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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
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Posted on: March 22, 2010 9:23 AM, by Ed Brayton
The Daily Show had a predictably amusing take on the Texas fight over social studies. And he didn't even go after any of the really ridiculous changes or the really crazy ones like Cynthia Dunbar and Terri Leo. Video below the fold.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Don't Mess With Textbooks | ||||
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Politics
Comments
Stewart is great as usual. The board members he singles out are shown as effectively dumb as stumps. Anyone who values the future of public education ought to be figuring out how to cut Texass out of the lead role they currently play.
I hope e-books can allow the majority of kids to get non-TX standards or that the textbook makers tell Texass to sit on it and rotate.
Posted by: MikeMa | March 22, 2010 9:37 AM
If Stewart fisked all of the stupidity of the Texas BOE, he'd have a 2-hour special report.
Posted by: wheatdogg | March 22, 2010 10:47 AM
Maybe it's just me, but I'd pay good money to watch a 2-hour special of Jon Stewart fisking the Texas BOE.
Props to the Daily Show writers for that closing line: "And that's how Oscar Romero got disappeared by right wingers for the second time." Ouch. Nice one.
Posted by: Mara | March 22, 2010 11:19 AM
I really liked the response to MacLeroy's "stand up to the experts" comment.
Posted by: Jeremy Shaffer | March 22, 2010 12:35 PM
My high school biology teacher would go on and on about how lucky we were to get to use a textbook that had *not* been approved by Texas because we got to learn about evolution and DNA in every chapter, instead of that last chapter at the end of the book that no one reads.
Clearly I should be grateful that none of my textbooks would have made it in Texas.
Posted by: JustaTech | March 22, 2010 2:45 PM
I can't quite tell, but at 1:30-1:40, it sounds to me like he says that conquerers eliminate "any concerted opposition," not "any conservative opposition."
Posted by: Miko | March 22, 2010 3:37 PM
Wheatdogg,
I'd think they could find 2 hours of teh Stoopid in a half hour board meeting.
Posted by: BaldApe | March 22, 2010 5:50 PM
Miko,
Honestly, Ken Mercer enunciates so badly that it sounds like he's talking about a "cock ring army".
I agree that it's hard to know which he said, but if you compare how he pronounces "conservative" in his introduction at 1:23ish, it sounds a lot like what the cock ring army eliminates - especially once you speed it up to normal talking speed, and not slow phatic groupspeak so the slow people know who to identify with.
Posted by: Tacroy | March 22, 2010 6:42 PM
Maybe it's just me, but I'd pay good money to watch a 2-hour special of the "cock-ring army."
Posted by: Tex | March 22, 2010 11:39 PM
I can't quite tell, but at 1:30-1:40, it sounds to me like he says that conquerers eliminate "any concerted opposition," not "any conservative opposition."
I think he said conservative. Here's the whole Mercer speech...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX3Spcj4tqw
The elite establishment is trying to knock out the true conservatives. Conservatives are never the elite establishment, and they are always being conquered, I guess. Gee that really makes me want to be a conservative.
Posted by: 386sx | March 23, 2010 12:17 AM
Miko@8 --
Along the same lines,
"Hail the Cock-ring Hero!"
"I came, I saw, I cock-ringed." (perhaps not in that order)
The latest game sensation, "Command and Cock-ring."
None of these I suspect would play well in some parts of Texas.
Posted by: wheatdogg | March 23, 2010 12:27 AM
Quote: "You know, history tell us that when a conquering army comes in, the first thing they do is eliminate any conservative opposition, and then they want to rewrite history to fit their agenda."
Conservatives... the vanguards of history...
Posted by: 386sx | March 23, 2010 12:38 AM
Help two Texas Democrats pick up Republican-held seats on the board: http://www.painttexasblue.com
Posted by: Al Stanley | March 23, 2010 2:31 AM
Anybody notice that the background music to Mercer's campaign ad is "Marching Through Georgia"? (That's the Civil War marching song celebrating Sherman's destruction of the Southern traitors.)
Posted by: Jeffrey Kramer | March 23, 2010 7:20 AM
Jeffrey Kramer – the RRRR's completely overlooking the concept of "irony" is really less than amazing, logic is really not their strong point. -Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | March 23, 2010 8:55 AM
Can't view the video outside the US, it seems... I guess a transcript would be too much to ask for? :)
Posted by: Rokkaku | March 23, 2010 9:08 AM
Jeffrey Kramer at 14- That isn't too surprising since the board members in question seem to want to place Confederate personalities (such as Jefferson Davis and "Stonewall" Jackson) in a far more favorable light.
Posted by: Jeremy Shaffer | March 23, 2010 12:15 PM
But Jeremy, wouldn't you think Mercer's using a march celebrating the devastation wrought by the Yankee invaders should make the pro-Confederates rise up in outrage?
Posted by: Jeffrey Kramer | March 23, 2010 1:41 PM
Stewart rightly ridicules the numbskulls of the TBoE for claiming no one's ever heard of Archbishop Romero. By one of those sweet coincidences, this feature turned up on the BBC website tonight (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8580840.stm):
El Salvador marks archbishop's murder 30 years on
Sister Luz Isabel Cueva vividly remembers the moment Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was murdered as he celebrated Mass on 24 March 1980. . . .
. . . and so on for a longish piece.
Posted by: JG | March 23, 2010 11:25 PM
OK guys stop with the cock-ring thing, I can't stop laughing and this is a serious issue...
That moron Hardy really illustrates wrong-wing ideology and fundamentalist mindset. They enforce conformity of belief. No original or contrary thoughts are permitted nor is any information that could conceivably lead to contrary thoughts. It is frightening that these people are in our midst let alone that they have this amount of power. Makes me wish that Texas secessionists would succeed.
Posted by: Chris | March 24, 2010 8:31 PM