over again as I follow the state's latest curricular wars.

Historians and teachers have reason to be deeply concerned over the latest actions taken by the Texas Board of Education regarding social studies curriculum standards.

The board has moved aggressively to put its hard-right conservative stamp on what students need to learn about the American past. Among the changes made by the board was the elimination of Thomas Jefferson from a list of thinkers who had inspired revolutions around the world. Conservatives object to Jefferson's support for a clear separation of church and state.

This trend is troubling in terms of the writing and the teaching of U.S. history.

In 2002, the school board, egged on by well-funded conservative organizations, excluded "Out of Many: A History of the American People," ostensibly for an offensive passage discussing prostitution on the Western frontier.

This is a terrible trivialization of history, contributing
to the dumbing-down of what students learn.

But the real reason became clear as that dispute played out, and I think that it helps explain what's happening today. Many conservatives are simply unwilling to accept how much the writing and teaching of American history has changed over the past 40 years.

They want an American history that ignores or marginalizes African-Americans, women, Latinos, immigrants and popular culture. Rather than genuinely engaging the fundamental conflicts that have shaped our past, they prefer a celebratory history that denies those fundamental conflicts.

Conservative textbook activists believe that somehow what they call the "revisionist" history of recent decades needs to be "balanced." Hence their insistence that, for example, textbooks stress the superiority of American "free enterprise" -- they think the word "capitalism" is too negative. And they insist books stress, as school board chairman Don McLeroy put it, that "America was built on Biblical ideals."

What's wrong with this picture? For one thing, the process itself undermines the hard work, research and professional judgments of teachers and outside experts who toil to come up with a coherent curriculum.

This year, the Texas board approved more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economic classes. Instead of acknowledging that genuine disagreements over interpretation and emphasis are the lifeblood of history, they reduce it all to a cartoonish process of correcting perceived "bias."

American history looks a great deal more inclusive, capacious, contentious
and messy than it did a half century ago.

This is a terrible trivialization of history, contributing to the dumbing-down of what students learn.

If we want to equip our students with analytical skills, the tools that allow them to become critical thinkers and better citizens, then we need to expose them to a greater variety of often conflicting sources: primary documents, biographies, monographs, films and so on.

We need to acknowledge there's no such thing as history with a capital H. There are only individual men and women who struggle to make sense of some aspect of the past, bringing our own passions, preconceptions and points of view to our writing.

American history looks a great deal more inclusive, capacious, contentious and messy than it did a half century ago. That is because contemporary events always affect how we understand the past.

Thus, the civil rights movement led to an explosion of innovative and groundbreaking scholarship on African-American history. Similarly, there was very little attention to the historical experiences of women before the feminist upsurge of the 1970s. The antiwar movement and New Left of the 1960s and '70s prompted major reconsideration of the history of American foreign relations.

The environmentalist movement has inspired a broad rethinking of the nation's relationship to the land and natural resources. Much recent historical writing has confronted some of the more painful and difficult aspects of our past, such as the grim realities of American apartheid and the powerful influence of white supremacist thinking.

But does this sort of work somehow demean America, as conservative critics charge? Perhaps, if your goal is to reduce the study and teaching of history to a kind of pseudo-patriotic cheerleading. But I believe we have an obligation to present our students with inconvenient facts, to make them uncomfortable and to teach them how to assess competing interpretations of our past.

Future historians may look back at the Texas textbook wars as a prime example of how contemporary political movements shape how we engage history.

I can't think of a better example of that than the current campaign waged by conservatives to remove "bias" from textbooks. Their success threatens to impoverish our students, teachers, and classrooms.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Daniel Czitrom.

Yeah, the CONservatives refer to the inclusion of historical figures such as women, blacks, Latinos, and such events as the anti-war movements and the environmental movement as "revisionists".

But down through the centuries we have had to revise our thinking of history and the nature of the would and the cosmos.

For example:

There was a time when we thought the Earth was the center of the cosmos. But then Copernicus and Galileo came along and proved that it was the sun that was the center of our planetary system or solar system. Then back in the late 1800s and early 1900s we thought that the Milky Way was the entire universe, but then Edwin Hubbel came along and after the construction of the 100 inch telescope, it was discovered that the Milky Way was merely one among billions of other galaxies, that the so-called "Andromeda Nebula" was actually another galaxy somewhat larger than our own Milky Way so it was renamed the Andromeda Galaxy instead of the Andromeda Nebula.

