I had a conversation today with a well-educated, politically ignorant (and happy to be that way) relative. We have not talked much in several years. We talked of the weather, he asked about my interests and what I was doing lately. I did not say much, just that we had been active in politics....which of course he knew. He said he'd been fed up with politics, never watched the news anymore.
Then he said he met his congressman in an airport recently.....and he told him they were just making a mess in Washington. I kept my mouth shut. He told him that Congress needed to stop worrying about all the "poor folks" and just look out for the middle class. He did not say a word about the rich.
This was not unexpected from him, as my Republican family mostly consider us "bleeding heart liberals."
I told him I knew he was raised in the church like I was. I asked him if he remembered the words of Jesus.
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
He sort of mumbled, but I think he has been taken in by the right wing mantra that each person is responsible for themselves. If you are poor you deserve it, if you are rich you deserve it. He is "rich."
Then I remembered something the other day here. Sometime sent me a note when I posted a local article about
the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the school board here which is against evolution.It was a nice note and seemed to think I was mocking religion. I wasn't. I don't mock religion or religious people, as I was raised that way. I point out the way too many of today's post-right-wing-hijacking Christians often do not look at facts and too often demand others follow their way of thinking.
This letter to the editor continued that theme of Florida's Evolution/Intelligent Design spat. He is a teacher in Hong Kong now, previously taught here. He was a teacher after my own heart, and one I wish I had been more like. He made waves, he was proud to do it. He stood up to principals who put ideology before real education.
He cuts through the heart of hypocrisy in many letters he gets printed, and that is not popular.
Fuzzy ScienceThe currently ensuing spam attack on the Polk County School Board by the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" - a satirical group that pokes fun at intelligent design, may seem funny and even cute at first glance ("Satirical Monsters More Competition for Darwin," Dec. 11).
But the fact that a majority of local School Board members have opted to support the "fuzzy science" articulated by intelligent design is certainly no laughing matter.
And while it comes as no surprise that the two board members who publicly support the new Florida science curriculum and its explicit evolutionary language are also (coincidentally?) up for re-election in 2008, the remaining five members - four against and one still on the fence - might ponder the following intellectual realities in the lives of all Polk County high school students now that high-stakes standardized testing has become a permanent fixture in Florida's educational landscape:
1. How many questions on Intelligent Design will our students encounter on the FCAT?
2. How many questions on I.D. will our students encounter on the Advanced Placement Biology exam?
3. How many questions on I.D. are on the ACT college entrance exam?
4. How many questions on I.D. are on the SAT science achievement test?
5. How many questions on I.D. are on the CLEP test for cost-effective, pre-enrollment college credit in science?
The subject of the lack of care for the poor, letting them fend for themselves, and the subject of educators supporting Intelligent Design.....they are related in one very important way.
They point out that right wing ideologues have been controlling the conversation far too long, and that common sense voices on the political scene have been far too rare.
DU Donor
