The news out from the train wreck that far too often passes for public education seems to come in waves, have you noticed?
First, we've got Christian students in Roswell, NM being punished for giving donuts to their teachers that included Bible verses.
Now, we've got a group of Massachusetts middle school kids who took a field trip to a mosque and ended up participating in Muslim prayers to Allah. They were supposed to be learning about the architecture and were going to observe a prayer service.
Instead, the students ended up getting a lecture on the prophet Muhammad and some of the boys participated in a midday prayer.
Bet the parents of any Jewish, Christian, atheist, or other non-Muslim kids loved this.
I know I would have. (Snark)
"You have to believe in Allah, and Allah is the one God," the students were told. A parent on the field trip caught the whole thing on videotape. At no point did any school official intervene in either the lecture or the praying. One has to wonder what would have happened had no parents been on the trip to report the truth.
Girls on the field trip were also told that Islam is pro-women. That's fine if you don't bother to share with them the recent story out of Iran, the one about Shakineh Ashtiani who's been on Iranian death row since 2006. She's the mother of two who's already been flogged and may still be stoned unless human rights activists can convince the Iranian government her sentence is overly harsh. Even if she ends up not being stoned, she'll likely be hanged. See, she's been accused of killing her husband and having an illicit relationship with another man, but neither charge has been proven. She's a woman, so that's all the evidence they need.
But I digress.
The field trip is part of a course in which students will visit a mosque, a synagogue, and meet with representatives of the Hindu religion. In a token gesture of inclusiveness, they'll get to hear a Christian gospel concert. Guess school officials think a few gospel songs will give kids a sufficient understanding of Christianity.
The school has apologized to parents for the mosque mishap, which is good. But what I don't understand is that why, after all the controversy surrounding religion in schools (not to mention the Ground Zero mosque flap), this school decided it could present such a course without getting itself in trouble. Smart much?
Kids in Massachusetts, like kids everywhere being educated on the taxpayer dime, have no business spending precious school hours in a mosque or any other house of worship. If we're going to keep Christmas trees and music and Stars of David and menorahs out of public schools, we need to keep ALL religious experiences out of public schools and all public schools out of religious experiences.
Can I hear everybody say, "Amen"?
Wordly discourse on everything from the sad state of public education, politics and world peace to vegetarianism, breast vs. bottle, religious persecution, bad media, and all manner of life's vagaries.
September 18, 2010
September 17, 2010
Roswell principal nails Christian students for delivering donuts
Christianity -- apparently more vile and obscene than pretty much anything else public schools have to offer -- is once again on the front burner, this time in Roswell, New Mexico.
A school principal has disciplined a group of unabashedly Christian students for daring to drive over into Texas on their own time to buy Krispy Kreme donuts to give to their teachers as a way of saying thanks.
I know, it's horrible. Read on if you can.
The students had the audacity to include little slips of paper with Bible verses on them.
According to Liberty Counsel, a non-profit litigation, education, and public policy group with an interest in protecting religious liberties, some of students drove six hours round-trip to get the donuts, a treat that isn't available in Roswell. The students belong to a group called Relentless in Roswell.
"Since the closest Krispy Kreme shop was in Texas, some of the group drove almost six hours round trip, stayed overnight, got up at 3:00 a.m., filled their car's back seat with fresh doughnuts and got back to school on time to deliver the doughnuts," Liberty Counsel explained.
Shocking.
Their principal's reaction? According to Liberty Counsel, he was quoted as saying, "I don't like Christians. All they do is smile at you and stab you in the back."
Remember, dear readers, this man gets his salary from New Mexico taxpayers. They are trusting him to educate their children.
That's the most shocking of all.
A school principal has disciplined a group of unabashedly Christian students for daring to drive over into Texas on their own time to buy Krispy Kreme donuts to give to their teachers as a way of saying thanks.
I know, it's horrible. Read on if you can.
The students had the audacity to include little slips of paper with Bible verses on them.
According to Liberty Counsel, a non-profit litigation, education, and public policy group with an interest in protecting religious liberties, some of students drove six hours round-trip to get the donuts, a treat that isn't available in Roswell. The students belong to a group called Relentless in Roswell.
