Study Hell

Back when I was a mere kidling the only controversy that swirled around my education was what comprised my lunch each day. If I was lucky it was egg salad. If I was unlucky it was nothing at all. Possibly an empty can of Texas Pride beer.

Yeah, I had that kind of kid-hood.

Then I grew up and became a semi-responsible adult, with rent and gas and occasional women to contend with. It was at that time I became aware of a curious conversation going on in the news about the textbooks used in Texas schools.

You see, it seems that Texas, being the massively ginormous super-state that it is, is just sloppin' over with grade-school students. This means lots of text books, and because Texas needed so many books it got them at a volume price. So other states came along for the ride, getting a cut of that sweet discount deal. So basically if you needed textbooks you got whatever Texas was having printed up.

Now, let's suppose you belonged to a particular political party, one that we'll theoretically call the Dumbshits. The Dumbshits have certain beliefs that center around an old happy man sitting up in the clouds deciding who should be doomed to eternal torment, and for reasons even the Dumbshits aren't totally clear about. Since not everyone thinks like a Dumbshit you can understand how they felt they could get more adherents to their dogma, and swell their party coffers, if only they could somehow manage to force innocent little kids to learn it and accept it as part of their official education.

This is where the Texas State Board of Education comes in, not to mentions strains of organ music played in a minor key.

You see, these are the people who decide what goes into Texas schoolbooks. It's not an appointed position, it's a job to which you much be elected. So some decades back the Dumbshits quietly began assembling a stealth team of luddites, antediluvians and assorted loonies and began aggressively running them for the state board, financed by well-heeled Dumbshits. By the time the non-Dumbshits caught on to this scheme it was too late and creationism, among other Dumbshit atrocities, was worming its way into science textbooks.

Lots of court cases later the Dumbshits have been partially stymied but after the 2008 elections they realized that their political party is doomed for history's dumpster so they're doubling down and kicking out all the stops. They're ditching Thomas Jefferson for John Calvin, minimizing Lincoln and maximizing Jefferson Davis, ignoring the separation of church and state and elevating Ronald Reagan to the level of a minor deity.

Yes, your kids will be taught that slavery wasn't so bad and that the pilgrims came here not to escape religious tyranny, but to impose it.

Kind of gets you right here, doesn't it?

Here's a picture of the current Texas Board of Education.



Too bad they don't believe in evolution because they sure look like they could use a healthy dose of it. If you happen to run into any of them on the streets of Austin say "Hi dumbshits!" for me.


=lefty=