aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Friday, June 03, 2005
PPP III
When I was a kid you had to get a permission slip to play sports. Here in Georgia the “Parent’s Permission to Participate Bill” specifically promises to exempt sports. So what kind of activity will you need your parent’s permission for? Participation in extracurricular activities and clubs in schools.
“This would be devastating to the kids that want to participate in gay-straight alliances at their schools, especially the kids who aren’t out yet and would have to come out to their parents in order to get permission to join,” said Chuck Bowen, executive director of the statewide gay rights group Georgia Equality.
The State Department of Education will consider a new regulation next Wednesday which would require parental permission before a student could participate in school extracurricular activities.
This regulation is as a result of one proposed a few months ago which was defeated in spite of the support of Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Education who is a former Republican House Member and supporter of the conservative Christian Coalition.
Should this measure be adopted by the school board, it is likely that similar efforts will be pushed in other states with the support of the conservative right.
Lest you think this bill is being mischaracterized by gay people, recall this email from Sadie Fields, Georgia Christian Coalition leader (and mother of an out lesbian daughter):
S. B. 149 and H. B. 661 are bills that would require schools to notify parents or guardians of all clubs and activities on school grounds and would require parental permission for students to join or participate in any of them.
These bills have been heavily lobbied against by the homosexual community as they continue to form “Gay-Straight Alliance” clubs in pubic schools around the state without any notification being sent to parents about these clubs. In 2001 there were two such clubs in schools in Georgia—today there are 33 such clubs in schools in Georgia.
This issue just won’t go away. It was defeated last time around. Last time around was less than 2 months ago.
Too much democracy
Remember that Atlanta schools iBook deal?
MARIETTA, Ga. - A former Cobb County commissioner, accusing school officials of planning to misspend taxpayers’ money, has filed a lawsuit to stop a laptop computer program.
Former Commissioner Butch Thompson filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming that voters were not informed that a 1 percent sales tax would be used to start the program.
County voters approved the tax in 2003. As they did, school officials said they would replace students’ “obsolete workstations.” The lawsuit contends that language was not specific enough to inform voters that the system intended to provide computers for all students in grades six through 12.
We complain about our public schools while public schools are the most democratically accountable institutions. Give them those rights and obligations required to do their work, then butt out!
Novak on Hillary bashing
From Media Matters:
From a discussion of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) between co-hosts Robert D. Novak and Paul Begala on the June 2 edition of CNN’s Crossfire:
BEGALA: But I love to see the Hillary-bashing from the right. It tells me that she is probably the most powerful and effective progressive on the Democratic side, and I have three words for you: God bless Hillary.
NOVAK: Well, see, I don’t --
BEGALA: God bless her.
NOVAK: I don’t—I don’t bash Hillary because I think she’s weak. I don’t bash her because I think she is strong. I bash her because I like to.
God bless her.
Hollow army
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/3/122340/1926">Kos quotes an army memo on attrition then commments:
...batallion commanders once had the power to kick people out for drug abuse, failure to meet physical fitnes guidelines, poor conduct, etc. Now they don’t, as that is thinning out ranks at a time when the Army is having trouble filling its ranks.
This is one step closer to an Army of malcontents and drug users. Shades of Vietnam, yet again.
These people are destroying our military.
Drugs are ok, who cares about fitness or bad conduct, but keep out those gays!
Be confident
Romenesko points to a letter from Forrest Brown (of selling newsroom access fame) at the Charlotte Observer:
The newspaper industry in 2005 is [a] hand-wringing nerd. And it’s time to get over it. It’s time quit worrying about what Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or Al Sharpton or some White House official or some always-irate, prolific letter writer might say or do in reaction to our work. We need to quit letting these self-absorbed, biased, agenda-obsessed critics send us into paroxysms of self-doubt and public crying jags. In America, nobody respects a crybaby.
Dems would do well to heed that same kind of advice as they choose their candidate.
