It takes a lot to piss me off – but Jefferson is the darling and hero of many “normal” conservative, and certainly among the top 5 founders – maybe Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Adams………Franklin, etc.
But the far right Texas School book people just decided to write him OUT of history as far as his importance….
Their reasoning? Obviously that he was a Deist and a man of the Enlightenment – in other words, he failed their religious test!
“Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas….
The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards. We’re just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board’s far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America’s exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America’s Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/13/texas-textbook-massacre-u_n_498003.html
Why does it seem that Texas, a state which 1/2 the folks want to leave the Union anyway, has such an outsized (See: GW, etc.) effect on this country?
They are also removing stuff about civil rights and lots of other things the far right doesn’t like to think about.
Sorry, my conservative friends, but I don’t want to hear you tell me in the future how we are falling further and further behind the rest of the world…when we can’t even teach our kids about honest history.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795 Read More…
A society or economy or country built entirely on the ethic of survival of the fittest simply will not work. Here are some examples…
A talented and strong employee stays employed due to his experience and capabilities. But what if he falls off a ladder next week, hits his head and loses a good part of his cognition? Would we then tell him to become homeless or that he does not deserve a job? Read More…
I just love the parts of Gump where he ends up being in the right or wrong places at various times in history! One scene shows him in with LBJ, another addressing one of the largest anti-war rallies in history. He buys some stock in a fruit company (Apple Computer) and inspires John Lennon to write the song “Imagine”. Read More…
Soon after my childhood sweetheart moved in with me, we both developed a case of wanderlust. We had both been working jobs in the center city philly area, and although it was an interesting existence we knew that we would eventually have to get out of the city in order to experience the real world. We hatched a plan to save up some money and take a trip to Jamaica, a place which seemed quite exotic at the time (1970-71). Besides, we heard they had some decent pot at very low prices!
Read More…
Posted in
Teenage at February 6th, 2010.
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This gallery, which I put together for a recent inventors club speaking engagement I did, has some pics from over the decades of products and ventures I have been involved in.
This page on Hearth.com mentions some of my other background.
This wiki entry fills in some other work and play history…….much of what is missing will be filled in as we merrily roll along.
Posted in
About,
Pursuits at February 6th, 2010.
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