"Since the closest Krispy Kreme shop was in Texas, some of the group drove almost six hours round trip, stayed overnight, got up at 3:00 a.m., filled their car's back seat with fresh doughnuts and got back to school on time to deliver the doughnuts," Liberty Counsel explained.
Shocking.
Their principal's reaction? According to Liberty Counsel, he was quoted as saying, "I don't like Christians. All they do is smile at you and stab you in the back."
Remember, dear readers, this man gets his salary from New Mexico taxpayers. They are trusting him to educate their children.
That's the most shocking of all.
September 16, 2010
Mosque, yes. Satirical cartoon? Not so much
It's the height of irony, the news today that a Seattle cartoonist has taken the advice of the FBI and gone underground, moving house and changing her identity all because she took up where Comedy Central left off when it decided to censor an episode of South Park that was supposed to include the character of Muslim prophet Muhammad.
According to Islamic tradition, it is blasphemous to reproduce the likenesses of its prophets.
Bowing to threats, the show's producers decided to cut out the part about Muhammad rather than risk being blown to kingdom come.
As a member of the journalism community, Molly Norris was apparently pretty ticked that any media outlet would censor itself rather than take the heat that often comes with upholding the First Amendment.
Ms. Norris took up the challenge and suggested that May 20, 2010 should be declared "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." Facebook pages in support of Norris' idea soon popped up like weeds after a warm spring rain, so much so that the Pakistani government temporarily banned the social networking site from being available to its citizens.
In hindsight, Norris said she never officially declared such a day but that her tongue-in-cheek remark went viral and got away from her.
In a digital age where information and images can circle the globe in a matter of minutes, I don't think she should have been that surprised. I also don't think she should have backpedaled and apologized profusely for her so-called transgression, but she did.
The apology wasn't enough, of course, and Ms. Norris' name was added to a hit list at the behest of U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
There are death threats and then there are death threats. What put Ms. Norris' case on the FBI's radar hasn't been publicized, but the bureau advised her the threat was serious enough that she should take extreme measures to protect herself. We can speculate about why they didn't offer to do this for her.
So while a handful of Muslim activists and pansy-assed politicians were shrilly proclaiming the right to build a mosque a stone's throw from Ground Zero, an American citizen and journalist was disconnecting herself from everything that used to be her life -- her name, her home, her friends, her job, her past.
Radical Islam set out to erase Molly Norris, and it succeeded.
Now I'm wondering where our president is. Where is his speech in which he vigorously asserts the rights of American journalists to publish freely their opinions and ideas in the pages of American newspapers? It's not to be found alongside the speech in which he boldly declared the rights of American and foreign-born Muslims to build a mosque near the site where radical Islam slaughtered 2,000 + people one bright blue day in September. I'm guessing it's not a draft on his secretary's computer waiting to be edited, either.
Odds are that such a speech will never be found because it will never be written.
Where is the FBI? The CIA? Isn't there anyone who can protect poor Ms. Norris from Islamic wingnuts both foreign and domestic?
Some are already asking whether there's any difference between asserting the freedom of religion in the mosque case and asserting freedom of speech in the Norris case. After all, if the mosque builders get short shrift, isn't it only fair for Molly Norris to sacrifice something, too?
No one has said the mosque can't or shouldn't be built, just that out of respect for 9/11 victims and survivors it should be located elsewhere. No one has said Muslims can't or shouldn't worship as they see fit. Where's the infringement on the freedom of religion? What's more, if the mosque does end up near Ground Zero then those who oppose its location will have to swallow the bitter pill and go on. The mosque and its legitimate congregants will be constitutionally protected and no one in an official capacity will ever say them nay.
Ms. Norris, on the other hand, was a newspaper cartoonist who made a personal remark that took on a life of its own. In trying to defend Comedy Central, she herself was threatened with violence and has since shut up, too. When fear or intimidation are used to silence someone, this IS an infringement on their freedom of speech. In spite of her mea culpas, though, Ms. Norris doesn't get to go on, not as she was anyway. She has to start over. The Constitution has apparently been suspended and our government is complicit.
See the difference now?
As a former journalist, my heart breaks for Molly Norris. What has happened to her should chill the spirit of every single American. She may be the first journalist to suffer this grotesque fate at the hands of a government that won't protect its citizens and their rights, but something tells me she won't be the last.
RIP Molly Norris.
