(And I also posted here.)
1) Leave it to Fix Noise to keep its figurative finger on the pulse of America’s news heartbeat (or whatever – here, and yes, that is snark)…
If you want to know just what your kids are learning from their history books, all you have to do is apply the "Reagan test," says Professor Larry Schweikart.
As the Texas textbook battle continues to simmer, Schweikart says the first thing he does to determine whether a book is politically slanted is to go to any section discussing President Ronald Reagan. What you'll find there, he says, will tell you everything you need to know, he says.
Schweikart says the majority of books he’s examined credit former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev with ending the Cold War, and not Reagan. That's “a joke,” Schweikart says. “I lived through the Reagan years, I remember.”
You want to hear a joke, Professor Schweikart? Check this out, in which former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that giving Reagan credit for ending the cold war is like giving credit for the sunrise to the rooster’s cackle (Ooooh, snap!). And I know it’s true, because I “lived through the Reagan years” too.
And Think Progress tells us here that the Texas Education Agency (the people in charge of the textbooks) actually took issue with Fix Noise for the latter’s “fear mongering.”
Still, though, the Texas Board of Education (dominated by Repugs, of course) is bound to come up with some real humdingers in those books I’m sure, particularly since coverage of Ted Kennedy and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is apparently going to be optional.
Well, in keeping with this prior post, allow me to provide more fun facts about perhaps the reddest of the red states…
- The “Anahuac Disturbances” were noteworthy because it marked the initial news appearance of George W. Bush; he was mauled in a kegger fight between two rival state high school football teams.
- The “yellow rose of Texas” gained popularity when it was presented by Mexican immigrants crossing over the border to the US.
- Dallas’s Love Field airport was named after Kurt Cobain’s widow.
- Sammy Sosa of the Texas Rangers played all nine positions the year the team won the World Series in 1990.
- Molly Ivins was elected governor of Texas and served for 40 years; she stepped down from office in 1995.
I said it before and I’ll say it again – please secede already.
Update 3/12/10: I guess it was because of that icky sex with Sally Hemings, huh...morons (here).
2) And speaking of education, Armstrong Williams of The Hill is back with more right-wing dreck (here)…
Inner cities…are characterized by less-educated, lower-earning and less education-minded folks who don’t provide as much of a tax base for better-funded schools, not to mention the fact that they demand less of their teachers and even less of their children in terms of school performance.
Welcome to the Armstrong Williams Demagogic Generalization Festival, my fellow prisoners.
Oh, and by the way, I think the following itsy bitsy teenie weenie little fact about Williams should be noted from here, as long as we’re talking about education…
Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.
The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.
Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."
Hell, I “believe” in making a lot of money too, but that doesn’t mean I’d pretend to be impartial while I was trying to persuade people to come around to my point of view.
3) And finally, Daniel Henninger of the Murdoch Street Journal, opining on health care reform (yes, this issue will eventually be resolved one way or the other someday), told us the following from here (on the matter of trying to pass reform with 51 votes in the Senate – sort of tangentially related to Texas in that he compares Obama to LBJ)…
“Reconciliation could damage the institution of the Senate for years.”
As Jamison Foser of Media Matters tells us here, all we heard from the people with initials for names who bring us the news was the sound of crickets when the Repugs ran the show and did the same thing not too long ago, only a whole lot more times than the Democrats plan to do (and here is another moment of pundit piffle from Henninger).
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