This is NOT being merely "revisionist" but simply correcting past misconceptions as new facts are discovered.

Therefor, to include famous women, blacks, and Latinos, etc. etc. and to include the anti-war or peace movement, the environmental movement, and the Gay rights movement, etc. etc. into the historical curriculum is also NOT being "revisionist" because, as new events occur they eventually became a part of history!

Like, DUH!

And here's some more.
http://www.revivingliberalism.com/tag/t ... ool-board/

Rants & Reasons
The Home of Rootstock Liberalism

Posts Tagged â??The Enlightenment and the Texas School boardâ??

Barbarians At the Gate
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

The Texas School Board of Education has finally succeeded in overturning hundreds of years of intellectual history. Via the NY Times:

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathersâ?? commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

In fact, this lead paragraph doesnâ??t quite get at the radical nature of the Boardâ??s decision.

In these revisions to the social science curricula, the word â??Enlightenmentâ? has been banned. Students still must â??explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseauâ?¦â? But Thomas Jefferson has been axed, to be replaced byâ?¦Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone.

The Enlightenment was a period in European history, beginning roughly in the mid-17th Century, in which science and reason began to replace religious faith as a dominant cultural force; it set the stage for the emergence of democratic government. Thomas Jeffersonâ??who advocated the separation of church and state, as a deist believed that God created a rational universe that can be understood through reason alone, and that God no longer intervenes in the universeâ??is apparently no longer a representative Enlightenment figure.

Instead, we have Aquinas who lived 400 years before the beginning of the Enlightenment? Now one could plausibly argue that Aquinas was a pre-cursor to the Enlightenment because he believed that Godâ??s creation could be understood through science as well as faith. But he hardly advocated the decline of religion as a cultural authority.

And we have John Calvin who lived 150 years before the Enlightenment. He was a fierce defender of the Reformation, believed that humanityâ??s fate was fully in Godâ??s hands, that God could only be understood through revelation and scripture, and had the heretic Michael Servetus burned at the stake.

Quite an Enlightenment figure!

And then we have William Blackstone, a Tory and supporter of the British monarchy, who, like Calvin, taught that submission to tyrants is obedience to God, and was vehemently anti-catholic.

This is a travesty that turns history on its head.

As Laurie Fendrich writes:

And who could have guessed that the Texas Board, made up of regular Texansâ??lawyers, a dentist, a real estate guy, some teachers, etc.â??would have ferreted out what Enlightenment scholars have missed all these years: Aquinas and Calvin are critical to understanding the Enlightenment, while Jefferson is not.

The perversion of knowledge into state propaganda resembles nothing so much as what the Communist Bloc did to ideas in the mid-20th century. More fearful of ideas than guns, they simply banned any ideas they didnâ??t like. In wiping out Jefferson, in particular, the Texas Board looks a lot like the communists who used to airbrush out of official state photos those who had been executed after the famous 1948 Czech show trials.

Why should we care what happens in Texas schools? Texas is the largest market for standardized textbooks in the United States. Publishers use the standards set by the Texas School Board to govern what the school kids in the rest of the country learn.

Child abuse goes national.

So, the CONservatives want to exclude any mention of "enlightenment" from the text books! Eh?

I guess that would mean excluding the Renaissance era, you know, like, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Isaac Newton, etc. etc.

I resent all attempts and censorship. It brings back some very bad memories.

When I was in the 5th grade (as I had mentioned so many times before in the forums) I got into an argument with a teacher who did not allow me to check out any book I wanted from the school library. The other kids in my class were allowed any books they wanted, but I was not, so we got into an argument, and the teacher dragged me out into the hallway, and pushed me up against the wall, bashing my head against the corner of the concrete block wall. Of course the following year, that teacher was fired. But as for me, the damage was already done, because during my teen ages years I had dizzy spells and headaches which gradually went away when I was in my 20s.

