tuna and donna, trains to indy from chicago are only $19 one-way right now. so I might actually be able to do this. is there a cheap hotel in town that's not too dilapidated?
What a great day so far! started by having breakfast with Cameron. Then celebrated my shrub's 2nd birthday with ice cream for lunch and a tour of the fire house across the street. Seeing him sitting in the driver's seat of the fire engine going 'weee oooo weee oooo' will be one my cherished memories! (didn't have a camera on me, but then I'd be too focused taking pictures instead of living the moment).
Eh , --- this mean there be a serious tone, I think it will become a boring scene unless someone are apointed legal pray. They did it before and they will do it again. Romans newer learn..
He's lurking! I just posted yesterday on the parametric news item how much I missed per - and he's back! Maybe Javier linked to his website and he followed it back.
manta we should talk offline - I've got a wee break in the next two weeks then it's off and running like crazy again.
I wish I had some down time.... have to get the pool ready for memorial day...and yikes it is a week away! Not my Pool....the clients Pool...so is the life of an Architect!
Going to go kick back on a warm May evening and toss a beer!
Who knows maybe after a few I will come back and chat with Per....and ask him what the heck is going on with the European Economy and those art heist in France.
ok i am officially worried. first the "papers please" law, now texas is deciding to make textbooks that remove the term slavery from american history and insist state and religion were not intended to be kept separate by the founders when they did that whole constitution thing...?
ok, not so worried but you know...sheesh.
snook, that is the saddest truth, architects almost never can afford to live in places they design for others. except for FLW. would like to copy him but don't think i will ever be able to find investors willing to give me money based on my future fame and earnings like he did...might be fun to try, but can't imagine having the cojones to approach people with such a proposal ;-)
Jump, I hadn't heard all that, but taking slavery out seems kinda silly. I wondertheir reason. As forthe church state issue, I tend to agree. I don't see why such a big deal is made of it. Assuming that church isn't forced on people, I see no problem with allowing morality into politics. I mean really, how does it hurt to have the ten comandments displayed at a courthouse, or saying a prayer during graduation or football game.
Sure, banning abortion because it's a sin isn't cool, but not allowing a kid to do his book report on the bible is just as uncool. I guess I just think the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion.
SH
um. the reason you can't have the ten commandments posted at a courthouse is because not all US citizens are christian and believe in the bible... by posting them there you are essentially excluding a large portion of the population.
with that said even jesus separated church and state in the bible. 'give unto caeser what is caesers' etc.
the same can be said for prayers at a football game... i don't mean to be too PC but you're then excluding atheists...and what do you say in that prayer to include all religions?
then when you start talking about morality... what moral code? how would you decide issues such as abortion? would you dole out punishment as per the old testament? eye for an eye? or would you take 'thou shalt not kill' to the fullest extent and not execute anyone? i think that it's best for all people that religion is left out of politics.
ps.
when inviting religion into politics i would also assume that you'd start inviting politics into religion...which i think is something that religious people don't consider. separation of church and state goes both ways.
i think it would be quite cool if islamic quotes were posted alongside the 10 commandments, and maybe some exerpts from buddha too. most modern governments separate church and state for good reasons, least of which being there are too many religions to pick an official one...
to be honest, religion is part of politics already...remember when there was the big uproar about President Kennedy being Catholic? Some folks are actually worried that there are too many jews on the supreme court (i think will be 4 jews this year, and the rest are catholic). could you imagine if only anglicans were allowed to be judges? i guess would make things interesting, but reminds me of taliban theocracy, personally.
So, no... church and state separation was a good idea back when and i find it significant that textbook writers are working to make a cultural foundation where that ideal was a mistake and possibly not constitutional. just a drop in the bucket though. slavery is being dropped as term, imperialism is called expansionism (same thing the japanese say in their textbooks about conquering korea china, asia....hah!), and more.
well, anyway, politics and religion are not really safe discussion topics, so please forgive the intrusion. i just saw the news yesterday and was shocked by the shift to the right.
the shift to the "right" is shocking, jump - seemingly with some new insult to absorb every day in the states right now. it's also becoming depressingly predictable. i meet people every day who can't see past their own lowest common denominator biases and have become completely focused on more and more tightly knit circles of similarly-minded people.
but it also doesn't seem quite fair to call the burgeoning mob the "right" anymore. the TEA folks and the limbaugh-ites aren't the grand old right. they're both a cartoon and a cancer, twisting the ideals of the traditional right into something hateful, unrecognizable, and destructive.
