I ran across this video over at The Panda’s Thumb and it just cracked me up. Enjoy.
And since that was so funny, I went looking for more from these guys and came across this gem.
Gotta love it.
I was in Arlington, TX this weekend for another one of my daughters tennis tournament so I didn’t get to see much news. I get back late last night and log on and start reading how the Texas State Board of Education, and I use that title loosely, has passed the English standards. It’s not news that they passed the standards, but it is news in how it was accomplished. McLeroy basically pushed a version through with members given less than an hour to read it. In fact, the new version was pushed under their hotel room doors less than an hour before the meeting was to begin. He ignored the input of the experts and educators and had drafted a version that the members who opposed him had no idea what was in it. When the meeting came, McLeroy wasn’t even going to review the new document, but was forced to. However, he went through it so fast, noone could keep up and he refused to slow down. When the vote came, it passed, 9 to 6.
Wow. Is this how our elected officials operate? This sounds more like a elementary school stunt than an open forum for making sure the children of Texas get a good education.
To me this is especially irksome on this day, Memorial Day, when we are supposed to be giving thanks and remembrance to those who have perished to preserve our freedoms. What freedoms is McLeroy preserving? None. He is using his position to push through his version of what he thinks our kids should learn. He is not listening to experts or educators as was obvious from his discussion on Texas Monthly Talks, he is not weighing the fact that a large portion of the school kids in Texas are Hispanic, he is instead abusing his position to force his agenda on the rest of us. This is not what our soldiers fought and died for.
It is appalling and needs to be stopped. Next up is the science standards. I can only imagine what antics are going to go on before that vote.
I hope this made the television news, I don’t know since I didn’t turn on a television this weekend, but I bet it didn’t. It barely made a blip in the papers or on the web. Great culture we live in isn’t it. We care more about some frickin’ American Idol winner than we do about what is happening to our kids education. I hope people wake up and begin to understand what is going on.
I partially blame Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn for getting into the governors race during the last election and diluting the chance to get rid of Rick Perry who appointed McLeroy as Chairman.
There is more that has been written about this including a nice post over at BadAstronomy.com. He has put Texas on the Doomed list and I agree. In fact, I think the entire United States is potentially doomed if we don’t stop these people. As one of my co-workers puts it, we’ll eventually be the third world country with our people sitting in their mud puddle swatting away the flies if we don’t begin to turn this thing around. Obviously that’s an extreme, but there is alot at stake and I agree with the sentiment that we better wake up and wake up soon or we are all doomed.
Suggested Thinking is 1 year old today. Not very old in terms of blogs and the Internet, but none the less a nice milestone for me. And yes, this website is still crawling along, not quite sure on its feet, but it’ll be walking in no time.
I started this website for a couple of reasons as I mention in my About page, so I won’t go into it all here, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would keep up with this habit of blogging, but I’ve found I really do kind of like it.
So to celebrate, in addition to raising a beer, I thought I would share a few of the things I’ve learned over the last 12 months. Don’t worry, it’s nothing earth shattering, just reflections on a year of blogging.
Here we go again, another movie where I need a half star…urgh…I need to get the GIMP out and get to work!! But alas, I never seem to find the motivation to do it, so 4 stars it is.
I went ahead and bumped this movie up to the top of my Netflix queue to get the final Oscar Best Picture nominee off my list. For those that have been following along, you know I have no plans to watch Atonement, but other than that, I’ve already seen and reviewed the other three films. I’m only a few months behind the Oscars and now that I’m done, I can finally make my list and see if I agree with the choice of the Academy.
But first, the review of Michael Clayton.
In the wake of the recent California Supreme court decision to overturn a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, I’m sure the defenders of marriage will be out in force to start work on a constitutional amendment to define marriage and thereby overturn the courts decision.
Well, Roy Zimmerman has a great little ditty about these people and I thought I would share.