Again, as I had mentioned so many times before, my mother taught me how to read and write before I even started school, and when I was in the 3rd grade, I was already reading at the adult level, science being my favorite subject, especially Astronomy, and one does not read up on Astronomy without also reading up on some history about the Renaissance, about the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Office, and the Inquisition who persecuted Galileo because he said that the earth and all the planets revolved around the sun when Church Doctrine believed the the sun and all the planets revolved around the earth. Galileo was placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.

So, when I was just a kid in the 3rd and 4th grade, I knew all about the Inquisition, and the struggle against the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Office, the struggle to achieve intellectual and academic freedom.

Also, when I was 13, I scored 150 points on a standard IQ test.

When I was in high school back in 1969, we didn't learn jack-shit! The science teacher was also the school's football coach, and during football season he was too busy coaching his team to be teaching in the science class, so he set up a movie projector and we just watched a bunch of stupid cartoons instead.

In English Literature class, we only played Charades and learned how to fold paper footballs.

Now, I'm assuming, that the Texas Board of Education are a bunch of old cronies like myself in their 50s and 60s who also didn't learn jack-shit in school.

Those of us born between 1940 and 1960 (I was born 1951) we are called The Baby Boomers but I prefer to call my generation The Paper Football Generation.

And since the quality of educations in our high schools has been going steadily down hill then those born between 1960 and 1980 I call Paper Football Generation II.

Those born between 1980 and 2000 I call Paper Football Generation III.

And now, those who are born after 2000 and until 2020, we now have Paper Football Generation IV.

I don't think the USA is going to survive Paper Football Generation V after the year 2020.

The USA is already becoming a third world country.

Anyway . . . . . here's some more!
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-Enlig ... yle/21791/

Brainstorm

The Enlightenment, Texas Style
By Laurie Fendrich
March 14, 2010, 10:25 AM ET

The great state of Texas is about to change our understanding of the Enlightenment for its high school students. The State Board of Education rejected the old understanding of the Enlightenment--the one where students were expected to learn how to â??explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present.â? In its deep wisdom, the Board, in a 10-5 party-line vote, has just revised its social-studies curriculum.

The conservative majority has concocted a revision of the old curriculum that rewrites a fair amount of history, much of the time by subtly changing little phrases or substituting words like "leadership" for "role" when the text talks about a hallowed Republican such as Nixon, but occasionally by stepping in to effect a major overhaul. The Enlightenment, in particular, was subjected to such profound tinkering that it really ought to be renamed. I propose calling it, â??The New and Improved, Texas-Style Enlightenment.â?

In the new Texas version, the word "Enlightenment" is nowhere to be found. Instead students will learn to â??explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Sir William Blackstone.â?

Huh? The very word â??Enlightenmentâ? can no longer be uttered? Thomas Jefferson, kaput? Apparently, according to the Texas Board. Jefferson never should have written that darn phrase â??separation of church and state,â? nor let anyone see his deist cards. And who could have guessed that the Texas Board, made up of regular Texansâ??lawyers, a dentist, a real estate guy, some teachers, etc.â??would have ferreted out what Enlightenment scholars have missed all these years: Aquinas and Calvin are critical to understanding the Enlightenment, while Jefferson is not.

The perversion of knowledge into state propaganda resembles nothing so much as what the Communist bloc did to ideas in the mid-20th century. More fearful of ideas than guns, they simply banned any ideas they didn't like. In wiping out Jefferson, in particular, the Texas board looks a lot like the communists who used to airbrush out of official state photos those who had been executed after the famous Czech show trials early in the 1950s.

This is a preliminary approval, subject to public comment. The final vote is supposed to take place in May.

Yeah, it just keep on getting better all the time!

The conservative majority has concocted a revision of the old curriculum that rewrites a fair amount of history, much of the time by subtly changing little phrases or substituting words like . . . etc. etc.

And the CONservatives call the Liberals "REVISIONIST"???

"Oh Kettle! How black thou art!" saith the cauldron!

And here's is a You Tube link to some more idiocy!

Like, check this out!!!

Religious nuts in Texas seek to ban book about book banning!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUq2d2OFRkk

Now, in some Texas schools they want to ban Fahrenheit 451, a science fiction novel written by Ray Bradbury. This is the same state that requested that Thomas Jefferson be removed from school text books!

Texas buys up more textbooks than all the other states across the USA, and Texas has the greatest influence on textbook purchases and school curriculum in school boards in all the other states.