...along those lines: posting the ten commandments on a public property is purposefully about exhibiting the primacy of one religious story over all of the others, giving the impression that it is the officially sanctioned narrative. such a strategy of exclusion and marginalization should have no place on american public properties.
ah, well, i am glad to read that it isn't just me and my Canadian eyes, Steven. Me and Rachel Maddow. My family are all pretty right wing, and i am myself right of center on lots of points, but some of the stuff going on puts me in mind of McCarthy. The papers please thing is very much a sci-fi distopia thing that i didn't expect to come up in the land of optimism, USA. my hope it is just a blip, but again....sheesh.
back to architecture. i took students to see building by Tadao Ando, followed by a museum by Yoshi Taniguchi, then a museum by Le Corbusier, all within 15 minutes walk of each other. Am hoping to teach them that architects make decisions that can be analysed and checked by visiting. Interestingly they all liked ando better than LeCorbusier, even though the latter building is to become a UNESCO world heritage site. I think we are lucky to be able to visit these buildings as part of coursework though. Its like living in a textbook.
jump, i agree... i think that it is only possible to truly understand a building by visiting it in person... it is too easy to lie with photographs... its great that you have such easy access to great buildings...
Hi all. I've been out for a while. I was on a top secret mission aided by my two operatives *m and dj dubbers. I flew into Cleveland to surprise the missus, then later that night I proposed asking her to be my wife. Lucky for me she said yes. So now I'm busily catching up on TC to see what I missed.
Nam - I had a K1000 in undergrad. They are great cameras however very susceptible to mould growth on the inner lens. Sad but true. So you'll need to keep it safe and dry.
"As forthe church state issue, I tend to agree. I don't see why such a big deal is made of it. Assuming that church isn't forced on people, I see no problem with allowing morality into politics."
SH, I respect you as a person and we've agreed on many things, but this is so offensive to me. Morality IS a part of politics. RELIGION should not be. Morality does not equal religion. Those of us without religion do still manage to have morals, and I detest the assumption that morals must come from religion and the religious. The reason the ten commandments in a courthouse is offensive to me is that it presumes that those commandments are given a higher authority than the court, that the court derives its authority from that authority, that it makes morals about religion, when there is no reason that they should be. To those who do not put faith in things delivered via burning bush, morality is about community, about social contracts, about dignity and responsibility. Morals exist perfectly well without bringing religion into it, thank you very much. Going to church or praying does not make someone morally superior, but it sure seems to give them license to act like it!
Well in fact separation of church and state was something the puritans wanted, given all they had suffered in England - in fact they were adamant about it. So although the idea isn't in the Constitution per se, it was in fact the most religious founders of our country who wanted it. So I'm kind of confused as to why the current (pseudo)religious factions are suddenly demanding to rescind it... If we didn't found our country on the idea of separation of church and state it wouldn't have been founded at all. That was the entire reason the Pilgrims fled England and began the american experiment.
I realize I used Puritans and Pilgrims interchangeably in that last statement, but as far as I remember both founded their societies on sep of church and state.
nicely written copper top. this is only about textbooks at the moment, but the irony is that because it is about Texan textbooks a lot of other states will be pulled in because Texas somehow sets the standard for much of the country. how lovely is that? not that it really matters to a canuck like me, but reminds me of david byrne interview where he said his year of canadian education before moving to the states put him ahead for the rest of his life and all he had to do was coast the rest of the way. guess that is going to be more true now ;-)
i agree philip. the mid-term assignment for the students this term is to analyse buildings here in the city - from the yokohama ferry terminal to ryue nishizawa's moriyama house, prada building by herzog and demeuron, tod's building by Ito, et cetera. They have to study the work then go and see if the architects were able to pull off what they claimed they were doing, or otherwise guess the intention of the architectural moves...i don't think they know how lucky they are to be in a city where the assignment is possible at all. There must be only a handful of cities on the planet where it is easy as here. Actually the museum by corbu was also amazing for the artwork. beautiful paintings by miro, picasso, jackson pollock, and a huge collection of rodin sculptures. sometimes it is nice to be spoiled ;-)
thanks guys. I was worried that catching up with TC would take me a short week but surprisingly I'm up to speed already.
