Knuckleheads of the world, unite!

Above: Blue Ridge Christian Academy.

My grandfather, the Christian Scientist, frequently used that expression when confronted with anti-science dolts. I immediately knew it had to be the title of this piece.

I can do no better than to simply quote my local newspaper, the Greenville News, about this latest horror.

And to the rest of Blogdonia, Tumblr, all points of the internet and beyond, let me underscore it: SEE WHAT WE PUT UP WITH AROUND HERE? This is why I often do not take your intramural lefty-theoretical squabbles seriously. In these parts, we are still dealing with the freaking Scopes trial.

The title of the Greenville News account is Blue Ridge quiz ignites firestorm, accompanied by the coy subtitle, Furor brings attention, but possibly salvation. This is a cute example of how the Greenville News always tries to have it both ways. As is evident in the article below, this phrase could refer to 'salvation of the school itself'--which was ready to go belly-up financially... OR it could mean, literally, the way to Salvation with a capital S. (article is credited to Lyn Riddle, staff writer)

Which meaning is intended? You decide:

It was labeled “4th grade science quiz. Dinosaurs: Genesis and the Gospel.”

Eighteen questions. The first four were true or false.

The earth is billions of years old. A lopsided pencil mark circled false.

Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, another circle: false.

It went on from there, testing students on the beginning of the world according to creationism, the belief that the literal interpretation of the first book of the Bible explains it all. Both were marked correct.

Before long, the quiz was posted on the social news website Reddit, unleashing a firestorm of criticism on Blue Ridge Christian Academy, a tiny private Christian school in northern Greenville County.

In what board chair Joy Hartsell says shows God is at work in the world, the controversy may be what saves the school from closing.

About six weeks ago, parents were told that the school would close May 31 because the founder and major donor would no longer make up the loss in operating expenses, said Diana Baker, the director.

“We may have found the path to get the money,” Hartsell said Friday.

So far, about $10,000 toward the $200,000 needed to stay open next fall has been received and more checks arrive in the mail every day, Baker said.

She said she received a $3,000 check on Thursday.

Cue my grandfather's phrase, the title of this blog post.

Fundies to the rescue! Knuckleheads of the world, unite!

The rest of the article makes it clear that the sheltered and ignorant denizens of Blue Ridge Christian Academy have never even seen Reddit before. Someone obviously unleashed the "DIAF" meme, which made them hyperventilate and call the sheriff's office. Do you believe? If I had called the sheriff every time someone online wished a nasty death on me... well, the Greenville County sheriff would be permanently camped out in my kitchen.

But yes, pick a fight with stupidity and then howl when the world takes you seriously, as I have said numerous times, is the usual fundamentalist technique.

Your thoughts?

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Bob Jones University's MACBETH witches wear dreadlocks

Above, the three witches of MACBETH, sporting dreadlocks.

Today on Occupy the Microphone, we discussed Bob Jones University's newest production of MACBETH, which got a gushing (and what other kind is there?) endorsement from Sunday's worshipful GREENVILLE NEWS. As I have complained before (about a half-million times), the GREENVILLE NEWS has never ever criticized Bob Jones University, even when they appoint professional rape-apologists to their board, or suspend students for watching GLEE. As I have also said, they don't even print Letters to the Editors critical of BJU; segregation, racism, sexism, homophobia, students not being able to face their accusers, long-time faculty railroaded out of jobs because they state on internet forums that they don't like corporal punishment, etc... it's all peachy keen and wholesome as the dickens.

My all-time favorite GREENVILLE NEWS editorial (re: the aforementioned BJU scandal about the rape-excuser on the board) actually stated, "Whatever account is most accurate" (!)--which completely sums up the hands-off approach always applied to Bob Jones University, in which the words "investigative journalism" have absolutely no meaning.

What makes no sense is how the GREENVILLE NEWS obviously wants the big movers and shakers to relocate here; they want the international money-men to colonize Greenville even more than they have already. Do they understand that championing such an awful, embarrassing, oppressive institution is NOT the way to do this? Why not cut to the chase and simply print a banner headline advertising: GREENVILLE UNRESERVEDLY LOVES FUNDAMENTALIST WACKOS? I mean, if you are going to continue to rave about the wonderfulness of BJU without alluding to its repressive history (as well as its repressive present), that IS how it reads.

To name only the most recent example, the goofy, incorrect, thoroughly unscientific craziness in Bob Jones University's homeschool textbooks recently made the media rounds, singled out as an example of redneck stupidity and an occasion of extended hilarity on all the major networks. This craziness included rehabbing the kkk, who really were just misunderstood doncha know:

“[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

And making sure students understand that slavery wasn't all bad:

“A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

And you probably didn't know that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side?:

“Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

In addition, fire-breathing dragons might be real, just like on GAME OF THRONES!:

“[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke.”—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

And yes, unfortunately, I could go on. Further, Bob Jones University is one of the major suppliers of homeschooling textbooks worldwide ... and they make a lot of their money from this crackpot stuff.

But don't expect any criticism of this goofiness from our local newspaper of record. Not. One. Peep.

Maybe that's the worst part of it: The GREENVILLE NEWS is still pretending the place is a real school, instead of a fundamentalist cult. And this has the overall effect of making us all look like yahoos, every time we pick up their newspaper.

~*~

And so, the MACBETH production, like everything else at BJU, was deemed an unqualified success in the Sunday GREENVILLE NEWS account. But when I saw the photos of the three actresses playing the famous three witches in MACBETH, I was somewhat alarmed (but never surprised, considering who we are talking about) that their hair is all in dreadlocks.

What? (double-take)

Dreadlocks. DREAD. LOCKS.

Keep in mind that witches, to BJU, are real enough that they do not even allow their students to read the Harry Potter novels. Witches are unambiguously regarded as evil, satanic, bad. Thus, we must wonder why they consider dreadlocks specifically something that witches would wear? Why would they think that? I doubt anyone in Scotland in 1057 AD wore dreadlocks, know what I mean? But here in Greenville in 2013, who DOES wear them?

Think about that.

African Americans and white hippie pagan weirdos. You know, the evil people. In fact, it is African drumming that makes rock music uniquely evil and satanic, in case you didn't know. Things from AFRICA are automatically suspect in BJU-circles. (Interracial dating was prohibited on campus until 2000.)

And so, we have to ask, what do the dreadlocks on witches mean in this context? Was this an openly-racist decision by the wardrobe department, or as Sheila Jackson, my caller on today's radio show, said, is this "subliminal"? Are they aware of the implications of singling out a hairstyle associated with African-Americans and Afrocentric religion (the Rastafarians) and assigning this iconic hairstyle to the most famous trio of spell-casting witches in literary history?

Either way, it stinks... and it illustrates how backward and embarrassing they are, besides.

I am reminded of the many 70s productions of "Jesus Christ Superstar" that cast King Herod as a flaming gay man surrounded by an interracial group of gender-benders. Um, what was THAT supposed to mean? (And I think we can easily see that now, can't we?)

The difference, of course, would be that these productions of "Jesus Christ Superstar" are from about four decades ago... and BJU's dreadlocked MACBETH witches are from RIGHT NOW.

Yes, four decades behind. That's about right.

