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Category: politics (page 6 of 19)

California battles Texas textbook massacre

18 May 2010 / / 3 Comments

I’ve been following the Texas textbook issue with some interest and concern. You know the story: Know-nothing dipsticks have been infiltrating Texas school boards so they can force conservative changes to high school textbooks. The worry is that Texas is the second largest market for textbooks, so other states may get terrible texts foisted onto them.

But California is the largest market, and they may try to thwart such efforts.

California may soon take a stand against proposed changes to social studies textbooks ordered by the Texas school board, as a way to prevent them from being incorporated in California texts.

Legislation by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, seeks to protect the nation’s largest public school population from the revised social studies curriculum approved in March by the Texas Board of Education. Critics say if the changes are incorporated into textbooks, they will be historically inaccurate and dismissive of the contributions of minorities.

The Texas recommendations, which face a final vote by the Republican-dominated board on May 21, include adding language saying the country’s Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a new section on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” That would include positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the Contract with America, the congressional GOP manifesto from the 1990s.

Ugh.

I found this comment most encouraging.

But some publishing industry experts say worries that the Texas standards will cross state lines are unfounded.

“It’s an urban myth, especially in this digital age we live in, when content can be tailored and customized for individual states and school districts,” said Jay Diskey, executive director of the schools division of the Association of American Publishers.

I hope other textbook publishers operate similarly. It could control the damage. Or, scarily, it could create pockets of terrible textbooks in areas where demand is significant.

Word of the day: be-clown

27 April 2010 / / 1 Comment

From Ron Rosenbaum’s excellent Slate article: The Tea Party’s Toxic Take on History

I think this is why it bothers me so much when Tea Party ignoramuses put swastikas on their anti-Obama posters. They disgrace themselves, they insult the dead martyrs to the truth, by lumping socialism with fascism and Obama with Hitler. They not only disgrace themselves; they be-clown themselves, they distort the historical consciousness of everyone they spread the comparison to.

That’s the Tea Party to me: an incoherent, jibbering mob of idiots be-clowning themselves.

The use of ‘be-clown’ is relatively new; besides the Rosenbaum article, the word only has a few Google hits from 2008 and 2009. But I think this word could come in mighty handy to describe the ignorant gun-toting racist freaks that currently populate our news cycles.

See, almost exactly two years ago, I predicted that the Obama years would bring a return of 90’s-style conspiracy paranoia. I didn’t foresee the nature of the TP-ers, with their poorly-informed reality-allergic antics, nor did I appreciate the sheer paralysing dumbth of their wingnut queen Sarah Palin. It wasn’t hard to see the 24-hour megaphone of Fox News stirring the pot, but the popularity of Glenn Beck was a bit of a surprise.

Ah, well, it’s tough not being psychic. But even I can tell that there’s going to be a good deal more be-clowning in future.

The perfectly stupid is the enemy of the good

21 April 2010 / / 2 Comments

At last, at last. Obama has realised that the Right Wing will go ape (complete with feces-flinging) over anything he does, so he’s doing what he wants.

President Obama thinks Republicans will engage in a full battle over his Supreme Court nominee regardless of the person’s ideological leanings, and in some ways “that realization is liberating for the president” to choose whomever he pleases, an administration official told TPMDC.

Oh, the irony. By being obstructive and tantrum-prone, Republicans are getting less than they would if they were reasonable.

It wasn’t always this way though. Democrats used to try to appease these apoplectic apes. Remember when ‘bipartisan’ was the buzzword? But bipartisanship only works when one party isn’t comprised of psychos.

I hope this is how Democrats do things in future. Ignore the antics and get on with the work, as the Party of Crazy sinks to irrelevance.

Scientology inquiry fails in Australia

17 March 2010 / / 1 Comment

Scientology is an evil little cult. I’m still not sure to what extent it might be more evil and more culty than other religions, but let’s just start there. Like other religions, it collects loads of money from its followers in return for a lot of fables and not much else. And like other religions, it has tax-exempt status in Australia.

The dark side of Scientology was on display recently, with allegations of blackmail, physical abuse, imprisonment of defectors, and forced abortions. South Australian senator Nick Xenophon requested an investigation into revoking the tax-free status of Scientology.

I was disappointed that the inquiry didn’t go anywhere, though I was just glad that someone was willing to raise the issue.

Labor and coalition senators this week joined forces to vote against Senator Xenophon’s motion to launch an inquiry into the tax-free status of religious groups and whether they should be subjected to a British-style public benefit test.
…
Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan, who abstained from the vote on Thursday, said he was divided on the issue.

“We need to find a solution to the despair and desperate circumstances that some families find themselves in, without embarking on what turns into a witch-hunt, with unintended consequences, against all religious organisations,” he told AAP on Friday.

