Texas Schools Board Rewrites US History∞
An extraordinarily scary article about how the Texas educational curriculum is being hijacked by conservative religious fundamentalists. This is important, because Texas buys enough textbooks that the vast majority of textbooks printed in the United States cater to their curriculum.
Some choice edits:
- The right to bear arms is now being heralded as an “important element of a democratic society.”
- The slave trade is now referred to as the “Atlantic triangular trade.”
- Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt is suggested to have been justified.
- “Minimal government intrusion and taxation” is a requirement for economic prosperity.
The problem with making all these changes to the curriculum is that then you’re teaching your kids things that are wrong.
One of the major proponents of the new curriculum, Cynthia Dunbar, had this to say:
I think it is important to present a historically accurate viewpoint to students
Clearly, you don’t.
Outrage In Washington Over Obama's Japan Bow∞
John Worth links to an article over at Yahoo! news about Obama’s recent bow to Emperor Akihito:
Considering how I thought this was already a typical practice, and since Obama haters just seem to come up with anything to throw against him, this news article struck me as extremely aggravating, you could even say quite pathetic. You’d think that when two world leaders meet, they show respect to each other by obeying each others’ customs. Of course that would be the logical thing to do. So because Obama bowed to the Japanese leader, he riles up seemingly everyone and their mother because he “didn’t keep the strength of the United States but bent down to an emperor”, if I recall what the article quoted partially.
To be fair, the article is not an editorial, but on the whole I agree with John’s reaction. What the conservative commentators fail to realize is that a gesture that is considered reverential here in the west might just be polite somewhere else.