Nam the K1000 is surprising flexible. It gives great grain for slower speed film like 100/200 but performs best with 400 - although this will be the harder film to develop (the exactitude of the chemical requirements if diy). High speeds film however will be wasted on it since it's an entirely manual camera - but it's worth trying it for yourself to be certain.
The recent change in our government has seen an increased presence of Religion. Former religious leaders taking key positions in the government most notably the former lead pastoral minister of the SDA church is now the governor general ie. representative of the Queen and highest non-elected official. Religion has been a subject in our primary/secondary school systems since the 1980s and often teaches almost solely Christianity even though we've had a strong though small non-Christian section of the population. As copper top says morality is an important if not a vital part of the concept and function of the state, but is bound by a different set of laws than that of the church. To quote House MD, "I try not to encourage my patient's superstitions."
jump - it's mostly just the south who's gone batshit crazy- the rest of us are wondering wtf is going on down there. I think really it's just a bunch of scared white people in their last gasps of power since they realize their days are numbered - they're just trying to keep the brown people down because they know in less than a decade they'll be in the minority.
also, texas isn't exactly known as a bastion of education. - the vast majority of elementary and secondary curricula (lessons) comes out of places like Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California. and they get many of their ideas from places like england and canada.
unless there's testing that is tied to this curricula (and funding), then there's really no reason why the good school districts and teachers would even bother to use these ridiculous textbooks.
Actually jump et al... the 10 commandments aren't just within the Christian religion. They play a big role in the Jewish and Islamic religions too. In fact, if memory serves me correctly the first five books of each of these religions is the same. Just saying.
Anyway, as I've said many times before CONGRATS ATECHNO!!!! I honestly can't think of a couple more deserving of this new found happiness than you two. The idea just makes me absolutely giddy.
copper top/manta - could never have said it better myself even if I tried. I think many people have forgotten these points over the years. Again, just another reason I am grateful for my years studying history.
Hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend. I know I have.
*melt: my big pet peeve is that while I think people generally do pretty well accepting other religions (with the exception of muslims in recent times due to fear of the unknown), they still think it's perfectly natural to discriminate against the non-religious. So yes I recognize that the 10 commandments cover multiple religions, but in the context of the problem I have with them, that means nothing.
Copper - I completely agree with you, and that is the reason why I have a problem with 10 commandments on the courthouse too. I was just stating b/c it seems at though there may be some confusion, that's all.
recently here in indianastan, a republican/family values congressman resigned in scandal after news broke that he was having an affair with a part time staffer who worked with the congressman on family value and abstinance issues!
yup i get that there is a shared history with the books and such, melt, but i don't think the intent of the 10 commandments published anywhere in usa is to remind us of that shared background. quite the contrary in all honesty.
i guess we will see how it plays out, toasteroven. according to the NY times article the importance is that Texas was defacto setter of texts for much of the nation because it has large population and publishers cater to them the most...or at least it did so til mass customization became more normal.
i will cry/laugh when ben bova's vision of usa is realised and a science student in middle of USA is warned that his research paper idea is not approved because it touches on darwinian ideas, and the student replies, "who's darwin?"
well anyway, enough of that. it isn't like usa is only country with rightwing politics going on.
Oh geez holz... that must have been an interesting experience.
Today is one of those days that I am grateful I am down to working 32 hours. Am going to spend the day cleaning up the yard, it desperately needs it. Not only that but I need to start getting ready because I just had someone offer to help me get and spread a yard of mulch in a few weeks. :oD
copper - I need something of the sorts of what you wrote printed up on a little card so I can hand them out...
