Pharyngula

Posted by: Susan | July 10, 2009 1:18 PM

Sounds like it's time to work on picking a new Governor.

Posted by: tsg | July 10, 2009 1:20 PM

Dunbar may have been the extreme right misdirection to make Lowe look reasonable by comparison. Now he can claim he's trying to meet them halfway.

Posted by: Ed Darrell | July 10, 2009 1:33 PM

Lowe has voted with education friends, parents and science on a few occasions. The question is whether she will break from the fold now, or will she hold to McLeroy's policies of trying to piss off as many parents, teachers, administrators, and attackers of Ray Mummert as possible.

Bad sign: Lowe is the one who asked that the radical reconstructionist David Barton be appointed to look at social studies curricula. That doesn't mean she's not approachable.

But yeah, it looks like Perry is doing his best to help Kay Bailey Hutchison get the Republican nomination for governor.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/perry-to-texas-education-drop-dead-but-not-as-fast-as-before/

Posted by: raven | July 10, 2009 1:59 PM

I doubt if Perry really wanted to appoint anyone but Cynthia Dunbar.

She is a xian Dom, who wants to overthrow the US government and set up a silly theocracy. They've worked so well in Iran, Somalia, and Afghanistan after all.

Wants to destroy public education. Never mind that we've had it for centuries and became the world's last superpower anyway.

Thinks teaching evolution leads to cannibalism and has said so in mailings. Never mind that her moral advisor, Jeffrey Dahmer, was raised in a fundie xian houselhold.

Sounds just like Perry's kind. He probably did the calculations and decided that Dunbar would cost him a few votes down the line. It is the difference between appointing a rat and a rat with lipstick and glasses

Posted by: advertisinglies | July 10, 2009 2:11 PM

Yikes, poor Texas school children:

In 2004 Ms. Lowe opposed requiring that publishers obey curriculum standards and put medically accurate information about responsible pregnancy and disease prevention in new high school health textbooks.

In 2007 Ms. Lowe voted to throw out nearly three years of work by teacher writing teams on new language arts standards. Over the strenuous objections of teachers and curriculum specialists, Lowe instead voted for a standards document that the board’s far-right bloc patched together overnight and slipped under hotel doors the morning of the final vote.

In 2003 and 2009 Ms. Lowe supported dumbing down the state’s public school science curriculum by voting to include unscientific, creationist criticisms of evolution in science textbooks and curriculum standards.

Posted by: IBY | July 10, 2009 2:57 PM

So, some nutter is not chosen for the board of education, and so they choose another nutter? Smart. This is never going to end...

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 10, 2009 3:10 PM

So who didn't expect a lot of song and dance once you mix learners with Lowe?

Posted by: arrakis | July 10, 2009 3:17 PM

To borrow from the hallowed Dr. Seuss:

A nutter's a nutter,
No matter how small.

Posted by: Felix | July 10, 2009 3:42 PM

A pro-censorship, anti-sex-ed, homophobic global warming denier.

Have fun, gais!

I for one will be laughing, happy that I'm very far away. Yeah, some days I'm an asshole like that. ;)
And to boot, I'll be having a Weizen Dunkel now. Cheers, PZ!

Posted by: tsg | July 10, 2009 4:06 PM

You know, I do this trick with my son, offering him two choices: the one I want him to do and one much more detestable from his point of view. He's eight and he's figured it out.

Posted by: Blaine | July 10, 2009 4:15 PM

How is this not surprising at all? Such a sad state of affairs in this day and age when I can't even begin to work up any outrage over the appointment of a fundie to an educational board. It just seems so common place these days, even cliche. This whole episode just comes off like a really bad reality TV show (Fundie Swap perhaps?), with the Governer as the hose.

Posted by: Alyson Miers | July 10, 2009 4:35 PM

@#9:

What exactly did she have against the new language arts standards? Does she think good grammar is anti-Christian or something?

Posted by: tsg | July 10, 2009 4:42 PM

Perry must be following the words of Judge Smails:

"Well, the world needs ditch-diggers, too."

Posted by: Doug Little | July 10, 2009 4:58 PM

At least the court system is still upholding the law when it comes to this matter. They can't really get away with much otherwise they will get sued into oblivion. Of course it doesn't stop them trying.

Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | July 10, 2009 5:38 PM

I'm torn between being happy I don't live in the state of Texas anymore and sad for those that still do. Gawd, what a god-soaked shithole that place is at times!

Posted by: MadScientist | July 10, 2009 6:31 PM

@CW: That's why I'm hoping the governator's plans to get rid of textbooks in California actually works (I doubt it's a dumbass Dunbar inspired plot). Let university teachers and dedicated primary and secondary teachers collaborate to write what goes in and if you need a dead tree edition you can shop around for printers. It should also be a good starting point for having greater cohesion in schools across the nation. Such projects would require a lot of work and coordination between hundreds of organizations, but it can be done and I imagine a decent textbook in any subject can be created in under 2 years. On the other hand, the opposition to change will be huge - there are too many cavepeople out there that don't like change.

