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| Topic: Dear Texas: Please Shut Up. Sincerely, History | |
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Original Link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/17/notes031710.DTL Hey, kids! Here's something I bet you didn't know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position. It was a completely balanced, fair, hugely successful system, until those damn liberals came along and ruined everything. I know, right? What a shame. Do you know what else? America was wholly victorious in Vietnam. It's a fact! Kicked some serious enemy butt! Mission accomplished! Sure it was a little bumpy for awhile, but President Nixon, that great and wronged American hero, put us on the righteous path in the end, wrapped that sucker up beautifully and made America the noble Superman to the world. Hey, it's the truth! You can look it up in your history textbook! Even more good, newly historic news: Despite what you may have heard from the liberal media, America has very much won its recent, God-sanctioned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angry Allah loses again! Just look at this handy diagram on page 281, Figure 4-9. See those little dark-skinned bodies stacked up neatly beside that minaret? Right next to that completely unstaged photo of the toppled Saddam statue? Look how many there are! Graphs never lie. Did you know, back in the frontier days, that Native Americans welcomed the white man with open arms? Absolutely true. Those poor, sunburned people were so beaten down and exploited by their oppressive dictator "chiefs," they were forced to believe in all sorts of disgusting pagan sun gods and had to eat, like, rocks and snakes and stuff. It's no wonder they greeted proud, fair-minded American colonials as great liberators -- yes! Just like in Baghdad! -- and happily gave us free access to their fields and their women and their wonderful bead-making technology, in exchange for, you know, gin and fireworks. And casinos. Never doubt America's irrefutable greatness, kids. Our prison system, for example, is the finest in the world. Also, dirty Mexican people had no role whatsoever in the Civil War or U.S. history (except as troublesome immigrants, yuck), hip-hop music is in no way, shape or form to be considered a significant cultural movement -- unlike totally awesome Country & Western, and the War on Drugs is going spectacularly well, thanks to our fine military, numerous Afterschool Specials and the deep love of Jesus -- who, if you look really closely at those old photographs from the Bible, is clearly wearing a U.S. flag pin on his robes to go along with his friendly, competely legal sidearm. God bless America. These irrefutable facts -- and many more just like them -- are brought to you by the Texas State Board of Education, packed like a jug of rancid tartar sauce with intellectually numb simpletons who smell like ignorance and taste like fear. The TSBE: We make revisionist brainwashing fun!™ Maybe you didn't hear? The little item about how a small pod of pale ultra-conservatives in Texas has just demanded a whole slew of specific changes be made to history textbooks down in the Lone Star State? About how, in fact, nearly every change is a rather ridiculous rewriting of history and the language surrounding it, all tending to favor -- can you guess? -- white privileged capitalist males, a bitter Christian God, and a whitewashed version of history that never actually existed? Not much shocking about it all, really. "Texas education" has never exactly equated with "intellectual range and nuance." But there's a big, ugly snag: Due to the state's huge purchasing power, the decisions of these tiny-brained ultra-conservatives could well influence what goes into various school history textbooks nationwide. So it is that that some inbred neocon beliefs about homophobic God and gun-loving country will ooze their way into the minds of unsuspecting youth in a completely different state say, 10 years' hence, like a poison slowly leeching into the cultural water supply. Ah, Texas conservatism. It's the new DDT! What, too harsh? I'm not so sure. Yes, everyone knows that history is slippery and spurious to begin with, all about context and spin and who's telling the tale. History is, after all, written by the victors. What they don't usually add is how history is then revised by the politicians, gutted by the church leaders, molested by the power mongers, skinned alive by paranoid militants, poorly codified by the speechwriters and then spun, torqued and diluted by countless mealy "experts" before being shoved down the gullet of unsuspecting youth, where it is partially digested like so much liquefied school lunch meat, only to be wrongly half-remembered later in life by the most insane among them, who then quickly gets his own talk show on Fox News. And lo, the circle of life continues. Say what you will about standardized testing, draconian teachers' unions, lazy