According to Islamic tradition, it is blasphemous to reproduce the likenesses of its prophets.
Bowing to threats, the show's producers decided to cut out the part about Muhammad rather than risk being blown to kingdom come.
As a member of the journalism community, Molly Norris was apparently pretty ticked that any media outlet would censor itself rather than take the heat that often comes with upholding the First Amendment.
Ms. Norris took up the challenge and suggested that May 20, 2010 should be declared "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." Facebook pages in support of Norris' idea soon popped up like weeds after a warm spring rain, so much so that the Pakistani government temporarily banned the social networking site from being available to its citizens.
In hindsight, Norris said she never officially declared such a day but that her tongue-in-cheek remark went viral and got away from her.
In a digital age where information and images can circle the globe in a matter of minutes, I don't think she should have been that surprised. I also don't think she should have backpedaled and apologized profusely for her so-called transgression, but she did.
The apology wasn't enough, of course, and Ms. Norris' name was added to a hit list at the behest of U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
There are death threats and then there are death threats. What put Ms. Norris' case on the FBI's radar hasn't been publicized, but the bureau advised her the threat was serious enough that she should take extreme measures to protect herself. We can speculate about why they didn't offer to do this for her.
So while a handful of Muslim activists and pansy-assed politicians were shrilly proclaiming the right to build a mosque a stone's throw from Ground Zero, an American citizen and journalist was disconnecting herself from everything that used to be her life -- her name, her home, her friends, her job, her past.
Radical Islam set out to erase Molly Norris, and it succeeded.
Now I'm wondering where our president is. Where is his speech in which he vigorously asserts the rights of American journalists to publish freely their opinions and ideas in the pages of American newspapers? It's not to be found alongside the speech in which he boldly declared the rights of American and foreign-born Muslims to build a mosque near the site where radical Islam slaughtered 2,000 + people one bright blue day in September. I'm guessing it's not a draft on his secretary's computer waiting to be edited, either.
Odds are that such a speech will never be found because it will never be written.
Where is the FBI? The CIA? Isn't there anyone who can protect poor Ms. Norris from Islamic wingnuts both foreign and domestic?
Some are already asking whether there's any difference between asserting the freedom of religion in the mosque case and asserting freedom of speech in the Norris case. After all, if the mosque builders get short shrift, isn't it only fair for Molly Norris to sacrifice something, too?
No one has said the mosque can't or shouldn't be built, just that out of respect for 9/11 victims and survivors it should be located elsewhere. No one has said Muslims can't or shouldn't worship as they see fit. Where's the infringement on the freedom of religion? What's more, if the mosque does end up near Ground Zero then those who oppose its location will have to swallow the bitter pill and go on. The mosque and its legitimate congregants will be constitutionally protected and no one in an official capacity will ever say them nay.
Ms. Norris, on the other hand, was a newspaper cartoonist who made a personal remark that took on a life of its own. In trying to defend Comedy Central, she herself was threatened with violence and has since shut up, too. When fear or intimidation are used to silence someone, this IS an infringement on their freedom of speech. In spite of her mea culpas, though, Ms. Norris doesn't get to go on, not as she was anyway. She has to start over. The Constitution has apparently been suspended and our government is complicit.
See the difference now?
As a former journalist, my heart breaks for Molly Norris. What has happened to her should chill the spirit of every single American. She may be the first journalist to suffer this grotesque fate at the hands of a government that won't protect its citizens and their rights, but something tells me she won't be the last.
RIP Molly Norris.
September 10, 2010
Burning question on the eve of 9/11
Knowing my strong opinions on the events in the aftermath of 9/11 including the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, several people have asked me what I think about the Florida pastor who's been threatening for the past two weeks to burn copies of the Koran tomorrow.
I understand his anger. I sympathize with his obviously visceral reaction to the possibility of Muslim worshipers observing Islamic traditions near the place where so many innocents died one tragic morning nine years ago. I, too, fight the temptation to brand all Muslims as terrorist wannabes or, at the very least, sympathizers.
But I can't condone or agree with his decision to set another religion's holy book on fire.
True, Muslims have burned the Christian Bible. They've burned the Jewish Tanakh. When they do these things, civilized people revile them and call them hateful. If that Florida preacher burns the Koran, he will be no better.