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Prayer in Pickens County

Note the specific wording of the following report from the Anderson Independent Mail. There will be a quiz later.

Pickens County school board changes prayer policy

PICKENS COUNTY — The Pickens County Board of Education passed a new policy Monday to allow only nonsectarian prayers at the beginning of school board meetings.

People turned out to the school board meeting Monday night to make final pleas for the school board not to change the policy that had been in place. The school board was strongly divided in its vote, which was 3-2 with one member abstaining.

“Please vote to be right, not safe,” Pickens County resident Vicky Gibson said.

Another resident said, “The point I’m trying to make tonight is we are giving up without a fight.”

School board member Jim Shelton said, “This board has sold your soul to protect themselves.”

Discussion about the new policy began after the Freedom From Religion Foundation threatened to sue the school district regarding the practice of student-led, sectarian prayer.

“Taking a stand like you’re suggesting will be a legal defeat, and it will be costly,” board member Alex Saitta said to those who wanted the district to keep the past policy despite the threat of a lawsuit.

The new policy doesn’t satisfy the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and it still may sue the district.

And now, note the title of this Facebook page, created in direct reaction to this event: I Support the Pickens County School Board Continuing Student-Led Prayer. The page is described as: Let's share to help get the word out. We can make a difference. Let's continue contacting Board members to voice support for the student-led prayers. (1324 'likes' so far.)

Do you see the discrepancy between the news account, and what the Facebook page claims? This deliberate misreading has been going on throughout upstate South Carolina media, since Monday night.

Nobody said they couldn't PRAY, they just have to be NONSECTARIAN prayers. But to some Christians, unless it is Christian prayer, it doesn't even count as prayer. It is rendered utterly invisible. (Or maybe they are illiterate and really do not understand the difference?)

And doncha love that "Please vote to be right, not safe"? If someone gets beat up for not having the same religion as the majority of Pickens County and not bowing their head on cue, oh well. BETTER RIGHT THAN SAFE.

When you are in the majority, you don't have to worry about safety, do you? Let those nonChristian punks worry about safety, galdurnit! This is PICKENS!

Stay tuned, sports fans.

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Another Bob Jones University sex scandal

From WSPA--Bob Jones Administrator Suspended For Soliciting A Prostitute In 1991

Greenville, SC - An administrator with Bob Jones University has been indefinitely suspended from his position for having a prior criminal background.

University spokesman Randy Page issued a statement saying that Dr. Joseph Bartosch was suspended from his position as Chief Brand Officer on Friday, March 15 by school officials. Page states that school officials learned on the same day that Bartosch had been charged with soliciting a prostitute in another state two decades ago and prior to his employment with Bob Jones University.

Bartosch confirmed the allegations to school officials and put himself at their disposal, Page stated. School officials will gather facts about the incident and reach an appropriate decision as soon as possible about Bartosch's employment status.

According to online records obtained from the Superior Court of California, Bartosch was arrested and charged with misdemeanor solicitation of a prostitute in 1991. The records indicate he served three days in jail and was later sentenced to three years of probation.

Bartosch's biography indicates that he graduated from Bob Jones University in 1982 and joined the Administration in 2012. He finished with a Master of Counseling degree in 2006 and an EdD in Curriculum and Instruction in 2007. He lived in Sacramento from 1990-2004 and was Head Master at Sacramento Preparatory Academy.

The official statement from BJU can be read HERE. If you wanna listen to edifying sermons by the fascinating Dr Bartosch, they are HERE.

This new sex-scandal comes directly on the heels of multiple scandals plaguing the school since the 2011-12 academic year, during which rape-apologist Reverend Charles Phelps resigned from the BJU board, amid protests, outrage and general disgust. Accompanying this media-foofaraw, student Christopher Peterman organized a demonstration in support of sexual abuse survivors, and was summarily tossed out of BJU, just a few days before his graduation... supposedly for watching "GLEE" on his laptop. This incident made it to CNN and beyond.

After that blew over, more or less, there were alarming accounts of sexual assaults at Bob Jones University, made public and demanding immediate follow-up. On January 10th of this year, BJU called on a non-profit Christian outfit called GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) to do an independent, third-party investigation. This investigation/inquiry will continue until April 30th. However, it seems to be proceeding in the usual BJU-half-assed manner; although the school dutifully posted this info on their website, it is benignly-labeled a review rather than an investigation. In addition, they haven't alerted students and former students, nor parents, faculty, staff or alumni, that there is a survey being actively conducted. [*see edit below]

According to multiple accounts, the BJU-admin was asked to publicly announce that there was a survey and investigation underway, but they have declined to do so. (sigh) Well, of course they have.

~*~



Minding my own business in a shopping mall, when ... YOW! Accosted by Bob Jones University yet AGAIN!

As I have said here many times, they virtually RUN the upstate.

~*~

Bob Jones University, bane of our existence here in upstate South Carolina, has reacted to recent, multiple sleazy scandals (and persistent rumors) by feverishly gussying up their image. They suddenly have billboards everywhere, featuring fresh-faced, happy kids who could be students anywhere... and these groups of laughing students/poster kids invariably include ONE STUDENT OF COLOR. ((shock)) If anything shows how hard the unrelenting criticism of the past decade has hit BJU, that might be it.

When I moved to Greenville 25 yrs ago, there were NO billboards (and what kind of worldly nonsense is THAT?) and absolutely no advertising for BJU. The overriding sentiment was, they didn't want just ANYbody attending their exclusive fundamentalist enclave. If you called the place to ask admission questions, they would not answer you. You had to be recommended by godly personages and go through specific channels. They kept the majority of people out, and they were proud of it.

When BJU finally produced some cursory mainstream ads, websites and the occasional billboard--the all-white student line-up was blinding. Embarrassing, too, since Greenville is only 62% white. Apparently, BJU didn't notice the discrepancy. It was a joke all over town. People joked that you could tell whose billboards they were from a half-mile down the road: the kids are all white, must be BJU.

They have changed that, at long last. They got the memo. (At least, in the billboards and advertising; I am doubtful the school itself has integrated in any real way.)

Next up, they sold their weird radio station (that once specialized in a strange fundie-android mix of 50s-muzak and KJV-only scripture). BJU also decided to get some SPORTS going on, which they hope will draw more students and sports fans:

[Bob Jones University] plans to become part of the National Christian College Athletic Association and have intercollegiate sports in place by the 2012-2013 school year.

"We really look at intercollegiate sports as rounding out the educational opportunities here for our students here at Bob Jones University," Brian Scoles, spokesman for the university, told WYFF. "Not only will it help them for developing Christ-like spirit on the athletic field, but it's also an opportunity for the community to come to campus to view one more program that we have here."

By next school year, Bob Jones plans to have men's and women's soccer and basketball programs. The athletic opportunities are expected to grow from there, starting in the fall of 2013.

So, they are tarting themselves up! They are getting their act together and taking it on the road.

Specifically, they are trying to pump up enrollment, which is currently dropping like a rock. Various reports (all fiercely disputed by BJU officials) claim that the school now has only a third of the enrollment it had during its pre-internet heyday.

