Whoa, its been one hell of a week reading and watching the news. With each bit of news, I've swung from angry to depressed, then simply astonished.

Meet me after the fold and allow me to vent!

First, meet Alton Berm, and his 15 year old daughter Diana. See, Diana is a sophomore at Caney Creek High school In Conroe, Texas and received an assignment to read Fahrenheit 451, but she had some reservations...

"The book had a bunch of very bad language in it," Diana Verm said. "It shouldn't be in there because it's offending people. ... If they can't find a book that uses clean words, they shouldn't have a book at all."
Alton Verm filed a "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" Thursday with the district regarding "Fahrenheit 451," written by Ray Bradbury and published in 1953. He wants the district to remove the book from the curriculum.
"It's just all kinds of filth," said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read "Fahrenheit 451." "The words don't need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class."
He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, "dirty talk," references to the Bible and using God's name in vain. He said the book's material goes against their religions beliefs. The Verms go to Grand Parkway Church in Porter.
"We went them to go after God," said Glen Jalowy Jr., Grand Parkway Church youth minister. "We encourage them that what you put in your mind and heart is what comes out."

Alton Verm said he doesn't understand how the district can punish students for using bad language, yet require them to read a book with bad language as part of a class.

Mr. Berm, at 15, surely your daughter is capable of critical thinking, no? Guess not. I could opine on the book's intended lessons, but its already been stated in the article:

"Fahrenheit 451" is a science fiction piece that poses a warning to society about the preservation and passing on of knowledge as well as asks the question about whether the government should do the thinking for the people, Hines stated in an e-mail to The Courier. Other themes include conformity vs. individuality, freedom of speech and the consequences of losing it, the importance of remembering and understanding history and technology as help to humans and as hindrances to humans, Hines stated in the e-mail.
"They're not reading books just to read them," Hines said in a telephone interview. "They're reading it for a purpose. ... We respect people's rights to express their concerns and we have a policy in place to handle that."
A selection process is used for materials other than textbooks, according to district policy. The materials must meet various standards, be appropriate for the subject, age and social and emotional development of the students and motivate students to examine their own attitudes and behavior, according to district policy.

Not to mention, this came during Banned Books Week. Irony, no?

And how about a flashback? Lets jump in the way back machine and visit a post I made in April. Apparently Mrs Mallory is at it again in Gwinnet County, Georgia. Although she still hasn't read any of the Harry Potter books, she is absolutely sure that it should be banned, as it is "an evil attempt to indoctrinate children into the Wicca religion"

But...

Board of Education attorney Victoria Sweeny said that if schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban "Macbeth" and "Cinderella."

Exactly! Moreover, Harry Potter has nothing to do with the Wiccan religion. And even if it did, SO WHAT? I'm not Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Wiccan, but I would encourage my children to read about each or any of them. Knowledge is power, and I'm not in the business of limiting my children's education, rather expanding it, and hopefully raising open minded, critical thinking, intelligent, and passionate human beings.
This story comes on the heels of Banned Books Week.

And it wasn't all the banning of books that got me into a tizzy this week.. I've been watching closely, the scandal known as Foleygate unfold. If there weren't children involved, I'd be absolutely giddy watching the house GOP implode. What has gotten my knickers in a twist in this story, is Matt Drudge, who some here on the internets seem to rely on as a reliable news source (ha!)

Apparently Drudge posted on his site, that Foleygate was caused by an elaborate prank by congressional pages. Huh? Um.. Yeah. And he also posted the name, the NAME of the victim, a then teenage page. Please, for the love of pete people, stop reading Matt Drudge!

This is the morals and values crowd covering up for a pedophile, peeps.. just to retain power in Congress. They have no shame.  Mr Hastert, stay there please, don't resign.. the longer you sit as the speaker, and this story unfolds, the better for Democrats. Mr Foley, please let up the act. I'm sick of people like you running to rehab as soon as you get yourself in trouble. You do a great disservice to people with actual addiction problems. If anything you have a pedophile problem, but thats not a worthy excuse, is it?
And yet.. more. You honestly didn't think I'd let Bush off the hook, right? Well hes at it again with his signing statements...

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency's 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section "in a manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch."

more...

Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg said Bush is trying to subvert lawmakers' ability to accurately monitor activities of the executive branch of government.

Its not as if the Republican led congress actually understands oversight anyway, but it seems Dubya is preemptively protecting himself, just in case he doesn't have Congress covering for him come November

and since Dubya didn't learn anything from the Katrina-FEMA-mess...

Bush's signing statement Wednesday challenges several other provisions in the Homeland Security spending bill.

Bush, for example, said he'd disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and "demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security."

His rationale was that it "rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office."

You have to be kidding me. "Your doin' a heckuva job Brownie",... ring a bell?

And while our new dictator made more signing statements, John Yoo explains on NPR, that a reason that the United States has limited habeas corpus for detainees, is that its "too expensive", all the while the New York Times reports a TWENTY MILLION earmark in the spending bill for yet another "Mission Accomplished" moment.

Tucked away in fine print in the military spending bill for this past year was a lump sum of $20 million to pay for a celebration in the nation’s capital “for commemoration of success� in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly, the money was not spent.

Now Congressional Republicans are saying, in effect, maybe next year. A paragraph written into spending legislation and approved by the Senate and House allows the $20 million to be rolled over into 2007.

I won't touch it. Not going to say a word. Instead I'll direct you to surprisingly, Jon Stewart, who despite his comedic take, always.gets.it.right..

Click here to see Jon

To close, let me just say, let me please, not hear one more Bush loving, kool aid drinking, dimwit, once again, call themselves a patriot. Want to be a patriot? Start defending our constitution, instead of cheerleading an administration whose intent is to shit on it.

I'll leave you with Keith Olbermann's latest "Special Comment".

I heard someone say earlier this week, that they wished Keith would change the name of the segment that contains his opinion to something else, its just not "special" when they come so often. I say, what a sad state of affairs, that he needs to have a "special comment" so often.
Click on through to Crooks and Liars, to watch the video, or read the entire transcript

Secretary of State Rice first cannot remember urgent cautionary meetings with counter-terrorism officials before 9/11.

Then within hours of this lie, her spokesman confirms the meetings in question.

Then she dismisses those meetings as nothing new — yet insists she wanted the same cautions expressed to Secretaries Ashcroft and Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld, meantime, has been unable to accept the most logical and simple influence, of the most noble and neutral of advisers. He and his employer insist they rely on the 'generals in the field.'

But dozens of those generals have now come forward to say how their words, their experiences, have been ignored.

And, of course, inherent in the Pentagon's war-making functions, is the regulation of Presidential war-lust. Enacting that regulation should include everything up to, symbolically wrestling the Chief Executive to the floor.

Yet — and it is Pentagon transcripts that now tell us this — evidently Mr. Rumsfeld's strongest check on Mr. Bush's ambitions, was to get somebody to excise the phrase "Mission Accomplished" out of the infamous Air Force Carrier speech of May 1st, 2003 - even while the same empty words hung on a banner over the President's shoulder.

And the Vice President is a chilling figure, still unable, it seems, to accept the conclusions of his own party's leaders in the Senate, that the foundations of his public position, are made out of sand.

There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

But he still says so.

There was no link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

But he still says so.

And thus, gripping firmly these figments of his own imagination, Mr. Cheney lives on, in defiance and spreads — around him and before him — darkness… like some contagion of fear.

They are never wrong, and they never regret. Admirable in a French torch singer. Cataclysmic in an American leader.

Posted in politics, rant

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