I'm ashamed to be living in Texas right now. The school board is run by redneck yokels who probably have sex with barnyard animals.

This is education in Texas!

Just Say Don't Know!

First they expel Charles Darwin.

Now they want to expel Thomas Jefferson!



Next, the Texas school board will probably expel Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

[i_like_1981]

Now, I'm assuming, that the Texas Board of Education are a bunch of old cronies like myself in their 50s and 60s who also didn't learn jack-shit in school.

Those of us born between 1940 and 1960 (I was born 1951) we are called The Baby Boomers but I prefer to call my generation The Paper Football Generation.

And since the quality of educations in our high schools has been going steadily down hill then those born between 1960 and 1980 I call Paper Football Generation II.

Those born between 1980 and 2000 I call Paper Football Generation III.

And now, those who are born after 2000 and until 2020, we now have Paper Football Generation IV.

So, I'm a product of the third Paper Football Generation. I just got in there. Strangely enough, I never learned how to make a paper football. I assume you're referring to the Americanised football shape which is probably a harder shape to fold than the simple spherical shape of the European football. We had a variant of paper football games called "flickball" which consisted of a small piece of paper being crushed into a ball shape and then flicked between two people on either side of the table. The one who let the "ball" drop off first was the loser. This was the sort of thing that would happen in the early years of high school when the teacher was not in the classroom and everyone was getting bored either waiting for the lesson to start or wanting to make the most of the time there was no adult present. Pretty pointless, I must say. I actually told some of the other students playing it once "How the hell can you find flicking some bit of paper around fun?" then followed it up with some sort of sarcastic comment like "Tiny things please tiny minds...", then I was threatened with the words "Perhaps we can use a real football and have your fucking head as the goal, 1981!" [not my real name, obviously]. So, I was being threatened for not seeing the enjoyment of flicking around some scrap of paper. Yes, I can understand this willingness to insult high-school students. My area was particularly heavy on people who didn't want to learn anything; who wanted to mess around and do nothing academically until they reached an old enough age to just go off and do what they wanted. Pretty poor show, actually.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Fat Man]

Now, I'm assuming, that the Texas Board of Education are a bunch of old cronies like myself in their 50s and 60s who also didn't learn jack-shit in school.

Those of us born between 1940 and 1960 (I was born 1951) we are called The Baby Boomers but I prefer to call my generation The Paper Football Generation.

And since the quality of educations in our high schools has been going steadily down hill then those born between 1960 and 1980 I call Paper Football Generation II.

Those born between 1980 and 2000 I call Paper Football Generation III.

And now, those who are born after 2000 and until 2020, we now have Paper Football Generation IV.

So, I'm a product of the third Paper Football Generation. I just got in there. Strangely enough, I never learned how to make a paper football. I assume you're referring to the Americanised football shape which is probably a harder shape to fold than the simple spherical shape of the European football. We had a variant of paper football games called "flickball" which consisted of a small piece of paper being crushed into a ball shape and then flicked between two people on either side of the table. The one who let the "ball" drop off first was the loser. This was the sort of thing that would happen in the early years of high school when the teacher was not in the classroom and everyone was getting bored either waiting for the lesson to start or wanting to make the most of the time there was no adult present. Pretty pointless, I must say. I actually told some of the other students playing it once "How the hell can you find flicking some bit of paper around fun?" then followed it up with some sort of sarcastic comment like "Tiny things please tiny minds...", then I was threatened with the words "Perhaps we can use a real football and have your fucking head as the goal, 1981!" [not my real name, obviously]. So, I was being threatened for not seeing the enjoyment of flicking around some scrap of paper. Yes, I can understand this willingness to insult high-school students. My area was particularly heavy on people who didn't want to learn anything; who wanted to mess around and do nothing academically until they reached an old enough age to just go off and do what they wanted. Pretty poor show, actually.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

Actually, I'm not trying to insult high school students, since I'm also of The Paper Football Generation myself, the very first Paper Football Generation while you're Paper Football Generation II.

No, it's only a slam against the educational system and the declining quality of education in our schools that pay more attention to athletics over academics.

Yes, the American paper football is triangular in shape.

But I never bothered to learn how to fold one. I left that up to the morons who had nothing better to do.