Fun story about right wingers. Someone mass e-mailed a forward about Obama to my mom and a couple dozen other people in the small community they live in. It was one of those conspiracy write ups that said Obama was muslim (oh, and you know what THAT means!) and not a citizen and other stuff that was just plain wrong. This forward came from one of the churchladies (she is maybe the scripture reader at the conservative Lutheran church or ??) and my mom gets this e-mail and it must have struck a nerve with because she told me she hit REPLY ALL and wrote, (paraphrasing here): That is the most un-Christian thing I have ever read. I do not appreciate when you forward slander and lies, take me off your "list". Then she said something about the 10 commandments. It went back to the chuchlady, and everyone else too.
The whole religion in public sphere thing is incredibly murky and difficult and someone somewhere is always going to be offended. We just had a meeting for our school to talk about, basically, how to increase involvement in school activities by parents of non-white students. That's a very sloppy distillation of what is a deep, complex issue related to class, neighborhoods, opportunity, job situation, culture, empowerment, etc. It's never as simple as a few sentences can make it. But it's germane to this discussion because we (meaning PTA) held the meeting at the offices of the public school district's Office of Multicultural Education.
We also had food because the office of multicultural ed told us we were more likely to get a better turnout if we had dinner. So before we ate, the Director of the Office of Multi Ed said a blessing. As I recall she kept it very non-denominational, but it was definitely the act of someone comfortable with religious practice, and to me it was absolutely no big deal because I grew up in a family where we said grace before every meal - it's actually a cultural tradition that I love, even if my religious connection to it is fairly tenuous at this point.
I guess I think rejection of religious belief doesn't always mean rejection of the practices that are based on those traditions. I can take a very hardline logic-only view that no way in hell should an officer of a public school district ever invoke god (whichever god) at a meeting that is taking place on school property and was organized by school organizations. But generally I don't think hardline attitudes are ever the way to proceed, except maybe when you're the Supreme Court. This particular meeting was so uncomfortable and delicate anyway that hearing grace was actually a good way to start things off. I still thought it was slightly odd coming from a public employee, one whose job is based on inclusiveness, but I don't think anyone was terrible offended.
Not that this is all that fascinating, but it helps me keep considering the issue by writing about it - and we have another meeting in two weeks so I need to keep it in my mind.
*melt -
thanks for clearing up my misinformation.. of course you're correct that the ten commandments spans multibple religions..apologies.
the reason i heard that texas' decision regarding what they put in their textbooks is so important is textbook companies often defer to them as the largest purchaser of textbooks.
i can't quite understand where the republican party is headed or at least the teabaggers and limbaughites... how far can you go on a platform that seems to be based on hate and misinformation? the lewis black rant about glenn beck having hitler/nazi tourettes is funny because of how ridiculous he sounds to me..but there are people that actually respect/admire/pay attention to what he's saying...and that's scary to me.
Thread Central
Sarah,
You been playing Jerry Jeff Walker...."Pissing against the wind is the best way to loose a friend"...????
Wow, never expected Jerry Jeff to be mentioned here.
Sarah, hope I don't get banned ....for quoting Jerry Jeff Walker...
Wooo - gotta love that 12 hour non-drowsy cold relief from Sudafed. Allergy season rocks!!! Oh baby I get high, I get high, I get high.
tuna and donna, trains to indy from chicago are only $19 one-way right now. so I might actually be able to do this. is there a cheap hotel in town that's not too dilapidated?
What a great day so far! started by having breakfast with Cameron. Then celebrated my shrub's 2nd birthday with ice cream for lunch and a tour of the fire house across the street. Seeing him sitting in the driver's seat of the fire engine going 'weee oooo weee oooo' will be one my cherished memories! (didn't have a camera on me, but then I'd be too focused taking pictures instead of living the moment).
now I get to make some money playing consultant.
he is back:
Eh , --- this mean there be a serious tone, I think it will become a boring scene unless someone are apointed legal pray. They did it before and they will do it again. Romans newer learn..