He’s got one thing right: removing tax-free status from Scientology would open the way to removing it from other religions. And I might add, hopefully all. Too bad that’s not a policy that other Australian politicians have the ‘ticker’ for.

It’s been argued that the so-called ‘moderate religions’ provide cover for the ‘extreme religions’, often by making faith seem respectable. But in this case, it happens because the mantle of ‘religion’ makes lawmakers unwilling to confront even the Scientologists, if it might create conflict with other churches. And so evil organisations can escape consequences, if they just call themselves a religion.

A Scientology spokeswoman said the voting down of Senator Xenophon’s motion was a “victory for religious freedom”.

Perhaps, if we mean ‘freedom from having to pay their fair share in society’. But if ‘religious freedom’ means ‘freedom to leave the religion’, then it’s a freedom that some ex-Scientologists do not have. And this lack of religious freedom is sanctioned, endorsed, and paid for by the state.

Talk the Talk: Retarded

10 February 2010 / / 2 Comments

On this week’s “Talk the Talk”, we discussed the use of the word ‘retarded’. Do you use the r-word? Would you ever describe someone as a ‘retard’?

The issue has come to the fore in recent weeks as Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, used the word to describe Democrats that criticised other Democrats — and subsequently apologised. “Rosa’s Law” has been introduced as a bill to the federal legislature, which would prohibit the use of the r-word in federal documents. And if you’re willing to never use the word again, you can take the the ‘r-word’ pledge.

Or you can just listen to me talking about it on RTRFM.

I’m on about 5/6ths of the way through the stream. Watch out; it starts playing as soon as the page loads.

Talk the Talk: The language of global warming

10 December 2009 / / Comments Off on Talk the Talk: The language of global warming

A timely interview on RTRFM, this time about the hidden persuaders in language about global warming.

Watch out for that link; it plays immediately, so make sure your speakers are at the right level. As always, I’m on about 5/6ths of the way through.

The world is a confusing place sometimes.

1 December 2009 / / 4 Comments

There are times when the news throws up some story just ambiguous enough that I don’t know what to think. Here are my current sources of mental torsion.

Switzerland’s War on Architecture

You know what? Minarets are annoying. About as annoying as church bells. First off, minarets tend to have either a muezzin or loudspeakers, either of which is noisy (though the Swiss minarets are supposed to be the quiet kind). Also, if we allow minarets today, we’ll have a caliphate tomorrow, and then falls Europe, or something like that.

But I can’t get behind the Swiss ban on minarets. As long as zoning and noise ordinances are obeyed, I think people should be allowed to be as big of idiots as they want, including practicing their religion and building buildings. Yes, churches are stupid, but if they’re not free to get their religious groove on, I’m not free to get my anti-religious groove on.

No, I’m not going soft on Islam. I still think Islam is currently the worst religion in the world, though other religions could easily pass Islam up. I mean, think of what you could accomplish if you had two million people working together. You might be able to stop the murder and violence against women that your religion engenders. Instead, they just do stupid shit like this.

Two Million Muslims to Stone Devil at Hajj

Two million Muslims are headed to Muzdalifa, Saudi Arabia, to cast stones at the devil in the most dangerous part of the annual hajj pilgrimage, Reuters reported.

Once the Muslim pilgrims get there, they will collect pebbles to throw at walls of the Jamarat Bridge to symbolize the rejection of the devil’s temptations.

Friggin’ jerks.

But towers aren’t where the fight is. We should be fighting to stop the formation of parallel justice systems based on what religion you are. We need to fight laws intended to punish criticism of religion. The minarets are only scary for people who are easily scared.

Meat in a vat

I already blogged about this when it was an idea, but now it seems they’ve gone and done it.

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.

The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.

Would I eat meat if no one has to die to make it? Is the image of muscle growing by itself in a vat of fluid too offputting? Why won’t the scientists try eating it? Will it taste like chicken? This is confusing on many levels.

Australian Liberal party changes drivers

They’ve dumped their leader Whatsisname. You know, the one who wanted to work to prevent climate change. Now they’ve guaranteed their irrelevance for the next ten years. This would normally be good, but I have nagging fears. What happens if the Liberal party does manage to sink climate change legislation and the Australian public isn’t pissed off at them?

Hot Mormon Muffins!

You’ve seen young Mormon hunks in the Men on a Mission calendar, but you’ve also thought, “What about the ladies? Will there be a cheesecake calendar full of sister missionaries?” Sadly for you, a calendar of sexy sisters was just a little too hot. They’ve decided to send up an image that’s equally ripe for satire, Mormon motherhood. It’s messing with my head because I’m imagining ladies from the old ward in Cheney, in vintage poses. With doilies.