[Indurrago]

Wow this is pretty low..... Hey fatman I wonder how they're gonna explain who was the president from 1801-1809? Or how the US more than doubled its territory in 1803? It's truly a sad day when they remove a president from the curriculum of schools but it's not just any president, it's Thomas Jefferson one of the founding fathers! Also I never learned to fold those silly paper footballs.

[i_like_1981]

Wow this is pretty low..... Hey fatman I wonder how they're gonna explain who was the president from 1801-1809? Or how the US more than doubled its territory in 1803? It's truly a sad day when they remove a president from the curriculum of schools but it's not just any president, it's Thomas Jefferson one of the founding fathers! Also I never learned to fold those silly paper footballs.

Here in England a "paper football" is just made by scrunching up a small piece of paper and flicking it. Does anyone have any images of how an American paper football looks? It's always bad when education keeps getting dumbed down constantly. Back when I was doing my GCSE exams at 16 I could tell the questions and tasks were getting made easier so that the less-able students would have a better chance at passing and not end up being screwed out of a Sixth Form place. Now, 13 years later, I hear that some of the GCSE exams are so easy that people have gotten a pass (a C grade on a scale of A-G and the lowest, U) without having to revise at all! Now that's just getting stupid. How bad is it going to be in 10, 20 years from now? Don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Fat Man]

Here in England a "paper football" is just made by scrunching up a small piece of paper and flicking it. Does anyone have any images of how an American paper football looks?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

Oh! You just had to ask what an American paper football looks like.

OK! Here it is!!!



This is folded from a plane sheet of paper and when I was in high school I had seen some folded from Notebook paper or any kind of paper.

Of course, now you don't even have to know how to fold one anymore. You can buy them already made for $3.50 to $5.00 each.



PAPER FOOTBALL PRO SAMPLES


And now, you can even order a Pro Paper Football playing field for $34.99 I kid you not!



Yeah! What a waste of money.

Today's high school jocks and sports fans are so fucking stupid now that they can't even figure out how to even fold their own paper footballs anymore. Back when I was in high school, they folded their own, and made their own playing fields out of poster board.

But now, they are so moronic they spend their money for this trash!

Yeah! You just had to ask!

Hope your curiosity is satisfied now.

OK, now . . . . . back on topic again.

Wow this is pretty low..... Hey fatman I wonder how they're gonna explain who was the president from 1801-1809? Or how the US more than doubled its territory in 1803? It's truly a sad day when they remove a president from the curriculum of schools but it's not just any president, it's Thomas Jefferson one of the founding fathers! Also I never learned to fold those silly paper footballs.

Yeah, I guess they're going to teach kids the God made America.

Hell, I don't know!

I have no idea how they're gong to explain how the USA doubled it's territory in 1803.

The school board will have a lot of explaining to do.

But then, they're all rednecks so they're experts when it comes to bullshit!

Also, I never bothered to learn how to fold a stupid paper football either.

When I was in high school I use to make paper polyhedrons in art class.



This is an example for what I use to do with paper.

Neat! Eh?

[i_like_1981]

Sorry I had to ask. I was just inquisitive. I guess I won't have to do it again now. Anyways, that doesn't even resemble any kind of football. It looks more like one of those napkins you get at posh restaurants or an incomplete paper hat. "Football"? I wouldn't say so. Pretty funny that they're even launching special ready-made editions now. I'm sure to some people it will be worth the extra few dollars to have their team name printed on the side of the paper football and not have to make the thing themselves, but who needs that when you have a decent permanent marker and the ability to fold a piece of paper a few times? Although for some people, we may be asking a bit too much. So now I know what an American paper "football" looks like, I shall not need to ask again. I have been enlightened.

I like those polyhedrons. The colour styles are very impressive. Definitely more interesting than one of those "paper football" napkins you've shown me. Nice work on that last photo.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

The school board is run by redneck yokels who [my italics] probably have sex with barnyard animals.

I doubt it.

Next, the Texas school board will probably expel Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

Again, I doubt it.

[Indurrago]

Next, the Texas school board will probably expel Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Isaac Newton.

Again, I doubt it.

Is removing any one of them more of a stretch than removing a actually former head of state of the very said country? I doubt it.