And the fact that they can't even provide decent background-checks on their own employees, isn't going to help. Apparently, the students and food-service employees are subjected to stricter background checks than Bartosch was.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

~*~

*EDIT: 3/24 - Sometime in the last 10 - 14 days, BJU updated the front page of their website's link to the investigation page to read "G.R.A.C.E. Independent Investigation" instead of the completely dismissive and confusing "G.R.A.C.E. Initiates Review" that had been the previous link since January. (thanks to Jeffrey Hoffman for the correction!)

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Is college worth it?

One of those subjects that interests me a great deal, is whether a college degree is "necessary" or not. Lately, as the price of (even a mediocre) education skyrockets, the question is a getting a new and respectful hearing. Megan McArdle's in-depth Newsweek article on the topic, has prompted extensive discussion.

I am one who has often had my jobs supplanted by college grads. Frequently, these kids couldn't even decently proofread their own ad copy. I have trained college grad after college grad, many as dumb as dirt. It seems they are getting dumber, too... I think this is probably because the actual value of a degree is less than it used to be. I have trained numerous college grads who barely made it through (sometimes taking much longer than four years to do so), but by God, they had that almighty sacred CREDENTIAL that meant they should make more than I do; never mind that they couldn't even answer a customer's simple questions. (One college grad argued with me that there was no such thing as vitamin B-5. Really.) The dimwitted arrogance of "I have a degree and you don't; so I know everything and you know nothing," is worthy of a whole separate post. I collect such stories. Another big problem with college degrees is that the holder of said degree seems to believe that IQ points were magically bestowed when the degree was conferred... which is more proof of stupidity.

I am also one who has lied on occasion (especially in the pre-digital era) and claimed a college degree I don't have. It never seemed to make any real difference in anything an employer expected me to do. Such unnecessary college degrees (say, among video store clerks) are simply about gate-keeping; making sure that People Like Us are the only people in the break-room. The fact that I was easily able to pass as People Like Them, would suggest that it's the (apparent) fact of the degree, nothing tangible that is learned in the actual process of obtaining one.

From McArdle's piece:

Unsurprisingly those 18-year-olds often don’t look quite so hard at the education they’re getting. In Academically Adrift, their recent study of undergraduate learning, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa find that at least a third of students gain no measurable skills during their four years in college. For the remainder who do, the gains are usually minimal. For many students, college is less about providing an education than a credential—a certificate testifying that they are smart enough to get into college, conformist enough to go, and compliant enough to stay there for four years.

When I was a senior, one of my professors asked wonderingly, “Why is it that you guys spend so much time trying to get as little as possible for your money?” The answer, [writer/economist Bryan] Caplan says, is that they’re mostly there for a credential, not learning. “Why does cheating work?” he points out. If you were really just in college to learn skills, it would be totally counterproductive. “If you don’t learn the material, then you will have less human capital and the market will punish you—there’s no reason for us to do it.” But since they think the credential matters more than the education, they look for ways to get the credential as painlessly as possible.

True. Learning itself often seems to be beside the point.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been reading some 'complicated' (but not really), obscure or arcane book (i.e. Jean Paul Sartre) and have been asked by the resident college grad in my office (accompanied by furrowed brow): "Are you reading that for a class?" The idea that one actually reads something "difficult" for oneself, for pleasure, is utterly foreign to them. Sometimes, when I reply "no"--the puzzlement is evident, and they continue, dumbfounded: "Then why are you reading it?" I hardly know what to say. (Tellingly, it is usually the 'uneducated' redneck in the office who giggles, at this point.) They usually punctuate these questions with, "All of that is behind me now! Whew!" or some other amazing comment, expressing relief that they will never have to READ A REAL BOOK again. (Wow, wasn't that shit HARD?) Some have proudly bragged to me they got through their entire college years without actually finishing a single one. I have never doubted it.

Nonetheless, I was surprised to read on Brad DeLong's blog (check the comments), that questioning the nature of COLLEGE UBER ALLES is now regarded as a conservative viewpoint. As Tim Gunn would say, this worries me. Back in the 60s/70s, liberals and radicals made this argument first, offering the common-sense observation that working and living in the real world--as well as a variety of interesting 'learning experiences' (this era marked the birth of that now-common expression)--also conferred 'an education.' I wasn't aware that questioning authority is now up to the right wing. (And how depressing is that?) Are liberals-on-the-coasts THAT out of touch with the situation on-the-ground? Do they interact with college grads from schools that never expected them to do math without calculators, or spell without spellcheck? I don't think they have.

More proof of the disconnect between elite liberals and the great working-class unwashed... and that makes me uneasy.

~*~

Further, there is the increasing importance of teacher evaluations, and whether they are a good or bad thing for education. What does it mean that students now determine whether a teacher stays employed? Is this an education worth paying big bucks for, one that has been "voted on"?

In the New York Times, former Duke professor Stuart Rojstaczer writes:

Student evaluations are a poor indicator of professor performance. The good news is that college students often reward instructors who teach well. The bad news is that students often conflate good instruction with pleasant ambience and low expectations. As a result they also reward instructors who grade easily, require little work, are glib and chatty, wear nice clothes, and are physically attractive. It’s generally impossible to separate all these factors in an evaluation. Plus, students will penalize demanding professors or professors who have given them a bad grade, regardless of the quality of instruction that a professor provides. In the end, deans and tenure committees are using bad data to evaluate professor performance, while professors feel pressure to grade easier and reduce workloads to receive higher evaluations.

In the mid-90s, I had a short-term temp-job processing teacher evaluations for a technical college. I fed the evaluations with the penciled-in answer-dots into a "reader" (which often spit them right back out at me... just like when you stick your dollar in the vending machine and it spits it back for having a crease in it) ... and then made pie charts on a Model-T-Ford-like-Mac, breaking down the teacher-ratings from the students: Excellent, Good, Fair, Below Average, Sucks. Then I deciphered the written gibberish from the students ("I like Mrs X, she is hot!", "Mrs X needs to stop talking about her cat all the time, some of us HATE CATS!" etc etc) and typed it up separately. Then I stapled the pie charts to the comments. (Yes, it was Model-T level stuff, indeed, but I remember thinking how high-tech the pie charts were!)

And do I need to tell you, how many times the teachers came sneaking in, asking WHO I was working on? ("Have you reached the computer/engineering/CAD department yet?") If I answered that I was working on their department, their eyes would go boinnnngggg (like a Tex Avery cartoon) and they would frenetically rifle through the papers (that I had carefully separated into piles, of course, causing me hours of extra work) looking for their own students' names and replies. My skinny, ADHD-supervisor would attempt to circumvent this extracurricular activity, keeping the door open from her adjacent office (where she liked to listen to Aerosmith) and bust them when they did this... scurrying in and shooing them away like kindergartners, reminding them of rules, rules, rules: YOU ARE BREAKING THEM. They didn't care. They did it virtually every day I had the job. (Some departments, I could see, were far more nervous than others; the nursing department was impervious and never showed up a single time.) The rifling of my careful piles of papers continued, and since my supervisor could SEE that this was not MY fault, I often got paid overtime.