You get two guesses!
He's lurking! I just posted yesterday on the parametric news item how much I missed per - and he's back! Maybe Javier linked to his website and he followed it back.
manta we should talk offline - I've got a wee break in the next two weeks then it's off and running like crazy again.
I wish I had some down time.... have to get the pool ready for memorial day...and yikes it is a week away! Not my Pool....the clients Pool...so is the life of an Architect!
Going to go kick back on a warm May evening and toss a beer!
Who knows maybe after a few I will come back and chat with Per....and ask him what the heck is going on with the European Economy and those art heist in France.
later alligator!
Snook, maybe you'll be invited to the pool party. That scene from "two for the road" comes to mind.
snook I loved your song lyric on the other page, by the way.
I just spent the evening with a bunch of lovely non-architects. We architects have a very skewed view of the world, I'd say. Not bad, just different.
i think architects are more right than anyone else by far.
What about interior designers beta? We're pretty cool and "right" too ;o)
ok i am officially worried. first the "papers please" law, now texas is deciding to make textbooks that remove the term slavery from american history and insist state and religion were not intended to be kept separate by the founders when they did that whole constitution thing...?
ok, not so worried but you know...sheesh.
snook, that is the saddest truth, architects almost never can afford to live in places they design for others. except for FLW. would like to copy him but don't think i will ever be able to find investors willing to give me money based on my future fame and earnings like he did...might be fun to try, but can't imagine having the cojones to approach people with such a proposal ;-)
Jump, I hadn't heard all that, but taking slavery out seems kinda silly. I wondertheir reason. As forthe church state issue, I tend to agree. I don't see why such a big deal is made of it. Assuming that church isn't forced on people, I see no problem with allowing morality into politics. I mean really, how does it hurt to have the ten comandments displayed at a courthouse, or saying a prayer during graduation or football game.
Sure, banning abortion because it's a sin isn't cool, but not allowing a kid to do his book report on the bible is just as uncool. I guess I just think the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion.
SH
um. the reason you can't have the ten commandments posted at a courthouse is because not all US citizens are christian and believe in the bible... by posting them there you are essentially excluding a large portion of the population.
with that said even jesus separated church and state in the bible. 'give unto caeser what is caesers' etc.
the same can be said for prayers at a football game... i don't mean to be too PC but you're then excluding atheists...and what do you say in that prayer to include all religions?
then when you start talking about morality... what moral code? how would you decide issues such as abortion? would you dole out punishment as per the old testament? eye for an eye? or would you take 'thou shalt not kill' to the fullest extent and not execute anyone? i think that it's best for all people that religion is left out of politics.
ps.
when inviting religion into politics i would also assume that you'd start inviting politics into religion...which i think is something that religious people don't consider. separation of church and state goes both ways.
anyone willing to redline/crit my resume and folio, please shoot me an email.
danke sehr...
i think it would be quite cool if islamic quotes were posted alongside the 10 commandments, and maybe some exerpts from buddha too. most modern governments separate church and state for good reasons, least of which being there are too many religions to pick an official one...
to be honest, religion is part of politics already...remember when there was the big uproar about President Kennedy being Catholic? Some folks are actually worried that there are too many jews on the supreme court (i think will be 4 jews this year, and the rest are catholic). could you imagine if only anglicans were allowed to be judges? i guess would make things interesting, but reminds me of taliban theocracy, personally.
So, no... church and state separation was a good idea back when and i find it significant that textbook writers are working to make a cultural foundation where that ideal was a mistake and possibly not constitutional. just a drop in the bucket though. slavery is being dropped as term, imperialism is called expansionism (same thing the japanese say in their textbooks about conquering korea china, asia....hah!), and more.
well, anyway, politics and religion are not really safe discussion topics, so please forgive the intrusion. i just saw the news yesterday and was shocked by the shift to the right.
the shift to the "right" is shocking, jump - seemingly with some new insult to absorb every day in the states right now. it's also becoming depressingly predictable. i meet people every day who can't see past their own lowest common denominator biases and have become completely focused on more and more tightly knit circles of similarly-minded people.
but it also doesn't seem quite fair to call the burgeoning mob the "right" anymore. the TEA folks and the limbaugh-ites aren't the grand old right. they're both a cartoon and a cancer, twisting the ideals of the traditional right into something hateful, unrecognizable, and destructive.