When my daughter was younger, she used to get scared when watching the first couple Harry Potter films. The issue seemed to be that she didn’t know what was going to be in the movie and when things happened, like the giant spider, she would get scared. To help solve this problem, I decided she should read the books before watching the films. Then I decided if I was going to make her read them, I should as well. The reason for this was twofold. The first I’ve already mentioned, the second was to allow us to have a conversation about the books to check on her reading comprehension and hopefully help her to like reading more. This tactic worked on both counts.
Now that she’s a bit older, 10 to be exact, we still continue this habit and it’s no different for The Golden Compass. I read the entire trilogy, then decided she was ready to read at least the first book. She did and wanted to watch the movie. So last Friday, we sat down and watched this nearly 2 hour film together.
We both had mixed feeling about the film…
Don McLeroy, the chariman of the Texas State Board of Education, was interviewed last week on Texas Monthly Talks on PBS. Why do I care about this? Well, McLeroy heads this elected group of 15 individuals and they have a lot of power over what gets taught in Texas public schools and this year the curriculum standards for Texas are up for revision. This includes the science curriculum standards as well and since Don McLeroy is a creationist, this causes me concern.
First, a little background on the Texas SBOE, then on to some of the more interesting discussion points brought up in the interview. The Texas SBOE duties include, as I mentioned, defining curriculum standards and outlining testing standards. In addition, they have a major say in the selection of textbooks used in the Texas public school system. In other words, they have a lot of control over what gets into the schools and what does not.
Before I go on to discuss the interview, let me point out that the entire interview can be seen on the Texas Montly Talks website at the link here. If you have any issues with what I say, I recommend watching the full interview then go research more about McLeroy and the topics covered and make up your own mind.
And now, onto the discussion…
I really need to create some star images with half stars…this is the second movie in a row where I needed a half star and didn’t have it. This movie should get 3 and a half stars, not 4, but since I’m lazy, 4 stars it gets. With this film, I’ve passed the half-way point in seeing all the Oscar Best Picture nominees. Two more to go, but really I’ve only got one left since I have no plans to watch Atonement. It’s probably a fine film, just not something I’m interested in. The remaining film is Michael Clayton which is a bit down on my Netflix list so it might be a while.
But this review is about There Will Be Blood, so let’s get to it…
There’s been alot going on that I’ve been meaning to post about but just haven’t had the time. I spent the weekend in Kerrville, TX at a tennis tournament that my daughter participated in. We didn’t get back until pretty late on Sunday. Then of course, work started on Monday and things typically stay busy. So I decided to make myself a list so I won’t forget.
1) Movie review for There Will Be Blood. There are definitely some great lines in this film.
2) The interview of Don McLeroy on Texas Monthly Talks…boy did he spout some stuff and did I ever wish this show was an hour instead of 30 minutes so they could have asked some really good questions.
3) Updates to posts I’ve done in the past such as the Waco Lawman, the Cult in Russia in the hole, Senator Grassley’s request of the televangelists and the religious license plates in Florida among just a few.
4) Some thoughts on this strange idea the politicians are spouting recently dissing intellectuals. Like it’s a bad thing to be an intellectual presidential candidate. We’ve seen the other end of this for the last 7 years, I think we’re ready to handle an intellectual in the job.
5) Updating my Links and About pages. It’s been nearly a year here and they are in serious need of some updating.
So that’s the short list of things to get done, now it’s time to get busy.
Today is the first Thursday in May so that means it’s the annual National Day of Prayer. I guess this shouldn’t surprise me that our country has decided to honor prayer. After all, it’s already in our schools. There are references to God on our money, in the pledge of allegiance and thanks to legislation passed last year there is now a reference to God in the Texas pledge as well. Children in public schools here in Texas say both these pledges every morning before class and then immediately after there is a minute of silence. That’s 3 observances of religion in our schools, so a national day of prayer is not that surprising, it’s silly, but not surprising.
This got me wondering…what other observances does the Federal government condone?