[i_like_1981]

It might not be anything to do with sports but things are put on the curriculum for a reason. Especially important heads of state who people really should know about. To remove such people from the curriculum is just going to broaden ignorance. I myself know the quality of education is declining. I can sense it. One day people will need to take real action against that.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Indurrago]

It might not be anything to do with sports but things are put on the curriculum for a reason. Especially important heads of state who people really should know about. To remove such people from the curriculum is just going to broaden ignorance. I myself know the quality of education is declining. I can sense it. One day people will need to take real action against that.

You don't need to sense it, if they could let us go through high-school again and see how a breeze most of the non-AP classes. Also in the beginning of senior year, one of our vice-principals or the principal himself told us right of the bat that 10% of my class wouldn't graduate, in the relatively quiet city I live in that's pretty damn sad. My state of Virginia is living proof, we have these tests called S.O.L.s aka Standards of Learning that students from elementary through high-school have to take graduate. Most "Core classes" the basics; English, History, Math, and Science(yep no P.E. but that's still mandatory 2 years in my city's public schools) have S.O.L.s. Aside from normal classes with normal tests and such these tests measure if a student has a remote understanding of the class they just took and you can't graduate elementary, junior high, or high-school without passing specific ones. Meaning that you can pass the class(S.O.L.s like other standardized tests don't affect actual grades of the class) but fail the S.O.L. and not be able to graduate. I forgot how the whole system works(my bad), but I think that's the gist of it. S.O.L.s for the most part are quite easy and they force teacher's to teach curriculum on based on questions on these Tests. So not only are the students not enjoying themselves while they take classes but the teachers aren't either with having even less flexibility and choice over what they teach.

Side Note: My older brother noted after my high-school graduation that my Class was fairly small and when I look back on how long the graduation was(in comparison to his), he was probably right. This is worth noting because at least in my school, each successive class always had more students, meaning a good number of drop-outs during my class from freshmen year to graduation day.

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month!(I googled it)

[Fat Man]

Sorry for bumping this subject back up to the top again, but this is important.

As I had mentioned earlier, these right-wing whackos in our Texas Board of Education want to remove Thomas Jefferson from the history books, and replace with him John Calvin, a man who advocated the use of torture to enforce his own religious beliefs.

Well, I did a Google search on John Calvin and here is what I found.

http://www.freewill-predestination.com/unchanged.html

I'm not going to quote the entire article here, so here are the highlights.

John Calvin and other reformers had people tortured and killed over both civil and doctrinal issues. In Geneva, John Calvin irresistibly forced the residents of Geneva to attend church services and forced them to take the Eucharist/Lord's Supper or suffer severe consequences (isn't it amazing that the entire population of Geneva had been â??regeneratedâ??). John Calvin was following Augustine's example of forcing people to participate in the Sacraments. However, the Apostle Paul tells us we should only participate in the Lord's Supper when our heart is right with God. It should be obvious that if you force/compel people to participate in the Church you can't know who is really a believer and who is going through the motions to save their hide. Apparently that was not obvious to John Calvin.

I guess these conservative whack-jobs don't like Thomas Jefferson because he advocated that there should be a wall of separation between church and state.

Now, conservatives like to argue, that is not in the Constitution.

OK, while it is true, that the phrase "separation of church and state" is not written anywhere in the constitution, what the First Amendment of the constitution dose say is this . . . . .

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So, once again . . . . .

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . etc. etc.

So, even though the exact words "separation of church and state" is not in the Constitution, that is what is implied in the First Amendment.

It means separation of church and state, even though those exact words are not used.

It was Thomas Jefferson who talked about a "wall of separation between church and state" which is implied by the first amendment.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, non-religion over religion, or religion over non-religion. Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the federal government. Subsequently, McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948) incorporated certain select provisions. However, it was not until the middle to late twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by state governments. In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion."

This means, that in order to have freedom OF religion, we must also have freedom FROM religion.

Here is a You Tube link concerning our Texas Board of Education.

Orwellian revision of history in Texas classrooms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQx_2j5nXuc

And here are some of the highlights of the discussion.

Texas limits sex education to "abstinence only" - so we have more REPEAT pregnancies than any other state!

Ignoring the First Amendment and teaching the 2ed instead.