I finally got the message, loud and clear, that their jobs were at stake. One teacher started groaning as he looked at his pie chart, his mortgage payment obviously hanging in the balance. One of them asked me if there was any way to fudge the replies, which I pretended I hadn't heard, just as skinny-supervisor bounded through the door and banished him from the room.

I remember a short, stolen conversation with one such crestfallen teacher, as I whispered (Aerosmith momentarily drowning us out) that his pie chart looked okay to me. He whispered back, shaking his head, that OKAY/FAIR was not good enough, you had to have blah-de-blah percent of GOODS... FAIR does not cut it. (I remember being surprised, since I am the product of a lifetime of FAIR public school teachers, and I still know every single one of my state capitals.)

What does this mean, that the opinions of students now dictate whether college instructors get to keep their jobs? (Even in a field like AUTOMOBILE ENGINE MECHANICS?!?)

Might this lead to getting softer and softer on the students?

And take note, this was at the dawn of the online era. "Rate My Professors" and other such sites that rate instructors publicly (and anonymously) had not even been invented yet.

~*~

In today's economy, we now have the sordid spectacle of employers demanding that bartenders and appliance-salesman have college degrees. As a result, we have a class of people who used to self-select out of college and go to work in factories, choosing to trudge through the torture of college, simply to avoid becoming unemployable. Since there are no longer any factory jobs in the USA, such a person is now at loose ends, and preyed upon by all the fake colleges promising a college credential during TV commercials. (Since these particular working-class folks haven't already been hanging out with the college-set, as I have, they are not quite aware that all college degrees are not equal, and some are barely regarded as real degrees at all.)

College is a racket, straight up. The costs are rising, and increasingly staggering. People graduate and can't find work. Worse, due to the magical degree in their hands, they think a job is promised to them. Thus, when they do get work, they expect it to be a certain KIND of work--the exalted occupations promised on the glowing TV commercials. When expected to mop floors with the rest of us, they are unexpectedly indignant: I didn't spend four years in college for this! they fume. As a matter of fact, you did. You did it to get hired, and now you are hired... now, mop.

I know, you didn't read Twelfth Night and go into six-figure debt to push a mop, and do you now see how ridiculous that was?

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Democratic Convention update

At left: Ten undocumented immigrants arrested at demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention. This protest was the end-point of the UNDOCUBUS journey across the USA. Photo from the Village Voice.





The Democratic Convention continues, with few arrests--although there have been some. As I said previously, I was worried. There have been demonstrations, but nothing too disruptive.

Former President Bill Clinton wowed the audience last night, making folks nostalgic for Clintonian America; Democratic delegates openly confessed that they wish they could vote for him instead of Obama. (Transcript of Clinton's speech)

Mr Daisy dislikes the conventions and opted to watch DVDs of "The Office" instead. I think he prefers the old-style conventions, wherein the major networks actually broadcasted endless rules-discussions and other such wonky, procedural, political in-group activities. It somehow made you feel like you really were being represented and that your state's delegates, of both parties, were there to choose what was best for you. Now, it's mostly just razzle-dazzle and teleprompter-speeches, already market-tested for the masses. No surprises, and consequently, no fun.

Michelle Obama's speech was judged by the mass media as a big hit. The notable exception would be (big shocker) Fox News viewers. Daily Kos reported on the nasty racism in the comments on the Fox News website. No exaggeration either, I went over there and looked, and there are many more, and far worse. What particularly surprised me (but not really) is the fact that Fox webmasters did not close the thread down, and didn't seem at all worried by how bad this makes their viewers look. As I wrote in comments here, racism IS profitable, despite what some conservatives claim, i.e. a return to Jim Crow is somehow not possible in our (cough) racially-enlightened times. Of course it is. (And therefore, when anyone talks seriously about repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act? They are either stone-cold racists, incurably naïve or simply NOT PAYING ATTENTION.)

As Ezra Klein noticed, the huge change in Democratic Party strategy has been: the Democrats are reclaiming Obamacare. YES, universal medical care IS a winning policy, and it is about time somebody said so. Several convention speakers have openly used the term "Obamacare"--which ironically started out as a Republican put-down. The new theme is, OBAMA CARES about you, as Mitt Romney only cares about the rich, like himself.

I guess we'll find out how well this works?

As for me, as my readers know, I love me some class warfare. When conservatives accusingly howl, "CLASS WARFARE!" as if its an insult, I never get it. When *I* am accused of it, I always say "Thank you!"--since of course, it's totally necessary and we certainly can't have enough of it. What is the intended insult, exactly? FAIRNESS IS GOOD. ROBIN HOOD WAS RIGHT. If you don't like that, move to Switzerland with the rest of the tax exiles, and take Mitt with you.

I hear he already has a bank account set up over there, so he and the misses will be just fine.

They can sublet their expensive houses. Most of us could support our whole families on the rents from the sublets, alone.

~*~

Yesterday, I enjoyed my 82nd viewing (give or take) of Suddenly, Last Summer. Just so amazing... and my previous post about the movie is here.

Speaking of which, its way past time to link myself! I often forget to do it.

[] I neglected to mention my own blogular accounts of protesting at the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1980, one of which was linked on Wikipedia (((preen))), so here they are: Republican Convention in Detroit, Democratic Convention in New York.

[] And here is my official BACK TO SCHOOL POST, for all of you exhausted parents out there.

I continue to get positive and affirming feedback about this story, years after I first wrote it. I have received emails as well, lamenting similar GIANT SCHOOL PROJECTS on similar-sized ping-pong tables, sometimes offering detailed descriptions: One mom described a Confederate battlefield, complete with miniature Rebel-battle-flags and toy cannons; another teacher on a forum I visit, relating the same about a detailed Napoleonic display.

All of the (historically-accurate) uniforms carefully sewed onto the teeny-tiny soldiers, some with itsy-bitsy brass buttons.

The mind boggles.

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Liberty University hypocrisy under spotlight

Graphic from fundamentalist Christian website The Relevant Pen. (you've been warned)






Those of us who have been repeatedly subjected to relentless Baptist proselytizing, already know the official fundamentalist/evangelical line on Mormons: No.

In fact, it has long been understood that even if Catholics are evil pagans at base, at least they believe in the Trinity. This is standard.

I have heard lots and lots of bad-mouthing of Latter Day Saints beliefs from by-the-book Protestants, much of it incorrect. I have my own Book of Mormon (you knew I did), which I hijacked long ago from a Utah motel room, and it has snazzy color pictures of Joseph Smith's tablets in it and everything. Thus, when they start all the "Mormons think this" and "Mormons believe that" business--I have gotten into the pesky habit of looking it up myself. WHERE is it, I ask them, and have even been known to plant the Book of Mormon right in front of their noses and order them to find it, please, so I can verify this information for the blog. (In the past five years, I have learned that blogging provides all kinds of handy-dandy excuses... and the offhand statement, "I'm blogging this!" can strike fear into the hearts of idiots who are blowing smoke up your ass, especially if you ask if you can quote them directly by name.)

Most fundamentalists seem afraid to touch the Book of Mormon, much less actually read it.

I have no great love for the Church of Latter Day Saints, you understand, I simply recognize bigots when I see them. And I see them all over upstate SC, Bob Jones University-land. In fact, that was the whole reason for the fuss during the 2008 election, when Bob Jones III unexpectedly endorsed Mitt Romney, angering both students and alumni. The Mormons, I have been informed many times, are not Christians.