Posted by: Newfie | July 10, 2009 8:52 PM

Looks like Olby didn't get the memo... he just did a rant on Dunbar and Perry.

Posted by: Josh | July 10, 2009 10:42 PM

"She appointed David Barton to the so-called 'expert' panel for the social studies curriculum revision." Scary.

But surely more people than "inveterate Broadway fans" know My Fair Lady and Gigi? They were movies, after all.

Posted by: freelunch | July 10, 2009 11:00 PM

mutter, mutter, preview is my friend...

But surely more people than "inveterate Broadway fans" know My Fair Lady and Gigi? They were movies, after all.

That must be why the governor was heard singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" after he announced his choice.

Posted by: Kseniya | July 10, 2009 11:56 PM

"She appointed David Barton to the so-called 'expert' panel for the social studies curriculum revision." Scary.

ARE YOU SERIOUS? Barton, a known (and self-admitted) quote-fabricator and liar?? Holy frakking toaster spawn, Admiral!

Posted by: Autumn | July 11, 2009 1:31 AM

Yeah, I know, violence is wrong, but maybe someone in Austin can at least manage a cream pie or a water balloon every time this twit appears in public?

Posted by: gb | July 11, 2009 2:45 AM

Alberta (Canada) is often referred to as 'Texas of the North' because of its large creationist population. Fortunately our education system is still in fine and competent hands, and perhaps, can be a model of what Texans can look forward to if they keep the pressure on the educators to teach good science. Here in grade 11 science class they do teach a bit about ID through the use of the Landmark Trial case Kitzmiller vs Dover via the Nova film Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.
(need to scroll down to about the 9th reference)

http://education.alberta.ca/search.asp?q=cache:IikmtIPB2q0J:lrc.education.gov.ab.ca/pro/resources/item-course-p.htm%3Flanguage%3DE%26levelgrade%3DG%26subject%3DSC%26levelgradeno%3D11%26pagesize%3D25%26currPage%3D4+evolution&site=EdNew&client=EdNew&access=p&ie=UTF-8&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=EdNew&oe=ISO-8859-1

Posted by: Troy | July 11, 2009 4:22 AM

Is it possible for you to change the way these board members get elected, so it doesn't depend on random political circumstances but on the grounds of professional standards?

It seems really odd that you have such system in the first place.

Posted by: Aquaria | July 11, 2009 5:29 AM

#45:

Something other than voting in the creeps wouldn't necessarily be better. Who would pick a board of education? Do you realize that all branches of government here are held by people who dance so well to the Religious Right's tune that they're a hayseed Joffrey?

We're screwed here in Texas, no matter what method is used to deal with education. The only recourse we have left is to alert the rest of the nation, so that they can howl with laughter at us. Or for some brave soul to file suit. Ridicule and legal smackdowns are the only things that keep this state from taking a flying leap into the stupid abyss.

What's sad is that this situation is better than what we had, before the 80s, where 2 blisteringly stupid theotards sell-appointed themselves as arbiters of what Texas kids could learn. If you want to know why Texans are so profoundly ignorant today, beyond their own laziness and arrogance, blame the Gablers. At least now the textbook selectors are in the open, where we can all see. Makes it easier to point and laugh at them.

Posted by: matt | July 11, 2009 8:42 AM

normal countries...what the f@#$ ?
You Americans are really weird.

well at least they havent passed a blasphemy law... yet! lol

Posted by: debaser71 | July 11, 2009 11:53 AM

Here how it works. Threaten to appoint a loon. Receive some backlash. Then appoint a lesser loon and everyone is relieved. Remember Bush and Harriette Meyers?

Posted by: Joseph Kelly | July 11, 2009 1:21 PM

Christianist? Do we really need more -ist names to call each other?

Posted by: charley | July 12, 2009 8:45 AM

Here is Lowe smugly citing geologic evidence for the Noah's flood.

Posted by: James M. Martin | July 13, 2009 8:19 AM

Sadly, getting rid of The Hair will not do us any good: Kay Bailey Hutchison is waiting in the wings. She will depart the U.S. Senate to run against Perry in the next Repub primary for the governorship. She isn't any better. Curiously, John Cornyn (our other senator) acknowledged on Fox Noise Sunday that "thirty percent of my electorate is Hispanic" (when questioned about his position on Sotomayor), and you'd think these people, voting as a block, could install a Dem in the governor's mansion, but it doesn't manage to happen. It will be The Hair or the mindless blonde bimbo. Either way, we will continue to get dangerous lunatics heading our state board of education, working toward having creationism taught side by side as science in our public schools.