Is our Children Learnin'?

[NanceGreggs]

Apparently some of them won’t be, as their parents prevent them from attending school for a day rather than risk exposure to a speech by the President of the United States on the topic of education.

Well, you can’t be too careful. As one shining light of the GOP once put it, “A mind is a terrible thing to lose” – and encouraging kids to stay in school and get a good education could mean losing them as Republican voters in future.

In some respects, I can understand the concerns of people who are honestly looking out for their kiddies’ wellbeing.

Despite the best efforts of many parents to shield their children from the horrors of a certain event, some of them may have seen video footage or photographs of G.W. Bush sitting in a classroom, reading The Pet Goat on 9-11. One can imagine the déjà vu-invoked trauma these kids might experience – fearing that this might be yet another time when a president interacting with students will end with him sitting there doing nothing while their nation is under attack.

There is also the real fear that if their lil’ darlin’s take education seriously at the President’s behest, they might grow up to be “elitists” who know how to spell, punctuate, and speak English properly – could even go so far as to read a book now and again.

Imagine the embarrassment of these parents in later years, unable to plaster bumperstickers on their fenders that read “Proud of my high school drop-out!”, or, “My kids are Patriots – that’s why they don’t listen to no stinkin’ President!” The mind boggles.

Also to be considered is the uncomfortable questions some moms and dads would face should their children make that oh-so-obvious comparison: “Hey, mommy, how come this president makes sense when he talks, and the ‘nother one sounded like an idiot?”

Of course, it could also go the other way, which would delight the parents who extolled the virtues of Bush for the past eight years: “Mommy, this president isn’t funny like the last one – he hasn’t tried to open a door the wrong way even once!”

For many well-meaning moms and pops, the greatest fear is fear of the unknown. While they know that Obama’s speech has been designed to address the topic of the value of education, there is always the possibility that he might “slip up” and mention that the Earth is not flat, and actually revolves around the Sun - rather than vice versa. Now there’s something no self-respecting parent wants to have to explain at the dinner table.

The rumors are rampant – and, as usual, are as ridiculous as stories about death squads and an all-out effort by the Democrats to guillotine poor ol’ granny in the town square as an example to those who don’t adopt Muslinism.

According to some of the fair and balanced persuasion, Obama will be speaking to our youngsters about healthcare reform and homosexuality. I, for one, am not putting it past him – I’ve heard he’s also including a PowerPoint presentation on the intricacies of determining gross national product, along with a three-hour lecture on the successes and failures of the nation’s foreign policy in the Middle East from 1793 to the present day. But then, it’s only rumor.

And then there’s the obvious – the truth that many parents have tried to keep from being absorbed by impressionable young minds: the President of the United States IS black. And once they see him up on that TV screen – well, there’s no going back, is there?

Amidst all of the nonsense being spewed by the rightwing, my personal favorite is the concept that “the opposition” should have a right to present a counter argument after Obama’s speech – although I must admit that actually hearing the “opposition” talking points to staying in school and getting an education would undoubtedly be the best entertainment available since – well, probably since Sarah Palin described being able to see Russia from her house as constituting experience in foreign affairs.

And exactly who are these stalwart parents so eager to protect their offspring from the words of a duly-elected POTUS? They’re the same parents who had no problem exposing their kids to the intellectual genius who spoke about the importance of putting food on your family, who candidly broached the subject of doctors being able to practice love with their female patients, the Christian role model who embraced torture – the modern-day philosopher who once dazzled the edumacated world with his observation that, “Yeah, China is big, too.”

These are the people who will steadfastly refuse to allow their precious poppets to be exposed to subversive, un-American ideas like allowing an education to open their minds to the possibilities in life, setting goals in their school years and striving to achieve them, adopting habits like the self-discipline of study that might prove useful in their adult years – the same people who are attending teabagging events even as we speak, carrying signs that declare they are not socialtists and want English to be declared the ofical languge of their beloved country.

If you’ve ever wondered where the Republican base of the future will come from, I’d advise you to take down the names of the students who won’t be allowed to listen to Obama’s address next week – because those are the same names you’ll see on GOP voting rolls in future.

Where will all of this insanity wind up? Well, we all remember what it was like when WE were kids – the minute our parents told us not to listen to something, we were in the schoolyard the next day, asking those who were allowed, or managed to eavesdrop, what was said. Of course the kids nowadays don’t have to resort to second-hand schoolyard hearsay – they have the internetz.

I predict that the YouTube posts of Obama’s speech are going to be very popular, because nothing has the allure of the forbidden – and nothing resonates in an impressionable young mind like the very words he was warned not to heed.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My God, Nance!

And those kids who get to listen?

They might actually learn how to think!

A long time ago, my dad told me that that is what school is for.

I never, ever forgot.

K&R

[JeffR]

2. My question is: Are the so-called adults learnin'?

And apparently for a good 20% or so, the answer would be an emphatic no. And of course this same lunatic fringe would have been sitting up on their hind legs and cheering like meth-crazed baboons had their almighty W thought to speak to school kids this way.

[rwheeler31]

3. Ohoo forbidding books.

[HopeOverFear]

4. You should write for Bill Maher...seriously.

Because that is A+ comic material right there. I can HEAR him saying every one of those words.

[slay]

5. K&R

Excellent post as usual Nance - I always enjoy them - you are an excellent writer. Your point about the fear these people have - despite it being irrational fear - is spot on.

*edited for spelling error

[intheflow]

6. Best rant in a long time, Nance!

It really is all about shutting the black man up, they'd never have pulled this level of bullshit outrage if he was a white Democrat. But as you say, the one thing the right never understands is how their own close-mindedness will come back to bite them in the ass--as it always does.

