Right result, faulty reasoning -- on the part of the editorialist

The concluding paragraph got it right when it praised Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia:

What is reassuring, though, is that in the term just completed, the justices were able to put principle ahead of politics as they charted a course through turbulent times.

Unfortunately, that was the only thing the editorialist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch got right in this editorial.

After all, the editorial takes a slap at the 7-2 decision in Bush v. Gore that held that the Florida recount ordered by the Supreme Court of Florida (SCOFLA) was too constitutionally flawed to continue. Apparently the editorialist prefers a recount in which the standard for counting a vote varies from county to county within the state and from table to table within the counting room.

And there is also the labeling of abortion as a "basic right" despite the fact that it took nearly two centuries for it to be discovered by the Supreme Court. Even then the justices who decided Roe v. Wade couldn't agree on why abortion was a fundamental right and where it was found in the constitution, much less how it could have been consistently overlooked from the time of the Founders until January 22, 1973. The decision in the case is generally conceded to be among the worst in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).

What the editorialist does not understand is that the two justices praised are possibly the two most consistently principled SCOTUS justices today. While Scalia's "originalist" views and Thomas' "textualism" may put these justices outside the mainstream of the editorial committees of the left-wing media, they are both judicial philosophies which hold as their bright-shining principle that the Constitution means what it says. It is the more liberal wing of SCOTUS that flies far afield, unmoored to any fixed principle upon which it can rely.

But since the editorialist only likes Scalia and Thomas (and, one would presume, Chief Justice Rehnquist) when their decisions are in accord with the ACLU view of the world, I'm inclined to believe that the editorialist cared not a whit for principle.

Posted by: Greg at 09:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 376 words, total size 3 kb.

Who runs the schools, if not the board?

This article about the schools in Dupo, Illinois caught my eye, since it is also from my old neck of the woods. Now I don't really have a dog in this fight, because I'm a long way away and am ambivalent about out-sourcing support services.

Then why am I writing about it? Well, it is because of two little nuggets, packed right together in the middle of the article:

School Board President Brian Thompson confirmed that the board had gone out for a bid, but he was not allowed to provide any more details on the subject. He also stated that seeking a bid was not the board's wish, but he would not comment on where that decision came from.

Really, Mr. Thompson? The elected board of the district didn't want to seek bids, but they are being sought anyway? Whose idea was it? Who authorized it? Why didn't the board stop it if seeking such bids is not in line with the wishes of the board? And why can't you provide any further details? You are the elected president of the board -- one of the people who is responsible for running the district! Who is running the show in the district ifnot you and your fellow board members?

"Everything's in negotiations and there is a media blackout on negotiations. When everything has been negotiated then everyone will get to vote, including them, on a settlement," said Superintendent Michael Koebel, as he motioned toward the protesting crowd.

Hold on. A media blackout? By whose orders? And what exactly is being negotiated? I thought you were only seeking bids. Sounds to me like you are already setting up a contract, and that a decision has already been made to let the contract. Is that the case? If so, who made that decision? And what kind of settlement are we talking about here? With whom? We've gone from bids to negotiations to settlements. And by the way -- since when do the voters of the district get to vote on contracts let by the district. Last time I checked, they only got to vote on bond issues, not day-to-day operational decisions.

Sounds to me like there is a fast one being pulled on the people of the Dupo School District. I hope they keep up the good work, and hold these folks accountable.

Posted by: Greg at 08:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 408 words, total size 3 kb.

Schools try to stop perverts, but some just "pass the trash"

I've talked about child abuse and other sex-related misbehavior on this site before. When I commented on the Shakestaff study last week, I expressed my concern about it giving rise to a hysteria akin to what we have seen with regard to priests. Carolyn Bower's article doesn't reassure me. It includes examples in which teachers are simply allowed to resign to move to another district, and districts not checking up on the employment history of newly hired teachers. And it includes this little nugget:

The practice of allowing a school district employee accused of sexual misconduct to resign to take a job in another district is known among school officials as "passing the trash." The practice can perpetuate sexual harassment or abuse in schools.

The article then goes on to quote a lawyer for several districts, who claims that schools don't do this -- anymore. At least not in the last 10 years. We're then told that there are procedures in case to revoke teacher certification without a conviction, or even the filing of criminal charges.

I guess I still feel concerned. Both for victimized students, and for fellow teachers falsely accused.

Posted by: Greg at 08:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 214 words, total size 2 kb.

Closed schools left to vandals; books, equipment, and student records abandoned

Some days you want to scream at the stupidity, waste, and irresponsibility of school district administrators. This story from St. Louis certainly provokes such a reaction from me.