...along those lines: posting the ten commandments on a public property is purposefully about exhibiting the primacy of one religious story over all of the others, giving the impression that it is the officially sanctioned narrative. such a strategy of exclusion and marginalization should have no place on american public properties.
ah, well, i am glad to read that it isn't just me and my Canadian eyes, Steven. Me and Rachel Maddow. My family are all pretty right wing, and i am myself right of center on lots of points, but some of the stuff going on puts me in mind of McCarthy. The papers please thing is very much a sci-fi distopia thing that i didn't expect to come up in the land of optimism, USA. my hope it is just a blip, but again....sheesh.
back to architecture. i took students to see building by Tadao Ando, followed by a museum by Yoshi Taniguchi, then a museum by Le Corbusier, all within 15 minutes walk of each other. Am hoping to teach them that architects make decisions that can be analysed and checked by visiting. Interestingly they all liked ando better than LeCorbusier, even though the latter building is to become a UNESCO world heritage site. I think we are lucky to be able to visit these buildings as part of coursework though. Its like living in a textbook.
jump, i agree... i think that it is only possible to truly understand a building by visiting it in person... it is too easy to lie with photographs... its great that you have such easy access to great buildings...
Morning all, my back is killing me this weekend. But id id manage to spend a couple of hours floating down this river yesterday.
Good morning all. I love Sunday mornings in bed.
I hope everyone is doing well.
Hi all. I've been out for a while. I was on a top secret mission aided by my two operatives *m and dj dubbers. I flew into Cleveland to surprise the missus, then later that night I proposed asking her to be my wife. Lucky for me she said yes. So now I'm busily catching up on TC to see what I missed.
Nam - I had a K1000 in undergrad. They are great cameras however very susceptible to mould growth on the inner lens. Sad but true. So you'll need to keep it safe and dry.
Yay techno, congratulations! I had no idea it was such a super-secret mission!
SH, I respect you as a person and we've agreed on many things, but this is so offensive to me. Morality IS a part of politics. RELIGION should not be. Morality does not equal religion. Those of us without religion do still manage to have morals, and I detest the assumption that morals must come from religion and the religious. The reason the ten commandments in a courthouse is offensive to me is that it presumes that those commandments are given a higher authority than the court, that the court derives its authority from that authority, that it makes morals about religion, when there is no reason that they should be. To those who do not put faith in things delivered via burning bush, morality is about community, about social contracts, about dignity and responsibility. Morals exist perfectly well without bringing religion into it, thank you very much. Going to church or praying does not make someone morally superior, but it sure seems to give them license to act like it!
Well in fact separation of church and state was something the puritans wanted, given all they had suffered in England - in fact they were adamant about it. So although the idea isn't in the Constitution per se, it was in fact the most religious founders of our country who wanted it. So I'm kind of confused as to why the current (pseudo)religious factions are suddenly demanding to rescind it... If we didn't found our country on the idea of separation of church and state it wouldn't have been founded at all. That was the entire reason the Pilgrims fled England and began the american experiment.
I realize I used Puritans and Pilgrims interchangeably in that last statement, but as far as I remember both founded their societies on sep of church and state.
archi, thanks for the info. I got film today and am excited to begin using...
n_ me too.
oh and archi, i think i already said congrats on other internet venues but awesome news. all the best
archi - congrats!