Book burning is just wrong. It smacks of Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Germany, and Mao's China.
It's what people do when they want to stamp out thoughts and ideas they find too threatening to deal with. It's what the Muslims in some places do out of vitriolic hatred for Christians and Jews. It's what ignorant people of all faiths do when they can't think of anything more intelligent.
If we're going to be so threatened by what the Koran represents, how will we ever summon the courage to go up against the elements of Islam that resulted in that horrific September day?
Burning all the Korans in the world will not make radical Islam go away. If anything, it will throw fuel on a fire that we're neither physically nor spiritually prepared to douse.
The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners and intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights. The death toll of the attacks was 2,996, including the 19 hijackers. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries.
I understand his anger. I sympathize with his obviously visceral reaction to the possibility of Muslim worshipers observing Islamic traditions near the place where so many innocents died one tragic morning nine years ago. I, too, fight the temptation to brand all Muslims as terrorist wannabes or, at the very least, sympathizers.
But I can't condone or agree with his decision to set another religion's holy book on fire.
True, Muslims have burned the Christian Bible. They've burned the Jewish Tanakh. When they do these things, civilized people revile them and call them hateful. If that Florida preacher burns the Koran, he will be no better.
Book burning is just wrong. It smacks of Stalinist Russia, Hitler's Germany, and Mao's China.
It's what people do when they want to stamp out thoughts and ideas they find too threatening to deal with. It's what the Muslims in some places do out of vitriolic hatred for Christians and Jews. It's what ignorant people of all faiths do when they can't think of anything more intelligent.
If we're going to be so threatened by what the Koran represents, how will we ever summon the courage to go up against the elements of Islam that resulted in that horrific September day?
Burning all the Korans in the world will not make radical Islam go away. If anything, it will throw fuel on a fire that we're neither physically nor spiritually prepared to douse.
The September 11 attacks were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners and intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights. The death toll of the attacks was 2,996, including the 19 hijackers. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals of over 70 countries.
September 2, 2010
Because Stephen Hawking says so?
The noted British scientist Stephen Hawking, arguably the smartest man living today, has left me baffled and not a little peeved.
In advance of his latest book, The Grand Design, Hawking is now quoted by the Associated Press as saying God did not create the universe and that the Big Bang is completely logical as a starting point for everything in existence. A new set of theories makes a creator of the universe redundant, he says:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.
Far be it from me, a lowly homeschooling mother of four with a bachelor's degree in, of all things pedestrian, journalism to go up against someone like Mr. Hawking. I'd never want to pick a fight with a mind like that. And, yes, I know that our country's president during his campaign duly noted the pathetic among us who prefer to "cling" to our guns and our religion. Yes, yes, I'm among the pathetic who, while I don't work a firearm, do tend to turn towards a higher power for answers, help, and reassurance. I'm pathetic in this sense and I'm fine with it.
But e'en in my humble circumstances, steeped as I am in my Christian mythology so-called, I do wonder about the aforementioned questions and whether they are answered in his book.
"For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 2:1
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." 1 John 4:1
In advance of his latest book, The Grand Design, Hawking is now quoted by the Associated Press as saying God did not create the universe and that the Big Bang is completely logical as a starting point for everything in existence. A new set of theories makes a creator of the universe redundant, he says:
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
So, um, where did the law of gravity come from? And how exactly is it again that something can come out of nothing? How does nothing have enough substance innately to generate something? And how does gravity exclusive of any other contributor or contributing factor take nothing and form it into something? And how is it that mere human theory -- by its very nature apt to change and morph -- can be deemed the final word?Far be it from me, a lowly homeschooling mother of four with a bachelor's degree in, of all things pedestrian, journalism to go up against someone like Mr. Hawking. I'd never want to pick a fight with a mind like that. And, yes, I know that our country's president during his campaign duly noted the pathetic among us who prefer to "cling" to our guns and our religion. Yes, yes, I'm among the pathetic who, while I don't work a firearm, do tend to turn towards a higher power for answers, help, and reassurance. I'm pathetic in this sense and I'm fine with it.
But e'en in my humble circumstances, steeped as I am in my Christian mythology so-called, I do wonder about the aforementioned questions and whether they are answered in his book.
"For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 2:1
"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." 1 John 4:1
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