Teaching that the infamous actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy were justified.

McLeory (one of the members of the Texas Board of Education) suggests that the Civil Rights Movement lead to "unrealistic expectations for equal outcomes".

The right-wing voting block tried - and failed - to remove any mention of Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice, and Cesar Chavas, the famous labor organizer.

They want mentions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to be "balanced" by references to the "violent philosophy" of the Black Panther Party.

They also refer to the Japanese-American internment of WWII as "the regulation of some foreign nationals,"

Mary Helen Berlanga said of her conservative colleagues on the board, "They just can't pretend that this is a white America and Hispanics don't exist. They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of The United States and the rest of the world."

They replaced Thomas Jefferson with John Calvin of the Protestant Reformation, and the Medieval Monk, Thomas Aquinas.

Missouri Executive Extermination Order 44 enacted 1838 retracted 1976

Here is another interesting You Tube link.

The Texas Board of Indoctrination
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93mWjngq4oA

Yeah, imagine expelling Thomas Jefferson from our school history texts to replace him with John Calvin, who advocated the use of torture.

Well, that's not at all surprising, considering that the Bush Administration used torture on the prisoners at Gitmo.

Also, here is some more interesting facts I have found.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance171.html

Christians for Torture
by Laurence M. Vance

The most ardent atheist would be rendered speechless should he hear of Christians for abortion, profanity, adultery, or drunkenness. Of all people in the world, it is certainly Christians â?? and especially the conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist kind â?? that atheists, agnostics, and infidels expect to be opposed to these things.

So what in the world is an atheist to think when he sees the widespread Christian support for torture? Yes, torture. But donâ??t Christians claim to follow the ethics of Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament? Arenâ??t Christians commanded to put off anger, wrath, and malice (Colossians 3:8), "be ready to every good work" (Titus 3:1), and "live peaceably with all men" (Romans 12:18)? Yes, Christians.

What is really tragic is that most Christians who of late have weighed in on the subject of torture are not arguing whether or not waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" constitute torture â?? they readily admit that they do â?? but that torture is justified in the name of fighting terrorism, national security, defending our freedoms, keeping us safe, or protecting our children and grandchildren.

In my recent article "Waterboard an A-rab for Jesus," I mentioned two polls which showed that a great percentage of evangelicals supported the use of torture against suspected terrorists. Now come two additional surveys that are even more shocking. When an Allen Hunt Show poll asked for views on torture, 50 percent of the participants indicated their preference for the position: "Am A Christian â?? And I Support Torture." Hunt himself, thank God, is opposed to the practice. And in a story on OneNewsNow (a division of the American Family New Network) about Southern Baptist leader Richard Land saying that the use of waterboarding is unethical, a poll asked simply: "Do you agree with Dr. Land? Is waterboarding â??unethicalâ???" The results: less than 10 percent agreed with Land. What is interesting about Land is that he fully supports Bushâ??s war on terror, minus the torture, of course.

These are unbelievable poll results. Christian torture advocates should be ashamed of themselves for being so ignorant of New Testament ethics. This is FrontPage Magazine Christianity. This is National Review Christianity. This is imperial Christianity at its worse. I lay a great deal of the blame on pastors for being servants of the state instead of servants of Christ. It is pastors who ought to be teaching and warning their congregations about what is wrong with the U.S. empire, the U.S. military, the CIA, U.S. wars, and U.S. foreign policy. Instead, we have pastors that lead their congregations to pledge to the flag, sing praise to the state on every national holiday, and honor the U.S. war machine on special military appreciation days.

It is one thing for Christians to think that the Republican Party is the lesser of two evils, that we should be fighting a global war on terror, that U.S. troops are defending our freedoms by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, that we are protecting Israel by fighting against terrorism, that it is "liberal" to be opposed to war, that we should fight them "over there" lest we have to fight them "over here," or that Iraq attacked us on 9/11 (all completely bogus ideas) â?? but this in no way justifies torture.

We didnâ??t torture Nazi war criminals to reveal the names of others similarly guilty. Although we sentenced some of them to death, and some of them to prison terms, we never tortured them even though they were guilty of genocide. We donâ??t torture serial killers to get them to reveal where all the bodies of their victims are buried. Even when we call them monsters and sentence them to death, we still donâ??t torture them. We donâ??t allow police to torture suspects until they confess to committing a crime, and neither do we allow confessions obtained by torture to be used in court. Heck, we didnâ??t even torture Saddam Hussein when we captured and imprisoned him.