[madamesilverspurs]

7. Ya see?

This is ZACKLY what happens when them kids matriculates together and shares the same curriculums! That waht my Pappy said, anyways.







psssssttttt...the President is a Black guy, pass it on................

[mscuedawg]

17. No he's not...he's half white...

...at least that's the argument I got when I went 'round and 'round with a conservative hater after I brought up "could it be...racism?????"

[HillWilliam]

20. Hesh yore mouf. Decent rahtwangers don't matriculate

well, maybe in the shower (but not really, they just wash fast). Everboddy knoOOOOOowwwwws the wages of matriculatin' is burnin in a lake of salt... or was that a pillar of smoke by day? I fergits. They dassn't need to read it for thierself; preachah will tell thim what to think. If thay needs to think at all. That thinkin stuffs plain too hard. Thay'd druther be out at Wal-Mart, half-nekkid with there buttcrack showin', with thayr wife stuffed into a tube top 14 sizes too small, lookin' like a can of biscuits busted open, buyin thair next piece of cheap Chinese shit. As a dedimacadid Repulican, it's ther job to consume imported crap at the expence of Amurrickan jobs.

But think? No'm. That isn't an agendum. Matriculate? They're damned sure that's downright sinful. It's in the Bible -- they'll tell you flat-out.

But you can shore bet yore arse they will wave that red-white-and-blue bit of cloth in your face, printed to look just exactly like Old Glory while telling you what a patriot they are and you ain't, even if that bit of cloth says "Made in China" on it.

Sunsabitches.

Never take your eyes off them. These are people who will trespass into your backyard to steal the sheets off your line and the wood off the side of your shed. Then they'll go to someone else's yard they don't know to burn a cross and beat them with a bible they don't read. You never, ever turn your back on a cow, a moose, or a right-winger. They're equally stupid, equally unpredictable, and equally dangerous. Jeebus save us from your fan-club.

[bleever]

8. When those of us who went to the public grade school

crossed paths after school with the kids coming home from Catholic school, it was very clear (to me, at least), who had the most information about sin.

And damn it: I went to the same parish and Sunday school every Sunday! I was cheated by the failure of the public school system to outlaw enough stuff while detailing it to me!


Man, if porn ever gets on the internet, we're all in big trouble.

[Oldtimeralso]

9. My Daddy Won't Walk Me To Skool Tat day.

All Most eve ery otutter Days HE do, cause he due, cept the daze 8ight grade aint got no skool cause then he dont' got two go I goes at 6ixth grade. In for years i gonna pass he up. Daddy gona stay at 8ighth grade case he sweet on the teachr.
aInt Pubic edmacattion goodest in Freeperville.

[FrenchieCat]

10. Taboo is like a shiny object at the bottom of the pond....

hard to turn away from it...cause you want to know what it is!

[Mythsaje]

11. These people will believe just about any goddamn thing, if it's told to them by a preacher or

a Republican politician. They don't have an ounce of common sense between them.

[rosesaylavee]

12. Nance - I hope this happens.

I had the same optimistic thought last night as I was reading that my very own school district here in IL is one that offered an 'opt out' to parents who didn't want their children to hear the President. Well, I am engaging in that battle today with our superintendent, the president of the school board and possibly others in our broken edumacational system here and I will use this idea that they are giving props to basic human curiosity. I doubt tho that it will send as big a chill to them as their letter to parents did to mine.

[asdjrocky]

13. This-

"One can imagine the déjà vu-invoked trauma these kids might experience – fearing that this might be yet another time when a president interacting with students will end with him sitting there doing nothing while their nation is under attack."

And this-

"Also to be considered is the uncomfortable questions some moms and dads would face should their children make that oh-so-obvious comparison: “Hey, mommy, how come this president makes sense when he talks, and the ‘nother one sounded like an idiot?”"

Just two reasons why I always click on NanceGreggs posts.


Another winner.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

14. I tried to select a snippet to paste

That moment in this rant that had me grinning/cackling with glee the most. There is no one line, no such high point. It's all gold Nance.

Bravissimo.

[JBoy]

15. Unfortunately there isn't a "No Child of Teabaggers Left Behind" program.

[Wetzelbill]

16. I heard a few years ago that somebody wanted to ban Powerpoint

from being taught and used in their local school district because Al Gore used it in An Inconvenient Truth.

I just knew that if that got people all bothered, then the idea of a black man, a Dem no less, being broadcast to their children would really have them riled up.

I have to say, I remember Reagan speaking to kids at school, I was one of them. I wouldn't care if Bush did it or whomever, it's the damn President of the United States, I would hope they would take an interest in the education of children. It's just stupid to get mad over something like this. We live in a country where a certain segment of the population are outright fools.

[LuckyLib]

18. Kids who would have snoozed through the President's speech will have devoured it

on YouTube by the next morning. Ain't censorship wonderful? Nothing quite so motivating!

[asdjrocky]

19. kick

[intheflow]

21. Kicking again b/c this is too good to let sink!

[helderheid]

22. My children will be staying home Tuesday, not because they are showing the address, but because they

WON'T show the address at their school. They'll stay home with me and watch it on C-Span, and then I'll take them back to school for the remainder of the day.

[NanceGreggs]

23. Well done, Helderheid!

[helderheid]

26. Thanks!!

[Anakin Skywalker]

24. RW says: "Matriculate? You Can't Do That!"

"You'll go blind and grow hair in back of your hands!"

[Cha]

25. On one side we have The Willful Dumbing Down of America..

and over here we have the brand new Obama Administration trying to do something about that.

"I predict that the YouTube posts of Obama’s speech are going to be very popular, because nothing has the allure of the forbidden – and nothing resonates in an impressionable young mind like the very words he was warned not to heed."

That's right..I feel good about this now.

Thanks Nance~