Now of course the fundies say this about LOTS of other Christians, so it is somewhat amusing how their tone changes when it comes to Mormons: "No, REALLY, they aren't Christians!" Like that infamous boy who cried wolf, when you go around announcing nobody but you is a Christian, well... people do stop listening after awhile. If the Mormons are supposedly WORSE, it doesn't matter, does it? If you have trashed other Christian denominations endlessly, and continually give the impression that your strict sect is (they love to say this) THE REMNANT (this is usually a specific reference to Revelation 12:17) then people tune you out and assume your newest babble is simply more of the same. Since in one respect, it is.

And now, we have the fascinating spectacle of Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell as Lynchburg Baptist College) welcoming Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (a Mormon in good standing, in case you didn't know) with open arms as the commencement speaker.

Wait, what? A heretic is now all cozy with the school founded by Falwell? It's as surprising as the Jones endorsement was, and just as hypocritical and obvious.

Predictably, this has upset everybody; deja vu all over again. The anger has spilled over onto (where else?) Facebook, as well as spreading like wildfire among the school's online students, who have wasted no time speaking up.

CNN reports:

After last week’s announcement, thousands of comments were registered under the announcement on Liberty’s Facebook page. While some were supportive of the decision to invite Romney, a number of respondents were angered and posted their frustration to Facebook.

As of Monday morning, the announcement was deleted from the page, along with all the comments.

“Complaints died down because they took the ability to complain down from the website,” said Janet Loeffler, a 53-year old freshman at Liberty who takes classes online. Loeffler was a frequent poster to the Facebook page.

If they don't like what you say, they just erase it.

Ah yes, the fundamentalist way.

Loeffler is royally pissed about the censorship and duplicity:

Loeffler provided CNN with a copy of the page in the freshman textbook “The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics” which includes a number of passages on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called Mormons. “Mormon doctrine stands in stark contrast to Jewish and Christian monotheism,” reads the passage, “which teaches that there is only one true God and that every other ‘God’ is a false god.”

Liberty's handling of the situation "has very much altered my thinking of Liberty,” Loeffler said. “I haven’t registered for my fall classes yet because of it. I am offended that they would talk to us like that, telling us that we just don’t understand.”

Many of the anti-Liberty comments, including Loeffler’s, charged that Mormonism goes against the teachings of the school and claimed that the religion is a cult. The charge of Mormonism as a cult is not a new one for the church, however. In a 2011 column, Michael Otterson, head of public affairs for the LDS Church described the word as “a neat, shorthand and rather lazy way of putting a whole group into a box.”

The nation’s largest evangelical denomination, the Southern Baptist Conference, lists the LDS Church as a cult. They specifically cite differences in theology surrounding salvation, baptism, belief in the Trinity, and marriage. A major sticking point between other Christian traditions and Mormons is the Book of Mormon, which Mormons believe is divinely inspired scripture and on par with the Bible. Other Christians do not recognize the Book of Mormon as scripture.

And yet, Liberty has invited the most popular Mormon in the country to speak at Liberty's graduation. I guess we see that conservative POLITICS and not religion, are the important thing.

Some of us have always known this, but now, the students are getting it too.

And be advised, there are a parcel of them; they claim to be "the largest evangelical university in the world," with 82,500 students enrolled either on campus or online. Therefore a political lynch-pin of the Religious Right, a crucial whistle-stop for Romney, that he can't ignore.

This debate over Romney’s selection further tests the relationship between Mormons and evangelicals. With Romney as the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, many political commentators are asking whether the evangelical base, an important voting bloc to the GOP, will come out for Romney.

Tony Perkins, a Liberty graduate and the president of the Family Research Council, said he sees the Romney speech as an opportunity.

"As Christians we can disagree strongly but we show respect and I think they will show respect for Mitt Romney," Perkins said on CNN's Starting Point Monday morning.

"They may not warmly applaud him and may continue to express differences and clearly there are differences theologically between Mormons and Christians, but here's an opportunity for Mitt Romney to talk about what he has in common with evangelicals and that is on the value issues," Perkins said.

But if the evangelical vote hinges on how evangelicals see Mormonism, Romney may need further outreach to the evangelical community. A recent Pew Research Center survey finds 47% of white evangelicals say that Mormonism is not a Christian religion, while 66% say Mormonism and their religion are “very or somewhat different.”

(Aside: I like how they stick that qualifier WHITE in there... they certainly understand that black Christians vote differently, but they aren't ready to go THERE just yet.)

66% ain't nothing to sneeze at. Romney has trouble. But with all the "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense, is it possible the two candidate's religious troubles will balance/cancel each other out?

Loeffler isn't having any:

“This is nothing more than a political rally, at a time when graduates are having their lives dedicated to the work they were trained to do at Liberty,” Loeffler said.

I assume it will all reach a fever-pitch right before the election. Then again, maybe they just don't care too awful much about Romney and intend to use him as a sort of GOP sacrifice.

Stay tuned. This election season might yet have a few unforeseen twists and turns.

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Thoughts on Fake Schooling

This lovely Wisteria patch is blooming beautifully--right outside the WFIS radio studios in Fountain Inn--home of the Daisy Deadhead radio show. (Podcast is up!)








There was a bright pink Packard parked in a yard on East North Street for about three weeks or so... I kept meaning to park and take a photograph of it, but the neighborhood gave me pause. Not for nothing do Catholics call the area around Bob Jones University "Ulster"--and I try to whiz through Ulster fast enough that nobody can take a shot at me. Even though I really wanted a photo of the pink Packard (something I'd never seen before), I knew the only places to park would be (eeep) church parking lots. And they'd likely ticket me for trespassing, if their security cameras got a good look at my dreaded lefty bumper stickers. Ulster plays for keeps!

So, I am sorry to say, I did NOT get a photo of the fabled pink Packard. I wonder what the sale price was?

For more news of Ulster, check out the new blog "BJU News"--which actually gives us the real news, not the okeydoke offered up by local BJU-subsidiary, the Greenville News.

And speaking of the Greenville News, Sunday's piece on tech colleges offering job training was SHAMEFUL in its lack of reporting and total acceptance of the status quo. It was one long commercial for technical colleges, as their recent piece on BJU's spring opera season was one long commercial for Bob Jones University. Do they even understand the difference between reporting and press releases? Do they have any clue what real newspapers write about? Have they ever seen the New York Times, or even the Spartanburg Herald?

Sometimes the Greenville News reads like a series of gushing travel pamphlets, advertising the upstate.

Here is my correction to the comical piece titled Tech schools offer path to jobs, lure for industries:

Once upon a time, companies trained their own employees. Really! But as they grew bigger and bigger (read: greedier and greedier), they didn't like paying people to learn, and decided to cut out this (pricey) introductory first step. So, they successfully dumped this expensive first step onto the tech colleges.

Greenville Tech has a Michelin building, for instance, paid for by Michelin to train the Michelin employees. This way, the EMPLOYEE must pay for their own training! Is that capitalist ingenuity or what? The tech college makes a profit and Michelin has a continuous stream of already-trained, job-ready applicants. You can get hired right out of school, just like Goldman Sachs hires kids right out of Harvard.