We associate torture with Japan (American WWII POWs), North Korea (American Korean War POWs), China (recently deceased Air Force Colonel Harold E. Fischer), and Vietnam (just ask John McCain).

We associate torture with third-world prisons, the KGB, the Stasi, and other secret police organizations, the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Reign of Terror, mass murderers, massacres, and genocides.

We associate torture with the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao, Germany under Hitler, Korea under Kim Il-sung, Cuba under Castro, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Uganda under Idi Amin.

We associate torture with everything that is evil, vile, and inhuman.

What have we come to in the United States when people who name the name of Christ support torture? How dare Christians criticize Muslims for saying that Islam is a religion of peace and then advocate the torturing of suspected terrorists? By their support for torture, Christians have given "great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme" (2 Samuel 12:14).

May 14, 2009

Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from Pensacola, FL. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State. His newest book is The Revolution that Wasn't.

And here is some more . . .

http://www.allenhuntshow.com/Polls/116

Allen Hunt Show â?¢ Poll Center

Which of the following best describes you?

I Am A Christian - And I Support Torture - 38%
I Am A Christian - But I Do Not Support Torture - 37%
I Am Religious - And I Support Torture - 5%
I Am Religious - But I Do Not Support Torture - 4%
I Am Not Religious - And I Support Torture - 4%
I Am Not Religious - But I Do Not Support Torture - 8%
I don't know - I go back and forth on if it is OK - 3%

Yeah, this is very encouraging! About 38% percent of people professing to be Christian advocate the use of torture while 37% percent do not, so the advocates of torture is a slightly higher percentage. Now that is really scary!

It appears that people who are religious are more likely to advocate the use of torture than nonreligious people, and there are more religious people in the USA than nonreligious. Yeah! Real scary!

I'm not surprised that these right-wing freakozoids would want to remove Thomas Jefferson from the history text books and put John Calvin up on a pedestal instead, a raving mad rabid dog religious lunatic who advocated torture. But then, the right-wing whack-pack also voted for Bush who used torture.

Well, what can you expect? With the declining quality of education in America's schools where they no longer teach jack-shit about The Constitution, and all they teach is how to play Charades and how to fold paper footballs, and with PE coaches advocating bullying in our schools, is it no wonder why we have so many morons in the USA advocating torture?

Next they'll probably be advocating that kids in high school get tortured down in the basement if they rebel against the text books assigned to them by the Texas State Board of Indoctrination.

Hey! Why not? In an obvious reference to waterboarding al-Qaida suspects, former Vice President Dick Cheney was asked in October 2006 whether â??a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" Cheney responded like Cheney: "Well, it's a no-brainer for me.â?

Joshua Tabor, an Army sergeant in Washington state who served in Iraq, also apparently bought into that "ends-justifies-the-means" argument for waterboarding. Though for Tabor, the ends was allegedly getting his 4-year-old daughter to recite the alphabet. Police in Yelm, Washington, arrested Tabor, 27, on Jan. 31 after allegedly waterboarding his daughter for failing to say her ABCs. "Daddy was upset because she wouldn't say her letters," according to the police report.

Yeah! A real no-brainer! But then, most of these morons on the far right have no brains, so I guess the torture of high school kids is next on their agenda.

I'm scared!

Oh, and on a final note . . . . .

As mentioned earlier . . . . .

Ignoring the first Amendment and teaching the 2ed instead.

OK, very good! The right to bare arms! Excellent!!! I'm all for that!

Of course, I'm against their wanting to remove any mention of the First Amendment, which is the most important, that being free speech, but I could use the right to bare arms to enforce the First Amendment.

When it comes down to the issue of censorship and the right-wing threat against academic and intellectual freedom, then some of us who wish to keep our freedom, well . . . we may have to take up arms against these right-wing whackozoids! Eh?



I truly hope it never comes to this.

OK, I sort of just kidding. I don't own a gun.

But I for one, would not be surprised if this sort of thing lead to an armed insurrection.