Ta to Snowqueen.

The referendum that shouldn’t have been

5 November 2009 / / 3 Comments

Today, I’m proud of my state, which made a tentative step toward marriage equality, or should I say all-but-marriage equality. By passing R-71, Washington became the first state to allow something like gay marriage by a vote of the people.

I wish I could be as proud of Eastern Washington, which rejected R-71 county for county.
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That said, can someone explain to me why the hell we’re allowing issues of civil rights to be decided by vote at all? If it were up to a vote, African-Americans still wouldn’t have civil rights. The courts were able to enact immensely unpopular civil rights rulings against popular opinion in the 60’s, and they did so because it was the right thing to do.

You just don’t put people’s rights to a vote. Should we have a vote over whether Latinos can own houses? Should people of Middle-Eastern descent be able to get plane tickets? Should left-handed people be allowed to drive? True, none of those things are ‘rights’ enshrined in the US Constitution, but denying them by law involves unequal treatment under the law. And I’ll bet that churches and other political organisations could spend enough money to raise doubts and fears in a credulous populace, just as they have with recent anti-gay legislation.

Eventually the tide will turn. I just hope that the haters can one day feel ashamed for their actions and opinions. And in the meantime, these kinds of votes should not be happening.

I get email

2 November 2009 / / 4 Comments

Dear Sister has sent me another email. It’s a series of images of Jesus; everything from meek-and-mild Jesus praying in the garden, to a modern and distinctly muscular Jesus rolling the stone away from the tomb his own damn self.

But at the end of the email, there’s a rather pointless broadside:

I’m not ashamed.
He is the only one that can save this country and they want him removed from the government.
Our great nation will not stand if we delete HIM from all aspects of our government as the atheists want

Now I don’t know how much of this stuff she believes (or if she just thinks it’s ‘interesting’), but when she sends a message to thirty of my family members telling them that atheists are essentially out to destroy the country, you bet I’m going to respond.

So this is what I sent back.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you want to find out what atheists want, you should ask an atheist.

Hi. I’m an atheist. I can’t speak for all atheists, but I’m going to be presumptutous and try it anyway, based on my thoughts and my conversations with other atheists.

First off, there’s this thing in the U.S. Constitution called the ‘Establihment Clause’. It says:

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

That means that you can practice whatever religion you want (including no religion), but the government isn’t allowed to promote one religion over another.

We atheists think that the Founders meant that. They had every opportunity to write religion into the Constitution, and they chose not to. It’s not about removing Jesus from the government — the guy was never there in the first place.

Another thing. We atheists have noticed that lots of Christians are on the more conservative side, and lots of conservatives think the government isn’t very good at doing things. So we wonder why you want the government to handle the teaching of religion, instead of having churches doing it like usual. And which version of Christianity would the government be promoting? There are a lot of Catholics, but I don’t imagine that Protestants would be thrilled to have the government promote Catholicism. But which Protestant variety? Would Methodists get shut out, or would Baptists? How would Mormons feel to have some other religion get pushed by the government? Of all the sects and creeds that exist, do you really think that you’d be lucky enough to have the government promote your specific variety? We think you probably haven’t really thought this through.

We atheists wonder how exactly you think Jesus will save the nation. Perhaps wearing a cape and tights? We know about Christianity — many of us have been Christians — and we’ve noticed that you folks don’t act any better than we do, and often a good deal worse. So we don’t see exactly why it would be a good thing to make the government more Jesusy. Don’t get us wrong, you’re a lovely bunch of people, but we’ve noticed that your religion has a tendency to make people act in ways that are homophobic, sexually repressed, authoritarian, anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-education, paranoid, fantasy-prone, and in some cases just plain crazy. Also a lot of you have an unhealthy fascination with other people’s sex lives. And the fact that people like that want control of the government scares the bejabbers out of us.

Finally, we don’t want to delete, erase, or outlaw your beliefs. You can go ahead and express your religious faith however you want in your homes, families, and church groups. After all, we don’t like people telling us what to believe any more than you do, which is why we don’t send out missionaries.

But does Jesus (if he’s still out there) really need all of you to email and legislate on his behalf? You may not be ashamed of him, but you sure don’t seem to have much confidence in his ability to look after himself.

A Labor PM who swears? Get out of town!

10 October 2009 / / Comments Off on A Labor PM who swears? Get out of town!

One of my areas of linguistic interest is swearing. That means that if the Prime Minister uses naughty words, I get phone calls. And not only did Kevin Rudd make a (suspiciously calculated) slip-up on TV, but a new book claims that he’s got quite the mouth in private.

So here’s a recent interview I did with Kate from HypeFM, talking to the kids about why Mr Rudd is admired if he swears in public, but they get punished.

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