Unlike those mad Harvard skillz, however, working-class skills do not always transfer to other jobs. Michelin and BMW manufacture things their way, using their own patented materials and procedures, and have their own corporate culture. Experience in these companies may or may not transfer to another job. But that is not the concern of the tech schools. They've made THEIR profit, after all.

So, you have a continuous stream of working class people who must be constantly trained and re-trained. This sets up a revolving door of tech college attendance, as workers must PAY to receive job-training that may not even get them hired, especially in today's economy. It's a pretty good racket, and the Greenville News obviously wants to do their part in keeping that revolving door moving, and keeping those profits rolling in.

But a RACKET it is, and wouldn't it be nice if someone came out and said so?

Sitting here sorting laundry and watching LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT reruns, I am inundated with TV ads for countless cheapy tech schools that offer various vague degrees in "management" and so on. They invariably feature an almost-middle-aged woman of color who looks triumphant and borderline-weepy as she graduates, all while talking about making life better for her children. They know exactly who is unemployed right now, and they have geared these endless commercials for THE TECH COLLEGE RACKET, specifically to them.

Yes, I know someone must draw the blood, style hair, take care of the very old people, change oil in vehicles, prepare restaurant menus and all of that... and they need to be trained to do those jobs. Thus, I suppose these commercials should not make me as angry as they do... but they do. I resent the naked emotional manipulation of desperate unemployed people; the idea being communicated that this economic situation we are all in right now, can be instantly fixed, just by paying a fee to a fly-by-night school nobody ever heard of. All we need is MORE TRAINING.

All we need to do, say the commercials, is STAND UP AND TAKE CONTROL of our lives, at long last. Right?

Right?

Until the next economic crisis, that is. Who, I always wonder, will these people from the fly-by-night colleges be managing with their spanking-new phantom management degrees?

Are there any employees left to manage?

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Dead Air Church: Ex-fundies rock!

At left: A mere fraction of the copious religious propaganda that has been foisted on me here in fundamentalist Bob Jones University-land. My favorite is in the lower left of the frame, the million dollar bill with Charles Spurgeon on it. (Accept no substitutes!)





I recently discovered Stuff Fundies Like, when my blog was linked on one of their threads. Yow, thought Daisy, what kind of fundies quote ME? I was surprised, to say the least.

And now I know: These are the kind of fundies that quote me!

These are the EX-fundies. And it turns out, there are droves of them! Who knew? (Well, of course, the eager-beaver tract-distributors don't tell you about THEM, now do they?)

And... let me tell you: they are beautiful people.

Stuff Fundies Like (SFL) routinely gets hundreds of comments... and it is the comments and participation that drives the community. They are all over the lot, furious ex-fundies, funny ex-fundies (they are often quite hilarious in describing the lifestyle, creed, expectations), as well as those who desperately want to exit fundamentalism, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. Fundamentalist Christianity (and ALL fundamentalism, by extension) traps people; if they were raised in it, they don't understand the ways of the world. Everyone they know is like them. They have been told the world is evil and wicked, and they don't know which outsiders to trust. As a result, Stuff Fundies Like has become a warm and friendly surrogate family, extremely crucial and sorely needed.

Through this blog, I found a treasure trove of information... the next Bob Jonesoid that approaches me, will be sorry sorry sorry. On the other hand, I realize, I will likely be a whole lot nicer to them, too... I think I get it, now. It doesn't make the harassment any easier to take, but it does make me more compassionate. Buddha said if you want to understand your own suffering, focus on the suffering of those who make YOU suffer. (Something like that.) I often fail miserably at this, since when my enemies suffer, I usually giggle with glee, "Yeah, take that, bitch!" In so many ways, I am not the most spiritually-enlightened person, as DEAD AIR regulars have likely figured out by now.

However, I now know (for example), that the kids at Bob Jones are FORCED to meet "soul-winning quotas" (!) and the tract-foisting harassment is therefore required. They have "prayer captains" in every dorm room (does that give anybody else a flash of Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm your Captain"--conjuring up images of now-born-again Mark Farner with a Bible-shaped guitar in his hands?). The prayer captains tattle on you all the time, if you should stray from the Bob Jones path. And straying is inevitable, because the demands placed on these young people are incredible.

You are not allowed to face your accusers. The place runs on the gossip and whims of "prayer captains"--imagine your college if the goody-two-shoes were allowed to run the joint. Some of the ex-fundies were bounced out, in just this arbitrary fashion. Busted with AC/DC, there is nothing to do but plead guilty. You did the crime, you serve the time... and they first put people in lock-down, almost like prison. (To me, it sounds like a prison.) Demerits are given for all kinds of bizarre things, and the SFL commentariat like to give each other demerits in humorous fashion.

The blog and forum include everybody--the ex-fundies are best-represented, but the curious never-fundie and the fundie-victim (me) are also present and accounted for. Folks are diverse; some are still pretty strict Christians (notably, nobody cusses) and some are now atheists and agnostics. And they accept and tolerate each other, wherever they are. The tolerance is more than mere tolerance: it is 'capital t' Tolerance. Their tolerance is obviously a secular value that they have agreed upon; an explicit goal that they strive for, as part of their journey to find their own way.

As a result, they are far more tolerant than many liberals who pride themselves on "tolerance." No people truly grasp the whole meaning of tolerance more than someone who was never granted ANY, and fully understands what that means.

Learning the lingo of the blog/forum is somewhat daunting; they have more acronyms than the old Alphabet Soup of the Left. Some of these stand for the main colleges of fundamentalism--besides BJU, there is Pensacola Christian College (PCC), Hyles-Anderson College (HAC), and Ambassador Baptist College (ABC) among many others. They have their own culture, their own publications and their own entertainment, if you can call it that.

At left: BJU's Jonathan Edwards-themed coffee shop, Great Awakenings. (photo lifted from Mother Jones)






One of the most important terms necessary to understand is IFB, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. This is the core "cell" of the movement. These are also known as "Bible Churches"--for whatever reason. (Implication: other Christian denominations don't really use the Bible, or in any case, don't truly understand it.) And "KJVO" stands for King James Version Only. (You wondered where the Catholic-hating would start, didn't you?) Sometimes they call this "King James Version Onlyism"--since it isn't just a preference, but a doctrinal point that has been stoked to a fever pitch.

I have been introduced to some amazing bloggers and some amazing Christians... some have courageously dedicated themselves to fighting for the victims of abuse. And the extensive abuse has only recently been publicly documented.

After 20/20 blew the IFB movement out of the water back in April, various websites and instructional videos (that make similar allegations look substantial) have been suddenly pulled in the dead of night.

[Warnings, triggers and so forth.]

Compassion or Cover-Up? Teen Victim Claims Rape; Forced Confession in Church

[Tina] Anderson was only 16 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire church congregation to confess her "sin" -- she had become pregnant. She says she wasn't allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy was the result of being allegedly raped by a fellow congregant, a man twice her age.

She says her New Hampshire pastor, Chuck Phelps, told her she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death.

Phelps says that Anderson voluntarily stood in front of the church, but Tina says it was the first step of "church discipline" at her Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB).

