Believe it or not, I read! I read my local paper every morning. I’m subjected to the likes of Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman usually once a week. No, I don’t read the NY Times. My local paper, The Virginian-Pilot, is “kind” enough to reprint their BS. They’ve decided to stop printing Michele Malkin, apparently she’s too conservative for them and it’s supposed to be a balancing act of some kind. It’s not working.
I usually read 3 sections in the local paper. The front page section, you know, world, country and state stuff. I follow it with the local section. There are a couple of local writers I look forward to reading like Kerry Dougherty and the local section also contains the editorial section. I follow it with the sports page. I need something to wash the taste of the big bad ugly world out of my mouth!
My beef is with the editorial section. First letter I read this morning is from someone STILL whining about the 2000 election. How Gore won the popular vote and Bush stole the election. I think that the hide has been completely beat from this dead horse! It’s funny, but I remember having to dig for information about the recounts done by all the main stream media giants after that election. I guess that’s because the results didn’t turn out the way they wanted them too. No matter how many times the votes were recounted in Florida, W still won! As far as the Electoral College goes. That’s so the big cities can’t elect a president that the rest of the country doesn’t want! Obviously, it works!
Then I get to Ms. Dowd’s’ column. I don’t know why I read her crap, but I do. Every week. I guess I just have a need to hear her whine. This week was different though. Ms. Dowd is so distraught these days that she can’t even write her own column. She’s now reprinting e-mails her brother has authored. It sounds like the poor girl had a lousy Thanksgiving. Apparently, according to Ms. Dowd, she comes from a very right leaning family. She must be the black sheep. I think her family may even say grace before the meal and you know that has to turn her stomach. Her brother’s e-mail reads like a letter from the Republican Party thanking you for the generous donation. I think her brothers may pick on her a bit. Repeating things conservative pundits have said about her. I have to believe she has a pretty thick skin though. How else could she write the shit she writes?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - bhw
So much wrong with Dowd's brother's e-mail, that it's hard to know where to begin. But I'll start with the biggie:
There are all sorts of people of faith that place moral values over personal freedoms.
And he thinks that's a good thing. See the problem? These morality police place their personal morals over the freedoms of the rest of us. The so-called liberal elite is accused daily of trying to tell the rest of the country how to live. [See the comment in the post about the Pledge, for example.] The fact is that liberals want conservatives to stop imposing their particular set of morals on the rest of the country. Live by your own moral code, leave the rest of us out of it, and keep the laws off my personal behavior.
2 - andy marsh
bhw - somebody has to keep you in line!
Actually, I think he was probably referring to the Patriot Act.
3 - bhw
What does the Patriot Act have to do with moral values? I think he's talking about stuff like gay marriage, abortion rights, etc.
Here's how this guy has picked his kids' private schools:
My wife and I picked our sons' schools based on three criteria: 1) moral values 2) discipline 3) religious maintenance
If you ask me, all three of those things can and should be handled at home. And he doesn't even mention curriculum or education. Just morals, morals, morals. That's fine, since he's sending his kids to private school. But I'd hate to have this guy on my local school board, wouldn't you?
4 - JR
What does the Patriot Act have to do with moral values?
Guess that depends on what you think of the morality of holding people without charging them, denying them access to legal representation, and not holding law enforcement accountable to any other authority.
BTW, Maureen Dowd is a bit of a hottie.
5 - andy marsh
I probably wouldn't want him on the local school board.
I agree that if your child is not in a private school then religion should not be part of the curriculum. But I also see big problems with not teaching kids the truth about things. Teachers can't teach the true history of Thanksgiving now! Who do you suppose the Pilgrims were thanking on that day a few hundred years ago? Sure they were thanking the indians, but I would also bet the farm that they were thanking a christian God as well!
I only spent 2 years in a public school, but I do have 2 daughters. One is now graduated from HS and the other is in her 2nd year. It's been my experience that my daughters did not and are not getting the level of education I got when I was in school. Part of that problem is the disruptions that happen in public school because of a lack of discipline. There was never a lack of discipline in the catholic schools I went to!
