I don’t think that’s going to work so well, and here’s why: Are the kids actually going to learn to really, truly READ first?
Just secede already, ferfucksake. @ThelmaLou, you’re welcome to come stay at Casa Wook.
Several Jewish folks and some Christian parents groups have been complaining. Several are of the “leopards wouldn’t eat OUR faces” variety, so fuck 'em.
I do feel for the others who have been fighting the good fight for a while but education in the state has been going down the shitter since the voters picked W over Ann Richards, so it’s bailing buckets on the Titanic level of efficacy
Grandstanding for the upcoming elections. Some of the races are uncomfortably close. Shoring up the religious right is a priority. Pushing the megachurch button assures an inflow of money and feckless volunteers from the other cult propping up the current grifters and liars.
Is this the same piece of legislation (teaching certain Bible stories as “literature”) we talked about in the GD thread starting here?
[ I assume so, but just to be clear]
I truly appreciate the offer. Really! Maybe one day your doorbell will ring, and there I’ll be with a shoebox with holes punched in it tucked under each arm.
I don’t even post some of the stuff that doesn’t make the national news.
This stuff apparently did not make the national news but should have. The Texas Tribune has a longer article about the board’s changes.
The coverage of the changes to the reading list are basically the same as the AP article, but the changes to the social studies curriculum, were not in the AP article at all. The Republicans on the board are using the social studies curriculum to continue the party’s crusade against Islam. From the article:
They approved a lesson this week that requires students to learn about the Prophet Muhammad in the context of “brutal military campaigns against Jewish and Christian tribes, the normalization of slavery, and the taking of female captives as harem slaves.”
And why are they attacking Islam? State Senator Bob Hall explains,
“Let me be very clear: Islam is not a religion,” state Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, testified before the education board Monday. “It is a totalitarian theocracy, not unlike totalitarian systems of communism, Nazism and globalism.”
He seems to have forgotten to include Christian Nationalism in his list. Probably just an accident; I’m sure he’ll remember to include it next time.
He’s also (deliberately, I’m sure) conflating Islam and Jihadism. Everything he’s saying is accurate if you’re talking about Jihadism, but clearly does not apply to Islam as a whole.
Convicts incarcerated in Texas prisons forced to work unpaid under slave labor conditions.
Texas prisoners can face harsh punishment for refusing work assignments and that, along with being unpaid, many of them live and labor inside facilities without air conditioning in a state that regularly experiences triple-digit heat.
“They force you to work, you’re guaranteed to have a shitty job and it’s guaranteed to be work that is tortuous,” David Johnson, an activist and organizer in Texas who did time in the state’s prisons, including stints where he was forced to work on a prison farm, told Bolts. “You are guaranteed to have a job that comes with no privileges and all downside, you are forced to work in the fields in the sweltering heat and deep cold. …It is tortuous, physically and emotionally and psychologically.”
Texas is one of seven states, all in the South, that force people in prison to work but pay them nothing for almost all jobs. (The others are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.)
I am very much for prisoner’s rights, but the right to not work shouldn’t be one of them (imo). But, this being about Texas, there probably is a heaping helping of abuse, unsafe conditions, and who knows what else.* The quote still sounds like whinging, though.
- talk of prison conditions always brings to mind ultra bleak scenes from the depressing Requiem for a Dream. That’s how I picture prisons in Texas.
I know a guy who went to prison in Texas for drug charges when he was in his early 20s.. He had a job almost as soon as he arrived and he loved it. During his entire sentence, he only spent a day or two in general population.
He was a good welder and so he worked as a welder and was immediately made a trustee.
He might have not gotten paid, but he shared his quarters with another trustee and their working hours were quite different. He usually had the place to himself at night. Furthermore, his quarters were near the kitchen and he got to know the cooks real well. They would often make special dishes for him that were far superior to what the regular prisoners got.
He didn’t get paid, but he wouldn’t have traded that for anything.
Nice story.
Now read the actual article two posts up to get the real scoop on prison slavery.
I pay much greater attention to those who I know who describe their real experiences in dealing with those issues than those who are likely just pushing their own agenda.
For what it’s worth, over the years I have known people who have been sentenced to terms in state and federal prisons.
Some of them were probably not interested in doing any work. I really don’t care if these twits were required to work or not. It doesn’t bother me at all if they can’t sit around all day watching soap operas on tv (according to a prison guard who was a student of mine some years ago – prisoners love soap operas because they have the best looking women on daytime tv). If it were up to me, they would have no tvs in prison.
As far as prisoners being paid competitive wages, I would only favor that if all but a small amount for their canteen money went to a fund to help pay back their victims. Of course, most prisoners are unlikely to care about the welfare of their victims.
If prisoners don’t care about the people they harmed, screw them.
I pay little to no attention to anonymous tales told when actual facts are available.
Then why put any credence in the news story?
Fuck off, troll.
Yeah, blatant trolling.
Someone has a different point of view and you think they are a troll?
What a pathetic loser you are.
Because I prefer fact over fiction, troll?
Buh-bye.
The facts are that some prisoners are required to work and that they are not always paid for their work.
You are clearly in disapproval of that fact while I have no issue with it.
What you prefer is not facts, but your value judgements about those facts. You don’t seem to be at all able to abide anyone who has different opinions about those facts.
I consider work good for people and I generally look down on anyone who can work but chooses not to work. As far as pay goes, the prisoners are being housed and fed and get some level of medical treatment. This is at great expense to the taxpayers. Prisoners are there not for comfort but because they made choices that led them to being incarcerated. If their work helps reduce that load on us taxpayers, then I approve of the idea. It’s too bad that they don’t have enough work to keep all the prisoners busy.
In the case I mentioned above, the guy was doing an important and useful job. While he didn’t get paid, he enjoyed great benefits from doing the work. He didn’t like being in prison, but he did receive much better treatment because he was a hard worker.
And you obviously haven’t the foggiest notion of what the word “troll” means. That someone has a different opinion than yours doesn’t make them a troll. Calling them a troll just demonstrates your own intolerance of ideas and opinions that differ from your own.
An internet troll is someone who posts things in order to stir things up. They are intentionally trying to create a disturbance rather than to honestly engage in a discussion.
In my case, there are a number of things that I could say here that I don’t say precisely because they would tend to create friction.