tenured teachers, crumbling campuses, slashed budgets, et al. I can think of no better argument for mortgaging everything you own so as to afford a private/charter school for your kid than the disturbing fact that these Texas State Board mongrels might have any power whatsoever to shape young minds by way of further tainting the already wobbly, spurious historical record. Maybe it doesn't really matter. After all, it's widely understood that, given the state of public education, children don't really learn much in school anyway. The system is so problematic and the teachers union so dangerously obstinate, there's a good chance your kid will never crack open one of these flawed, historically inaccurate textbooks in the first place. Small consolation indeed. It's not all dire and brimstone. Prior to this ridiculous move -- and by the way, the board's revisions still have to be ratified, so there's a slim chance public outcry and a deep sense of shame at their own repellant personal politics will get them to back off -- there's apparently been a small amount of improvement in school textbooks over the years. From what I understand, in the wake of wildly influential bestsellers like "Lies my Teacher Told Me" and the late, great Howard Zinn's "People History" series, among many others, school textbooks underwent some significant improvements in the past couple of decades, slightly more multicultural and inclusive, balanced, realistic. Not nearly as thin, lopsided, sexist, jingoistic, myopic as they used to be. Is that damning with faint praise? Maybe. Alas, if California weren't so utterly broke, slashing education budgets and shutting down schools, maybe our fair state could launch a counter-attack, demand some reasonably accurate historic revisions in those selfsame texts. Time was when we had some killer purchasing power of our own. Remember? Yeah, me neither. Sadly, from what I hear, California schools don't even use textbooks anymore. Or classrooms. Or desks. They all disintegrated sometime back in 1987. History is now taught by means of sock puppets, toothpick dioramas and firecrackers. And gin. Of course, I'm completely exaggerating. The changes the Texas Board is shoving through are probably relatively innocuous, just another toxic chemical added to the already lethal school lunch menu, one of a thousand, really. I'm sure everything will be fine. Kids won't mind a whit that they're being fed heavily processed, dangerous, non-nutritive mental crap. Hell, they'll probably enjoy it. You know, just like all those happy, contented slaves. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/17/notes031710.DTL#ixzz0iTA9FXG6 |
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 I want my mommy   This is with out a doubt the most worthless piece of commentary I have ever read in my entire life.Clearly written by a person who is so brain dead and stupid I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasn't just found in the corner of a mental instituion somewhere. This has to be just torture to you liberals out there who wanted these changes shown below.... According to Liberty Counsel, some of the suggestions that have come forward at various times include: Removing references to Daniel Boone, General George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas. Including the cultural impact of hip-hop music, ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow and the Hindu holiday of Diwali. Replacing the term “American” with “global citizen” – stating that students need to be shaped “for responsible citizenship in a global society” without any mention of citizenship in American society. Replacing expansionism and free enterprise with imperialism and capitalism. Taking the Declaration of Independence and literally erasing God from its Preamble. Removing Independence Day Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were removed from World History, yet Mary Kay and Wallace Amos (of Famous Amos Cookies) were added, it appears, for more “diversity.” An attack to remove “B.C.” and “A.D.” — denoting historical time periods before and after the birth of Christ – also lost, and, so far, the attempt to remove the statement about the religious basis of the founding of the country has failed. And man this one is going to be painful for these students...Learning the bill of rights! As one of our great Founders, Benjamin Franklin, said, “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.” Say goodbye to Liberalism.It's breathing its last breath  
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goes to show how conservatives are hellbent at rewriting history
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Edited by
msharmony
on
Fri 03/19/10 07:25 AM