The description of Lowell Elementary School makes the incompetence of those responsible for the mothballing of the school quite obvious:

Though the entire school is in disarray, the epicenter of the destruction at Lowell seems to be the art room. There, vandals found jugs of paint and splattered the contents around the building. The windows in one classroom have been painted black. Another room has a message on the chalkboard, "Save our Schools." Next to it is the date "July 15, 2003," the day the School Board voted to close Lowell.

A soda machine in the teachers lounge lies on its side. "They worked really hard at that one," Sirna says, eyeing the hacked machine. "Pepsi probably wants their machine back."

The closed schools were supposed to be cleaned out before they were locked up. It's clear the process stopped. Hundreds of books - encyclopedias, science texts, a collection of the Oedipus plays - lie abandoned.

Sirna says the bags of trash in the hallways are the work of district custodians who collected the garbage but never took it out of the building.

Perhaps most startling of what remains are file cabinets full of student records, some of which have been dumped on the floor of the former school office. One form is part of a student's special education learning plan. It shows he is "mildly mentally retarded," and has his Social Security number, phone number and mother's home address.

So let's look at the problems.

1. Confidential student records -- required by law to be stored in a place both secure and accessible to the students' current schools -- were left abandoned and unsecured. Right there you have several thousand violations of laws related to special education, student health, and other issues, all in one school.

2. School supplies were not removed. Why weren't books and other supplies taken to the nearest appropriate school, or even to a central supply warehouse, so that they could be used rather than destroyed? How many hundreds of thousands of dollars were left behind to rot?

3. Why weren't bags of trash taken out? It sounds to me like there was no supervision of the process of closing each school down.

4. The schools were given alarms, but those were quickly bypassed. According to the article, the schools were largely ignored from July to November. Why were they not better monitored? What is being done to liquidate this real estate? How much value was lost by allowing the deterioration of these properties?

5. When the problem was discovered, why did no one take sufficient action to deal with the above problems?

The Board just closed down five more schools in St. Louis, and vows to do a more thorough job. But what about Lowell and the other schools closed with it last summer?

Posted by: Greg at 08:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 520 words, total size 3 kb.

Priests support Archbishop Burke, face challenge

We've heard a lot about Archbishop Raymond Burke in recent weeks. After all, he is the archbishop who explicitly denied John Kerry communion in his archdiocese. He has also indicated that those who vote for pro-abortion politicians would sin by doing so.

Liberals, of course, have been outraged. But many of his priests are supportive, though faced with pastoral challenges. The folks in the pews are concerned -- especially since the president's position on allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest is not completely pure from a Catholic perspective. Some wonder if they can vote for any presidential candidate without sinning. Seems to me that the priests of the diocese have their work cut out of them between now and the election -- and beyond. It is a matter of suplying good moral formation.

I was very nearly ordainded for the diocese just across the river from St. Louis. I actually looked at studying for the Archdiocese, so I have thought about this a lot. If I were one of these priests, the issue would an easy one. Some political positions are so far outside the bounds of moral acceptability that a vote for a candidate who takes sucha position is objectively sinful. One could never morally vote for a candidate who supported a return to slavery. One could never legitimately back a candidate who one knew favored genocide without sinning gravely, regardless of how good the rest of his positions were. Support for the status quo on abortion falls into the same category -- it is a sin to knowingly vote for a candidate who supports it if there is another option available. That is even more true if one embraces that candidate (even in part) because of that support for the abortion status quo.

But what about the situation in which there is no completely pro-life candidate? The answer, then is equally simple. One must cast the vote that is most likely to reduce the number of abortions. One has an obligation to try to stop evil in its tracks, and in such a clear-cut case there could be little moral doubt on how to vote.

Posted by: Greg at 07:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 371 words, total size 3 kb.

A plea to vote Democrat

I found this posted at Chasing the Wind and thought I would share. Seems to be the most effecive case I have seen made for a Kerry vote.

Dear Voters:

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind. I lost my job this past year.

When Clinton was president, I worked in a prosperous enterprise. But in the last year, we had to close our operations.

Far worse, I lost two of my sons in BushÂ’s evil war in Iraq. They gave their lives for their country, and for what? My pain of losing my sons is indescribable.

While it is trivial next to the loss of my sons, I regret to say that I also lost my homes. I simply have nothing left.

I am a senior citizen with various medical problems. IÂ’m not in a position to begin a new career. I was reduced to the point of homelessnessÂ… all because of President Bush.

And when the authorities found me, did they have any compassion for my misfortune and ailments? No, I was arrested and even my family and friends were wrongly kept from seeing me for many days. I am still waiting for my trial.

If I had any money left, I would donate most of it to the Democratic party. If Al Gore had been elected in 2000, I would still have a job, a home, and most importantly, my sons.

We need to get out the vote this year. Vote Kerry!

Regards,

Saddam Hussein

Posted by: Greg at 05:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 262 words, total size 2 kb.