I was just at a baby shower for 6 women on my block who are pregnant and all due around the same time. crazy.
congrats archi! that is fantastic news!
nicely written copper top. this is only about textbooks at the moment, but the irony is that because it is about Texan textbooks a lot of other states will be pulled in because Texas somehow sets the standard for much of the country. how lovely is that? not that it really matters to a canuck like me, but reminds me of david byrne interview where he said his year of canadian education before moving to the states put him ahead for the rest of his life and all he had to do was coast the rest of the way. guess that is going to be more true now ;-)
i agree philip. the mid-term assignment for the students this term is to analyse buildings here in the city - from the yokohama ferry terminal to ryue nishizawa's moriyama house, prada building by herzog and demeuron, tod's building by Ito, et cetera. They have to study the work then go and see if the architects were able to pull off what they claimed they were doing, or otherwise guess the intention of the architectural moves...i don't think they know how lucky they are to be in a city where the assignment is possible at all. There must be only a handful of cities on the planet where it is easy as here. Actually the museum by corbu was also amazing for the artwork. beautiful paintings by miro, picasso, jackson pollock, and a huge collection of rodin sculptures. sometimes it is nice to be spoiled ;-)
thanks guys. I was worried that catching up with TC would take me a short week but surprisingly I'm up to speed already.
Nam the K1000 is surprising flexible. It gives great grain for slower speed film like 100/200 but performs best with 400 - although this will be the harder film to develop (the exactitude of the chemical requirements if diy). High speeds film however will be wasted on it since it's an entirely manual camera - but it's worth trying it for yourself to be certain.
The recent change in our government has seen an increased presence of Religion. Former religious leaders taking key positions in the government most notably the former lead pastoral minister of the SDA church is now the governor general ie. representative of the Queen and highest non-elected official. Religion has been a subject in our primary/secondary school systems since the 1980s and often teaches almost solely Christianity even though we've had a strong though small non-Christian section of the population. As copper top says morality is an important if not a vital part of the concept and function of the state, but is bound by a different set of laws than that of the church. To quote House MD, "I try not to encourage my patient's superstitions."
jump - it's mostly just the south who's gone batshit crazy- the rest of us are wondering wtf is going on down there. I think really it's just a bunch of scared white people in their last gasps of power since they realize their days are numbered - they're just trying to keep the brown people down because they know in less than a decade they'll be in the minority.
also, texas isn't exactly known as a bastion of education. - the vast majority of elementary and secondary curricula (lessons) comes out of places like Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California. and they get many of their ideas from places like england and canada.
unless there's testing that is tied to this curricula (and funding), then there's really no reason why the good school districts and teachers would even bother to use these ridiculous textbooks.
Actually jump et al... the 10 commandments aren't just within the Christian religion. They play a big role in the Jewish and Islamic religions too. In fact, if memory serves me correctly the first five books of each of these religions is the same. Just saying.
Anyway, as I've said many times before CONGRATS ATECHNO!!!! I honestly can't think of a couple more deserving of this new found happiness than you two. The idea just makes me absolutely giddy.
copper top/manta - could never have said it better myself even if I tried. I think many people have forgotten these points over the years. Again, just another reason I am grateful for my years studying history.
Hope everyone has had an enjoyable weekend. I know I have.
archi, well funnily enough i just bought and tested out some 400 speed film.
Also, great pic.
Watching LOST!!! Crazy got to go..
*melt: my big pet peeve is that while I think people generally do pretty well accepting other religions (with the exception of muslims in recent times due to fear of the unknown), they still think it's perfectly natural to discriminate against the non-religious. So yes I recognize that the 10 commandments cover multiple religions, but in the context of the problem I have with them, that means nothing.
Copper - I completely agree with you, and that is the reason why I have a problem with 10 commandments on the courthouse too. I was just stating b/c it seems at though there may be some confusion, that's all.
Well said, add that -family people- which is basically a consumer group.
congrats tecno and future mrs. techno!
recently here in indianastan, a republican/family values congressman resigned in scandal after news broke that he was having an affair with a part time staffer who worked with the congressman on family value and abstinance issues!
yup i get that there is a shared history with the books and such, melt, but i don't think the intent of the 10 commandments published anywhere in usa is to remind us of that shared background. quite the contrary in all honesty.
i guess we will see how it plays out, toasteroven. according to the NY times article the importance is that Texas was defacto setter of texts for much of the nation because it has large population and publishers cater to them the most...or at least it did so til mass customization became more normal.
i will cry/laugh when ben bova's vision of usa is realised and a science student in middle of USA is warned that his research paper idea is not approved because it touches on darwinian ideas, and the student replies, "who's darwin?"
well anyway, enough of that. it isn't like usa is only country with rightwing politics going on.
atp, congrats i totally missed that!
oh boy. first day of the rest of my life feeling today. it'll be good to move on...
i'm not touching the religion bit w/ a 10' pole, having been that atheist football player w/ a wwjd coach.