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Original Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/17/notes031710.DTL Hey, kids! Here's something I bet you didn't know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position. It was a completely balanced, fair, hugely successful system, until those damn liberals came along and ruined everything. I know, right? What a shame. Do you know what else? America was wholly victorious in Vietnam. It's a fact! Kicked some serious enemy butt! Mission accomplished! Sure it was a little bumpy for awhile, but President Nixon, that great and wronged American hero, put us on the righteous path in the end, wrapped that sucker up beautifully and made America the noble Superman to the world. Hey, it's the truth! You can look it up in your history textbook! Even more good, newly historic news: Despite what you may have heard from the liberal media, America has very much won its recent, God-sanctioned wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Angry Allah loses again! Just look at this handy diagram on page 281, Figure 4-9. See those little dark-skinned bodies stacked up neatly beside that minaret? Right next to that completely unstaged photo of the toppled Saddam statue? Look how many there are! Graphs never lie. Did you know, back in the frontier days, that Native Americans welcomed the white man with open arms? Absolutely true. Those poor, sunburned people were so beaten down and exploited by their oppressive dictator "chiefs," they were forced to believe in all sorts of disgusting pagan sun gods and had to eat, like, rocks and snakes and stuff. It's no wonder they greeted proud, fair-minded American colonials as great liberators -- yes! Just like in Baghdad! -- and happily gave us free access to their fields and their women and their wonderful bead-making technology, in exchange for, you know, gin and fireworks. And casinos. Never doubt America's irrefutable greatness, kids. Our prison system, for example, is the finest in the world. Also, dirty Mexican people had no role whatsoever in the Civil War or U.S. history (except as troublesome immigrants, yuck), hip-hop music is in no way, shape or form to be considered a significant cultural movement -- unlike totally awesome Country & Western, and the War on Drugs is going spectacularly well, thanks to our fine military, numerous Afterschool Specials and the deep love of Jesus -- who, if you look really closely at those old photographs from the Bible, is clearly wearing a U.S. flag pin on his robes to go along with his friendly, competely legal sidearm. God bless America. These irrefutable facts -- and many more just like them -- are brought to you by the Texas State Board of Education, packed like a jug of rancid tartar sauce with intellectually numb simpletons who smell like ignorance and taste like fear. The TSBE: We make revisionist brainwashing fun!™ Maybe you didn't hear? The little item about how a small pod of pale ultra-conservatives in Texas has just demanded a whole slew of specific changes be made to history textbooks down in the Lone Star State? About how, in fact, nearly every change is a rather ridiculous rewriting of history and the language surrounding it, all tending to favor -- can you guess? -- white privileged capitalist males, a bitter Christian God, and a whitewashed version of history that never actually existed? Not much shocking about it all, really. "Texas education" has never exactly equated with "intellectual range and nuance." But there's a big, ugly snag: Due to the state's huge purchasing power, the decisions of these tiny-brained ultra-conservatives could well influence what goes into various school history textbooks nationwide. So it is that that some inbred neocon beliefs about homophobic God and gun-loving country will ooze their way into the minds of unsuspecting youth in a completely different state say, 10 years' hence, like a poison slowly leeching into the cultural water supply. Ah, Texas conservatism. It's the new DDT! What, too harsh? I'm not so sure. Yes, everyone knows that history is slippery and spurious to begin with, all about context and spin and who's telling the tale. History is, after all, written by the victors. What they don't usually add is how history is then revised by the politicians, gutted by the church leaders, molested by the power mongers, skinned alive by paranoid militants, poorly codified by the speechwriters and then spun, torqued and diluted by countless mealy "experts" before being shoved down the gullet of unsuspecting youth, where it is partially digested like so much liquefied school lunch meat, only to be wrongly half-remembered later in life by the most insane among them, who then quickly gets his own talk show on Fox News. And lo, the circle of life continues. Say what you will about standardized testing, draconian teachers' unions, lazy tenured teachers, crumbling campuses, slashed budgets, et al. I can think of no better argument for mortgaging everything you own so as to afford a private/charter school for your kid than the disturbing fact that these Texas State Board mongrels might have any power whatsoever to shape young minds by way of further tainting the already wobbly, spurious historical record. Maybe