Moral values can be taken several different ways. My daughter is taking a geometry class. In the beginning of the year the teacher was fairly easy on her students. Allowing them to turn in assignments late and stuff. She found that her students would sit in class while homework was being reviewed, fill in the anwers and turn in their papers. She has since put a stop to this practice. I think by doing this she is teaching her students some responsibility and to me, being responsible is a moral value.
I don't think my 15 year old daughter needs a class where they demonstrate condom use with a banana! I think my daughter would be better served with a class on abstinence! Or if they think they need to teach birth control, an aspirin held firmly between the knees is all she needs to know!
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not naive! I know she's a teen and I know I need to keep an eye on her. But I do expect some kind of moral training from the school as well. I think a teacher can't help but impart some morals on students just because of the constant interaction with students and I expect them to be good morals!
6 - andy marsh
I will agree that Dowd is a bit of a hottie...I like that red hair! I think she's crazier than a shit house rat too!
7 - bhw
But I do expect some kind of moral training from the school as well. I think a teacher can't help but impart some morals on students just because of the constant interaction with students and I expect them to be good morals!
That means you expect them to be YOUR morals. I personally don't want teachers imparting YOUR morals onto my children.
My kids are young, but when they're in h.s., I want them to take a human sexuality class that covers reality, like the one I had: how our bodies work, reproduction, STDs, contraception, and yes, even talk about the only 100% effective way to avoid pregnancy and STDs. But I want it ALL presented objectively and not morally. My job is to also teach my kids all those things too, but also to teach them what I think is best for them, aka morals.
It would be a major embarassment to me if my school district graduated 18 and 19-year-old seniors who didn't understand basic human sexuality, which is where we're headed now.
Information is power. Ignorance is not bliss.
8 - Mark Saleski
i've said this here before...it'd be great if every high school kid had a chance to take a course in comparative religious studies.
there are just too many people who have had absolutely no contact with religions other than their own.
9 - Mark Saleski
and i agree with bhw about sex education.
kids who know more about human sexuality are less likely to make 'the big mistake'.
10 - andy marsh
My morals are the ONLY right morals! So ,when a sex ed teacher teaches your children about all the different forms of so called birth control (abortion should not be used as birth control) You just want it straight up. If a teacher imparts that the only sure way to avoid STD's is abstinence wouldn't that be moral training to some degree?
I'm also talking about some pretty standard things here. Morals dealing with stealing, lieing, respect for elders, respect for other people, things like that.
This is where a big problem comes in. To many kids aren't being taught anything at home! I've watched and seen kids come into the admin office at school and just start mouthing off! My old man woulda kicked my ass if he ever heard I did something like that! And that would have been after the nuns kicked it first!
11 - bhw
I agree with you too, Mark, on the comparative religious studies. I regret not having taken a class like that in college when I had the chance.
Also, recent studies have shown that kids who receive abstinence-only education do in fact delay having sex [by about a year or so over their peers]. But when they do have sex, they are more likely to NOT use contraceptives.
And still we hear the drum beat [and exclusive funding for] for abstinence-only education from a bunch of MEN in Washington who have not only not practiced abstinence before marriage but who tend to not even practice monogamy in marriage.
12 - Mark Saleski
andy makes a good point about kids not being taught things at home.
the idea that each new generation is less respectful than the past one has been around a loooong time.
...but, what's interesting about what's going on now are the changes in how kids spend their free time.
consider how much more rare it is for the entire family to sit down and have dinner together.
many, many scheduled events (soccer, etc.) have had an impact on this tradition.
...and then there's the internet...and cell phones (don't have time to get into that right now).
dang, it's all so complicated.