...

Her mother sought help from the pastor and they agreed to send her thousands of miles away to Colorado to live with another IFB family.

There, she said she was homeschooled and restricted from seeing others her age until she gave her child up for adoption.

And that was 13 years ago.

How did this come to light? Let's hear it for the INTERNET!

Thirteen years after the alleged crime, Matt Barnhart, a former member of Anderson's church, decided to write a post referencing Anderson's story on a Facebook page for ex-members of IFB churches.

The site supervisor, who runs an advocacy group for former IFB members, Freedom from Abuse, alerted Concord police.

Anderson, who at the time was teaching voice at the International Baptist College in Chandler, Ariz., got the police call out of the blue.

"Right now I feel completely overwhelmed," said Anderson. "It's been tough. In my mind, I didn't think he'd be arrested, and when I got the phone call I was completely shocked. My whole world has changed."

And that last sentence sums up the experience for all the fundies... all of whom have dealt with emotional and spiritual abuse; some have been beaten, and some have been raped. (And at least one, murdered.)

They are leaving, one by one... they take a look around, they decide to take in a movie or listen to music of their own choosing. They talk to the non-fundies around them. They take a deep breath, emerging from lies and subterfuge.

And in so doing, they decide to find out the truth... which as we know, will set us free.

Thank you for sharing your amazing journeys with me, and with all of us. You have shown us courage, justice and true Christian love.

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Anti-Republican picket in Spartanburg

... this evening in front of the Spartanburg Municipal Building. Singled out for considerable ire is our congressman, Trey Gowdy, who has all kindsa wacko Tea Party ideas (warning: link is odious)... such as keeping most of South Carolina uneducated. (Hey, voter-ignorance has worked very well for the SC GOP so far, hasn't it?)



We had a pretty good turnout, over 30 people. For upstate South Carolina, that's excellent. (I don't think Greenville County could do as well.)



~*~

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Odds and Sods - Aries 2011 edition

Happy Aries and happy April. Hope all is well in Blogdonia!

As for me, I am doing much better than, say, Ashley Judd, who started a controversy with this quote from her recent book:

"As far as I'm concerned, most rap and hip-hop music -- with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as 'ho's' -- is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny."

And now everybody is mad at her. (sigh)

See yesterday's post. This is why the current discourse remains at kindergarten level, because public figures are chronically afraid of "offending" someone by offering an honest opinion. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes at the above link, Judd is already backpedaling and trying to minimize the impact of her statement.

~*~

By way of Suzan, here is the always-amazing truth-teller Chris Hedges:

Teachers, their unions under attack, are becoming as replaceable as minimum-wage employees at Burger King. We spurn real teachers—those with the capacity to inspire children to think, those who help the young discover their gifts and potential—and replace them with instructors who teach to narrow, standardized tests. These instructors obey. They teach children to obey. And that is the point. The No Child Left Behind program, modeled on the “Texas Miracle,” is a fraud. It worked no better than our deregulated financial system. But when you shut out debate these dead ideas are self-perpetuating.

Passing bubble tests celebrates and rewards a peculiar form of analytical intelligence. This kind of intelligence is prized by money managers and corporations. They don’t want employees to ask uncomfortable questions or examine existing structures and assumptions. They want them to serve the system. These tests produce men and women who are just literate and numerate enough to perform basic functions and service jobs. The tests elevate those with the financial means to prepare for them. They reward those who obey the rules, memorize the formulas and pay deference to authority. Rebels, artists, independent thinkers, eccentrics and iconoclasts—those who march to the beat of their own drum—are weeded out.

Amen, amen! Preach it!

(And my kindest, most loving thoughts go out to my favorite teacher, whom I hope is reading.)

~*~

If you eat fish or even take fish oil supplements, please read this account from TIME magazine, titled How My Mercury Level Hit Double the Safety Limit:

But here's what I want to know: How was I exposed to mercury? I don't exactly handle the metal in my job, so I probably wouldn't be directly exposed to it. But I do eat seafood — a lot. I probably have a tuna sandwich twice a week for lunch, and I eat sushi — a habit I picked up during my reporting stint in Japan — almost as often. I always thought those choices were healthy — and indeed, fish like tuna are a valuable source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which are good for the heart. But those same fish can have high mercury levels.

~*~

This post is a MUST READ work of art, hands down. Thanks to the intrepid Mr Daisy for forcing me to read it. The graphic alone is worth an award!

Money quote:

I’ve spent the last month helping my neighbors deal with their current health care crisis. She’s not really my neighbor, as she and her sister live next to my parents down the street, but when you live in a town of 300, everyone is your neighbor. They’ve lived next to my folks since I was thirteen. The elder sister (76) was married to an American, and they fled Beirut to America in 1983. Her husband died, so now it is just her and her sister (70.) Her sister had been having some problems, so they went to a doctor, then went to an endocrinologist, and long story short, it appears that she has a thyroid tumor the size of a canned ham in her chest. If she does not have it removed, it will continue to grow and kill her. We don’t know if it is cancerous, and there is no real way to know for sure, as it is so big that any biopsy of one area may not show anything, but cancer may exist elsewhere. Over the past few weeks, we have been to ENT doctors, cardiologists, thoracic surgeons, general practitioners, we’ve had biopsy, nuclear stress tests, cat scans, EKG’s, EEG’s, the works. In a couple weeks, she will have life-saving surgery, and she is healthy as a horse and will probably live for another twenty years.

Why am I telling you this? Because Medicare is paying for it. You, me, and everyone else who pays taxes is keeping this woman alive, and I am here to tell you it is worth every penny. She’s a wonderful, witty, charming woman with a lot to give the world. Without medicare, and under the Ryan “plan,” there is no chance she would be able to afford insurance, no one would insure a woman of her age with this health problem (just like it was before there was no medicare), no chance she would be able to afford the work that has and will be done, no one to provide the care she will need after surgery, and this tumor would be a death sentence. Her options would be… to die.

~*~

Sometimes, you think they must be making this stuff up. For instance: GOP Marks Oil Spill Anniversary With Drilling Push. Are they joking with that?

Nope.

We're one week away from the first anniversary of the worst oil spill in the nation's history, and to commemorate it, House Republicans spent Wednesday marking up a trio of bills that would dramatically increase drilling in the US.

The bills, all from Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, would open new areas for drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, as well as Alaska's Bristol Bay. They would also speed up the process of approving drilling permits; after 60 days permits will be considered approved regardless of whether an environmental review is complete.

(((screams)))

~*~

And when I read stuff like the following, I just shake my head, stunned... see, in these parts, the dispute would be that someone did NOT want to say the Pledge of Allegiance:

Town wrestles with Pledge of Allegiance

BROOKLINE, Mass., April 13 (UPI) -- A Boston suburb is embroiled in a dispute about saying the Pledge of Allegiance in its public schools.

The policy approved last week by the Brookline School Committee requires the recitation of the pledge once a week in all K-8 schools. School officials said they were trying to find a policy that would meet both the state mandate on the pledge and court rulings banning students or staff members from being forced to say it, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

The school committee specifically said no student is required to join in, but those who do not must maintain a respectful silence. At the same time, the committee said children who do recite the pledge must not make fun of or harass those who do not.