it doesn't really matter. After all, it's widely understood that, given the state of public education, children don't really learn much in school anyway. The system is so problematic and the teachers union so dangerously obstinate, there's a good chance your kid will never crack open one of these flawed, historically inaccurate textbooks in the first place. Small consolation indeed. It's not all dire and brimstone. Prior to this ridiculous move -- and by the way, the board's revisions still have to be ratified, so there's a slim chance public outcry and a deep sense of shame at their own repellant personal politics will get them to back off -- there's apparently been a small amount of improvement in school textbooks over the years. From what I understand, in the wake of wildly influential bestsellers like "Lies my Teacher Told Me" and the late, great Howard Zinn's "People History" series, among many others, school textbooks underwent some significant improvements in the past couple of decades, slightly more multicultural and inclusive, balanced, realistic. Not nearly as thin, lopsided, sexist, jingoistic, myopic as they used to be. Is that damning with faint praise? Maybe. Alas, if California weren't so utterly broke, slashing education budgets and shutting down schools, maybe our fair state could launch a counter-attack, demand some reasonably accurate historic revisions in those selfsame texts. Time was when we had some killer purchasing power of our own. Remember? Yeah, me neither. Sadly, from what I hear, California schools don't even use textbooks anymore. Or classrooms. Or desks. They all disintegrated sometime back in 1987. History is now taught by means of sock puppets, toothpick dioramas and firecrackers. And gin. Of course, I'm completely exaggerating. The changes the Texas Board is shoving through are probably relatively innocuous, just another toxic chemical added to the already lethal school lunch menu, one of a thousand, really. I'm sure everything will be fine. Kids won't mind a whit that they're being fed heavily processed, dangerous, non-nutritive mental crap. Hell, they'll probably enjoy it. You know, just like all those happy, contented slaves. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/03/17/notes031710.DTL#ixzz0iTA9FXG6 Where I agree: History,at the primary education level, is written by the 'victors' and semantics are slanted in a way where some in history are more 'significant' than others. One persons freedomfighter is another persons terrorist and If lions wrote history it would be humans who were 'savages'....its all point of view with a little bit of detail thrown in for educational value,,,completely Where I take issue: Texas is not the only place that condones or particpates in the educational system that whitewashes history. I am not sure why it should be singled out or what actual DETAILS are involved in their attempt to edit their books... |
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Edited by
papersmile
on
Fri 03/19/10 08:13 AM
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as if Texas has any credibility or respect for what any San Francisco left wing nut thinks about what we do
while I don't agree with the revisions that the text book committee is considering, this San Francisco sushi-eating, sandal wearing, pony tailed, volvo driver is just as delusional in his liberalistic interpretation of history. It's not a matter of revising history to fit to an ideology. Its a matter of whose ideology do you want it to fit to. both equally disgusting to me -Quietman, March 19 |
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Edited by
Dancere
on
Fri 03/19/10 08:49 AM
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Once in Manhattan, I walked and talked all night w/ a Russian chap that had escaped during the Iron Curtain/Cold War period ...
We shared our World History educations w/ one another ... Not even remotely similar ... At ALL! 'Text Book World History' has always been revisionist EVERYWHERE ... Just like the news ... The truth is somewhere in the legends passed from folks that actually lived 'IT'! |
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not even the marine corp. likes texas much, in boot I went to medical to do something for my ammonia, the doc asked me where I was from and of course I say cali. he says" oh, thats a relief, if you had said from texas I probably would have told you that you were getting dropped,but your alright guy." man was I happy, gave me some pills and then they sent me back to hell
 Also they were IT`d and yelled at more than the rest of us 
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Texas in the house here, as well ... I lived in Europe in the mid 80s to mid 90s, and would answer, "I'm from Texas", when asked from whence I come ... ... Folks seriously/constantly asked me if I knew JR (Larry Hagman) from the telly series "Dallas"! ...  I got to the point where I'd just glibly respond, "Of course, I clean his toilets" ...