Oh geez holz... that must have been an interesting experience.
Today is one of those days that I am grateful I am down to working 32 hours. Am going to spend the day cleaning up the yard, it desperately needs it. Not only that but I need to start getting ready because I just had someone offer to help me get and spread a yard of mulch in a few weeks. :oD
architechno - congrats!!!
copper - I need something of the sorts of what you wrote printed up on a little card so I can hand them out...
Fun story about right wingers. Someone mass e-mailed a forward about Obama to my mom and a couple dozen other people in the small community they live in. It was one of those conspiracy write ups that said Obama was muslim (oh, and you know what THAT means!) and not a citizen and other stuff that was just plain wrong. This forward came from one of the churchladies (she is maybe the scripture reader at the conservative Lutheran church or ??) and my mom gets this e-mail and it must have struck a nerve with because she told me she hit REPLY ALL and wrote, (paraphrasing here): That is the most un-Christian thing I have ever read. I do not appreciate when you forward slander and lies, take me off your "list". Then she said something about the 10 commandments. It went back to the chuchlady, and everyone else too.
See where I get my spunk from? :)
Strawbeary I like your mum!! And thanks guys for the well wishes.
It's a public holiday here, labour day - so i'm going to take a nap.
"move on", holz? what happened? dare I speak the L word? Or did your lil holz get born already?!
congrats, techno!
The whole religion in public sphere thing is incredibly murky and difficult and someone somewhere is always going to be offended. We just had a meeting for our school to talk about, basically, how to increase involvement in school activities by parents of non-white students. That's a very sloppy distillation of what is a deep, complex issue related to class, neighborhoods, opportunity, job situation, culture, empowerment, etc. It's never as simple as a few sentences can make it. But it's germane to this discussion because we (meaning PTA) held the meeting at the offices of the public school district's Office of Multicultural Education.
We also had food because the office of multicultural ed told us we were more likely to get a better turnout if we had dinner. So before we ate, the Director of the Office of Multi Ed said a blessing. As I recall she kept it very non-denominational, but it was definitely the act of someone comfortable with religious practice, and to me it was absolutely no big deal because I grew up in a family where we said grace before every meal - it's actually a cultural tradition that I love, even if my religious connection to it is fairly tenuous at this point.
I guess I think rejection of religious belief doesn't always mean rejection of the practices that are based on those traditions. I can take a very hardline logic-only view that no way in hell should an officer of a public school district ever invoke god (whichever god) at a meeting that is taking place on school property and was organized by school organizations. But generally I don't think hardline attitudes are ever the way to proceed, except maybe when you're the Supreme Court. This particular meeting was so uncomfortable and delicate anyway that hearing grace was actually a good way to start things off. I still thought it was slightly odd coming from a public employee, one whose job is based on inclusiveness, but I don't think anyone was terrible offended.
Not that this is all that fascinating, but it helps me keep considering the issue by writing about it - and we have another meeting in two weeks so I need to keep it in my mind.
*melt -
thanks for clearing up my misinformation.. of course you're correct that the ten commandments spans multibple religions..apologies.
the reason i heard that texas' decision regarding what they put in their textbooks is so important is textbook companies often defer to them as the largest purchaser of textbooks.
i can't quite understand where the republican party is headed or at least the teabaggers and limbaughites... how far can you go on a platform that seems to be based on hate and misinformation? the lewis black rant about glenn beck having hitler/nazi tourettes is funny because of how ridiculous he sounds to me..but there are people that actually respect/admire/pay attention to what he's saying...and that's scary to me.
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