The pledge became an issue when Gerardo Martinez, principal of Devotion School, one of the eight K-8 schools, sent parents a letter in December. He said the Pledge of Allegiance, which had not been recited at Devotion for about five years, would be said voluntarily once a week.

Brookline, a liberal enclave in one of the most liberal states and the hometown of former Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was accused of lack of patriotism when he ran for president in 1988, became a target on conservative blogs.

Parents and other residents have lined up on both sides. Katie Tagliavia said she found it "horrifying" that most of the girls in her Scout troop did not know the pledge, while Martin Rosenthal, a former selectman and father of a Devotion student, said he does not see any educational value in reciting it.

It's like news from another country.

Maybe it is. After all, for four years, this WAS another country, called the Confederate States of America. I hope to address the Civil War nostalgia of the moment (150th anniversary of the war) in a later post. Simply put, I believe the election of a black president has brought the nostalgia to a rather noxious boiling point. Ugh.

~*~

And finally... your much-delayed dose of cute: Harley and Daisy endure necessary housing repairs!

This would very much upset my (quite spoiled and overprotected) kitties, so I think they are doing GREAT! I hope everything is back to normal in your home soon, Harley and Daisy! :)

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Stalemate and ADD

I keep drawing the Two of Swords, which I can't figure out. I've never drawn it for myself until lately. The problem with attempting to read one's own tarot (or be one's own therapist!) is that you simply can't figure out this stuff for yourself, just as we can't always figure out we don't look good in certain clothes we love anyway. No objectivity!

And it doesn't help that many of the tarot-experts and sources can't agree on the card's meanings. Hm.

I choose the meaning I think is most likely: Stalemate. I am stalemated. At least I know that much.

However, if I am indeed lying to myself (one of the meanings of the Two of Swords), how could I know what the card means? Obviously, I am already in denial, and that means I don't have a clue.

She really needs to take off the blindfold!

~*~

Speaking of blindfolds (how's that for a segue?), Chaos is Normal posted FTY: Students, which included an excerpt from a bang-up interview (by Amy Goodman) of one Canadian Dr Gabor Maté. This incisive excerpt sent me over to Democracy Now to listen to the whole show, titled Dr. Gabor Maté on the Stress-Disease Connection, Addiction, Attention Deficit Disorder and the Destruction of American Childhood. Highly recommended!

I hear about ADD every day, as my customer-parents attempt to deal, often buying supplements for their children. I hear all about the endless "symptoms"--which so often to me, sound like, well, just being a child. When did simple childhood become a disease?

I didn't grow up hearing about ADD, which also fascinates me. Is this some "new and improved" diagnosis, in that case? If so, is our culture to blame for stigmatizing certain behaviors? And as with autism, are those same behaviors possibly 'rewarded' elsewhere? (i.e. the preponderance of autism in the Silicon Valley) Dr Gabor Maté believes actual brain development in children has markedly changed over the last generation or so, due to our radical changes in culture. (I have often believed this about addiction, so when somebody with smarts comes out and backs me up, I am thrilled.)

Quotes from Dr Maté I found especially pertinent:

In the United States right now, there are three million children receiving stimulant medications for ADHD... Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. And there are about half-a-million kids in this country receiving heavy-duty anti-psychotic medications, medications such as are usually given to adult schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. But in this case, children are getting it to control their behavior. So what we have is a massive social experiment of the chemical control of children’s behavior, with no idea of the long-term consequences of these heavy-duty anti-psychotics on kids.

And I know that Canadians statistics just last week showed that within last five years, 43—there’s been a 43 percent increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant prescriptions for ADD or ADHD, and most of these are going to boys. In other words, what we’re seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of the diagnosis. And I should say, really, I’m talking about, more broadly speaking, what I would call the destruction of American childhood, because ADD is just a template, or it’s just an example of what’s going on. In fact, according to a recent study published in the States, nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria or criteria for mental health disorders. So we’re talking about a massive impact on our children of something in our culture that’s just not being recognized.

...

The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live. They don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. And they’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development.

...

In ADD, there’s an essential brain chemical, which is necessary for incentive and motivation, that seems to be lacking. That’s called dopamine. And dopamine is simply an essential life chemical. Without it, there’s no life. Mice in a laboratory who have no dopamine will starve themselves to death, because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they’re hungry, and even though their life is in danger, they will not eat, because there’s no motivation or incentive. So, partly, one way to look at ADD is a massive problem of motivation, because the dopamine is lacking in the brain. Now, the stimulant medications elevate dopamine levels, and these kids are now more motivated. They can focus and pay attention.

However, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications is that what we’re dealing with here is a genetic disorder, and the only way to deal with it is pharmacologically. And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in a brain develop, if you look at infant monkeys and you measure their dopamine levels, and they’re normal when they’re with their mothers, and when you separate them from mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days.

So, in other words, what we’re doing is we’re correcting a massive social problem that has to do with disconnection in a society and the loss of nurturing, non-stressed parenting, and we’re replacing that chemically. Now, the drugs—the stimulant drugs do seem to work, and a lot of kids are helped by it. The problem is not so much whether they should be used or not; the problem is that 80 percent of the time a kid is prescribed a medication, that’s all that happens. Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment. Nobody connects with these kids emotionally. In other words, it’s seen simply as a medical or a behavioral problem, but not as a problem of development.

Daisy pauses to scream a hearty YES!

You see, now, if your spouse or partner, adult spouse or partner, came home from work and didn’t give you the time of day and got on the phone and talked with other people all the time and spent all their time on email talking to other people, your friends wouldn’t say, "You’ve got a behavioral problem. You should try tough love." They’d say you’ve got a relationship problem. But when children act in these ways, we think we have a behavioral problem, we try and control the behaviors. In fact, what they’re showing us is that—my children showed this, as well—is that I had a relationship problem with them. They weren’t connected enough with me and too connected to the peer group. So that’s why they wanted to spend all their time with their peer group. And now we’ve given kids the technology to do that with.

...

...human beings are shaped very early by what happens to them in life. As a matter of fact, they’re shaped already by what happens in uterus. After 9/11, after the World Trade disasters in those terrorist attacks, some women who were pregnant suffered PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And depending on what stage of pregnancy they suffered the PTSD, when they measured their children’s cortisol levels—cortisol being a body stress hormone—at one year of age, those kids had abnormal cortisol levels. In other words, their stress apparatus had been negatively affected by the mother’s stress during pregnancy. Similarly, for example, when I looked at the stress hormone levels of the children of Holocaust survivors with PTSD, the greater the degree of PTSD of the parent, the higher the stress hormone level of the child.

So, how we see the world, whether the world is a hostile or friendly place, whether we have to always do for ourselves and look after others or whether we can actually expect and receive help from the world, whether or not the world is hostile or friendly, and indeed our stress physiology, is very much shaped by those early experiences.

Listen to/read the whole thing; Dr Maté has an overall approach you probably haven't heard before. And I think it helps immeasurably that Dr Maté has ADD himself, and has the necessary inside-understanding to talk about the issues.

His newest book is titled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which I have just ordered from AMAZON.

(Thanks Chaos!)

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