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goes to show how conservatives are hellbent at rewriting history Nothing wrong with rewriting history-especially if the original historians got it wrong to begin with. All the crap they taught me in school was wrong, so I had to get the proper books myself and learn it from scratch. (and this process is still ongoing-I'm a lifelong learner) |
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they showed video on the Daily show of this...and i find it laughable that one of the members didn't want to include a slain priest , that was assassinated by a conservative right wing group because "people didn't know who he was".
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I want my mommy This is with out a doubt the most worthless piece of commentary I have ever read in my entire life.Clearly written by a person who is so brain dead and stupid I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasn't just found in the corner of a mental instituion somewhere. This has to be just torture to you liberals out there who wanted these changes shown below.... According to Liberty Counsel, some of the suggestions that have come forward at various times include: Removing references to Daniel Boone, General George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas. Including the cultural impact of hip-hop music, ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow and the Hindu holiday of Diwali. Replacing the term “American” with “global citizen” – stating that students need to be shaped “for responsible citizenship in a global society” without any mention of citizenship in American society. Replacing expansionism and free enterprise with imperialism and capitalism. Taking the Declaration of Independence and literally erasing God from its Preamble. Removing Independence Day Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were removed from World History, yet Mary Kay and Wallace Amos (of Famous Amos Cookies) were added, it appears, for more “diversity.” An attack to remove “B.C.” and “A.D.” — denoting historical time periods before and after the birth of Christ – also lost, and, so far, the attempt to remove the statement about the religious basis of the founding of the country has failed. And man this one is going to be painful for these students...Learning the bill of rights! As one of our great Founders, Benjamin Franklin, said, “You have a Republic, if you can keep it.” Say goodbye to Liberalism.It's breathing its last breath Gee, I believe we know all those things without having learned them in school...ya think? At all? |
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Guys, please post in regards to the subject and not the posters. I cleaned up the thread a bit
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Edited by
Quietman_2009
on
Sat 03/20/10 06:06 AM
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Dear Texas: Please Shut Up. Sincerely, History Dear History: pizz off Sincerely, Texas |
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goes to show how conservatives are hellbent at rewriting history Nothing wrong with rewriting history-especially if the original historians got it wrong to begin with. All the crap they taught me in school was wrong, so I had to get the proper books myself and learn it from scratch. (and this process is still ongoing-I'm a lifelong learner) I think the OP suggests that the new information will be 'wrong'. If there is any credence to the points of view in the piece, I would agree. Those types of changes would be quite an insult and a distortion of history. |
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Hmmm, goes to show it's not a good idea to miss days...
Thomas - I don't know about yours, but my schools never taught about Christmas. It was a holiday that the kids got excited about because of the food and parties and then 2 weeks vacation. Well, except for the Jehovah's Witness kids who were stuck in other rooms during parties. Very exciting, but no teaching about the meaning required. There was a fun little concert thing going on, too. I can absolutely guarantee that Jesus's, Mithra's, or the Winter Equinox wasn't known or cared about, except in private matters of the family. It's only recently that that has become an issue. As for the rest of it, while there needs to be some rewrites over the years, there also needs to be updates and corrected information. However, I don't see the point in removing Thomas Jefferson or some of the other things. The reason I posted was the fact that because Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks, Texas's crazy antics WILL filter down to the other states. Are the other states wanting to agree that this is okay? Of course, in the end, it probably doesn't matter. We want to gripe about the crappy public school systems, and yet do nothing to fix them. I got more history lessons from my parents and the books they have then was ever taught in school. And now that Texas and other states (?) are teaching to exit tests, it really doesn't matter, because one is only getting the info for the test, not the real history itself. Dancere - I've gotten the Dallas comment too. And having had some fascinating conversations with folks from other countries, our world history sucks just as badly as our US history. And that's not even getting into the sciences. |
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Dancere - I've gotten the Dallas comment too. And having had some fascinating conversations with folks from other countries, our world history sucks just as badly as our US history. And that's not even getting into the sciences. I was floored by the prejudiced view of what US and Texas really are when I lived in Europe ... The entire opinion was according to the telly, film and propaganda ... EVEN in the posh lifestyle I found in Norway, and other well~heeled northern Europe townes? They ALL thought every individual to be extremely wealthy and to be totin' Magnums ala~Clint Eastwood ... Law enforcement types were the worst ... They'd raise their eyebrows as if Europe was a ghetto waste land and query how in the h!ll I could live in Europe when I could be in good ole US of A ?  ... Talk about revisionist ... Life according to hit telly series and Hollywood!