13 - andy marsh
You see, this is the problem. You want to teach my children things I think I should teach them at home. Which is, in a way, imparting your moral values on me. If I want my kids to learn sex ed from her parents, what's wrong with that? On the same lines, if I want your kids to know that the pilgrims were giving thanks to GOD on that original Thanksgiving Day, what's wrong with that?
14 - andy marsh
It is a shame that it's such a rare thing to sit at the dinner table anymore...teenagers!
15 - bhw
If a teacher imparts that the only sure way to avoid STD's is abstinence wouldn't that be moral training to some degree?
No. You tell them how effective condoms are [what percentage of the time they fail and which STDs they can and can't prevent] and what all the other forms of contraception are, and then you tell them how effective abstinence is. You don't tell them abstinence is preferred or is the right choice; you just tell them the facts so that they can make an informed decision. Most of them will still choose to have sex at some point before they're married, and when they do, they will be making that choice with as much information as possible.
I knew a guy in college who was a Christian and was going to become a minister [I think he eventually did]. He disclosed to me that he and his girlfriend were still virgins but that they fooled around. Turns out, fooling around included unprotected anal sex, so that she wouldn't get pregnant and so that they could both remain virgins. They literally did an end run around "the rules" so they could adhere to the so-called moral standard.
That's the kind of idiotic reasoning abstinence-only begets.
Morals dealing with stealing, lieing, respect for elders, respect for other people, things like that.
Those types of morals tend to deal with the way we treat other people [as well as with what's legal and what's not]. The decision to have sex should be made by the two [or more!] people who are involved, not some teacher in health class.
This is where a big problem comes in. To many kids aren't being taught anything at home!
Very true. But I'm not a fan of your father's or the nuns' remedies. You don't teach people how to respect others, to truly respect them and not just play a role, by threatening them or by hitting them. What people mean by "discipline" today is punishment meted out by people in positions of power. That's not a moral I want my kids to learn.
16 - bhw
You want to teach my children things I think I should teach them at home. Which is, in a way, imparting your moral values on me.
Teaching teenagers about the human body is a moral value? No, it's an educational value!
17 - andy marsh
it's only an educational value and not a moral value if you leave ALL the moral issues that go along with sex out of the equation!
18 - bhw
Right. Then we agree.
19 - andy marsh
Isn't teaching all the educational stuff and leaving all the moral stuff out sort of like teaching a kid how to start the car, but not how to drive it? An accident waiting to happen, so to speak?
20 - JR
Isn't teaching all the educational stuff and leaving all the moral stuff out sort of like teaching a kid how to start the car, but not how to drive it? An accident waiting to happen, so to speak?
I think it's like teaching a kid how to drive a car, but not where to drive it.
21 - andy marsh
or maybe how to take care of the car? I see where you're going with that one...works for me...
22 - bhw
I'm not even sure you're teaching the kid how to drive the car, because that implies practical application of knowledge and skills. ;-)
I think you're talking about teaching the kid what the car looks like, how the car works and, as Andy said, how to take care of it. How to drive it and where to drive it are a matter of practice and personal decision-making.
I don't really think the cucumber and condom belong in the h.s. classroom, because that delves into how to drive the car. Will they also demonstrate how to insert a vaginal sponge?
23 - andy marsh
and a cucumber at that! Talk about giving a kid an inferiority complex!
24 - bhw
Maybe it was a wee cucumber.
25 - Winston Smith
Well, so far as we know, Gore DID win the election of 2000.
Our best recounts and best analysis of the Florida vote shows a slight Gore victory (see e.g. the recent statistical analysis of the inclusion of almost 700 illeagal overseas absentee ballots for Bush).
Deny it if you want, but those are the facts. The Bush camp siezed power in 2000. Conservatives were too power-hungry to care, and liberals were too wimpy to object.
Oh, and conservatives have taken over the mantel of whiniest whiners... Did you note their recent hurt feewings concerning the fact that most of the world and almost half of America can't stand the current occupant of the White House? God, if I have to hear one more conservative puling and whining about "Bush haters"...
Sheesh, American conservatives have become pathetic...