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Hmmm, goes to show it's not a good idea to miss days... Thomas - I don't know about yours, but my schools never taught about Christmas. It was a holiday that the kids got excited about because of the food and parties and then 2 weeks vacation. Well, except for the Jehovah's Witness kids who were stuck in other rooms during parties. Very exciting, but no teaching about the meaning required. There was a fun little concert thing going on, too. I can absolutely guarantee that Jesus's, Mithra's, or the Winter Equinox wasn't known or cared about, except in private matters of the family. It's only recently that that has become an issue. As for the rest of it, while there needs to be some rewrites over the years, there also needs to be updates and corrected information. However, I don't see the point in removing Thomas Jefferson or some of the other things. The reason I posted was the fact that because Texas is the largest buyer of textbooks, Texas's crazy antics WILL filter down to the other states. Are the other states wanting to agree that this is okay? Of course, in the end, it probably doesn't matter. We want to gripe about the crappy public school systems, and yet do nothing to fix them. I got more history lessons from my parents and the books they have then was ever taught in school. And now that Texas and other states (?) are teaching to exit tests, it really doesn't matter, because one is only getting the info for the test, not the real history itself. Dancere - I've gotten the Dallas comment too. And having had some fascinating conversations with folks from other countries, our world history sucks just as badly as our US history. And that's not even getting into the sciences. Why you are in such a huff and puff over what???Nobody is re-writing history Finger pointing,cussing,and calling the Texas school board a bunch of right wing nutjobs only makes you look like the nutjob because apparently you believe we should leave out many important dates in history that are hugely important to this country.We have had Christmas in this country since it was founded.It is celebrated by every town in every country is the United states.It is the most celebrated season in the world.So why you feel like this needs to be left out and calling people idiots who leave it in is beyond me.Nobody is re-writing history.They are simply writing about what is already there.It seems to me the liberals are the ones who want to re-write history.The chages made were FACTS unlike what the liberals are proposing. As far as you liberals and the changes you wanted....No longer calling Americans-Americans but Global citizens???My God what a stupid idea.I can just imagine traveling overseas and the customs agent asking you if you are a American."No I am a Global citizen". Is learning about hip hop music something we need to spend days teaching our children about? Chapter one:Pimping and hoeing. Chapter two:40 OZ. and Big booties. Chapter three:Gangbanging and drug dealing. Chapter four:Slapping bit**es up. Chapter five:F**k the police. Thanks but no thanks. You can't change history.No matter how much you fume and hate it will never change.I ow how much you would just love to grab a text book and write all sorts of anti American,America is the source of the worlds problems,America has never done anything good,blah,blah,blah.You would even want to take away our Constitution,bill of rights,and even the ability to call ourselves Americans.You certainly don't want any references of any sort towards Christianity but of course any other religion is fine. I got a addition to our history books... Liberalism-The Anti Americans in America. |
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Dear Texas: Please Shut Up. Sincerely, History Dear History: pizz off Sincerely, Texas  More power to ya, Quiet!
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Its all about balance, if you teach rock and roll and country, teach r &b and hip hop. PErsonally , I believe those lessons should be in elective 'music' classes but I have no problem with them being offered. As to the rest,, the required classes should be those things students will NEED to compete,, Reading , Writing, Arithmetic,, and now Id even add computer technology.
I never thought history should be mandatory but if it is, the books should be a bit less slanted and more balanced towards the contributions of more than just one group. |
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Dear Texas: Please Shut Up. Sincerely, History Dear History: pizz off Sincerely, Texas
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