And you wonder why I don't join the NEA

Once again proving that NEA membership should be grounds for termination from any position in education, the NEA is about to award the "2004 Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights" to Kevin Jennings of GLSEN, a group dedicated to "incorporating homosexual concepts into all curriculum."


There is a loud objection from two NEA specialty caucuses within the NEA, calling for the award to be canceled. Members of the NEA Republican Educators Caucus object to the award because Jennings has admitted in one of his books that he failed to make a report of child sexual abuse as mandated by law. And the head of the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus points out that Jennings advocates the ruthless suppression of speech in school that supports the position that a homosexual can change his or her sexual orientation.

I find a couple of interesting points in all of this. First, the NEA seems to have defined "Human Rights" to mean "Gay Rights." The award itself is named for a gay educator who specialized in creating programs on behalf of gay students. This would seem to leave out some 95-98% of the human race.

Second, that Jennings does not face the same type of moral condemnation and scorn heaped on Cardinal Law despite his failure to act to stop the sexual exploitation of a student is indicative of the double standard that exists in our society. Homosexuals are generally allowed to prey on young people in a manner that heterosexual pedophiles are not, because of the fear that acting to protect a child will be labeled "homophobic." I recall, for example, that police even returned Jeffrey Dahmer's last victim, a drugged underage boy running down the street in his underwear, to the cannibal killer because they had been instructed not to make a big fuss about the issue of gay men and underage boys out of "sensitivity" for the "gay community."

Third, Jennings is not tolerant, nor is he willing to allow for an open exchange of ideas in an academic setting. He wants to shut down debate and punish dissent. Such a position is the antithesis of academic freedom, and should be condemned by real educators.

Lastly, how does one incorporate homosexual concepts into all subjects? I'm all to aware of the attempts to classify historical figures as homosexual at a distance of several centuries based upon scanty evidence. I've seen the textbooks with "gay and lesbian literature" of dubious quality that teachers are "encouraged" to teach to be "inclusive." But how do you teach "Queer Chemistry" or "Transexual Typing"? And I don't even want to know about word problem in GLSEN-inspired math classes.

That's not to imply hostility to gay and lesbian students in my classroom. Quite the opposite. I demand that students show and be shown fundamental respect. I clamp down on anti-gay slurs in my room with an unambiguous ferocity. But what I refuse to do is suppress the beliefs of my students either way. Because of this my gay students know they have an advocate who respects them, while those on the other side of the issue know that they and their beliefs are respected. The result is that my students in both categories learn who to live and work together cooperatively without being marginalized or homogenized. THAT is what education should be about.

Posted by: Greg at 06:53 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 576 words, total size 4 kb.

Bad taste? Or illegal threat?

New book centers on murder of President George W. Bush

One of my memories as a high school kid was the resignation of Jackie Kennedy Onassis from her job as a book editor at Viking because of her disgust over the company's plans to publish Shall We Tell the President?, by Jeffrey Archer. In it, he posited an assassination plot against President Teddy Kennedy. She found it unacceptable to make him the target given family history and acted to call attention to something very wrong. To this day it remains one of the things I most admired about her.

Fast forward to 2004. Author Nicholson Baker has written Checkpoint, all about an attempt to murder President George W. Bush. It is to be published in August by Knopf. I've got a problem with that, every bit as big as I did with the Archer plot to kill Teddy (a man I despise). Responsible people do not write about, plan about, the murder of the sitting president, whoever he may be.

here's hoping that Knopf gets a serious case of responsibility and pulps this piece of trash, or at least is responsible enough to wait until Mr. Bush is out of office, whether we are talking January 2005 or January 2009.

Posted by: Greg at 06:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 220 words, total size 1 kb.

Presumption of Innocence/Presumption of Guilt

Dan Abrams has an interesting piece on Jewish World Review today. In it, He talks about the legal concept of presumption of innocence. His point -- it does not and should not exist outside the courtroom.

Think about it. For to us presume someone innocent is for to us presume the authorities got it wrong whenever they arrest someone. I'm not willing to assume that unless I'm a juror. It's a legal fiction that was designed for the courtroom. Since the authorities have the power to take away someone's freedom, we force them to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and give the defendant the presumption of innocence.

Now that will be important for me next Tuesday, because I'll be headed downtown to the Jury Assembly room, and may get picked to sit on a case. I've got to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. But that does not meant that I have to assume that the Harris County sheriff or Precinct 8 Constables are a bunch of screw-ups incompetent to investigate even the source of the mess in a baby's diaper. I instead need to require that the prosecution show me sufficient evidence to convince me that their judgment is correct.

What that does not mean is that I cannot make judgments on every other case in the world besides the one I sit on. If I have concluded Michael Jackson to be a marauding pedophile and Scott Peterson to be a philandering sociopath, I've done nothing wrong. I am not required to believe that Kobe's accuser is a lying slut after money just because there is not yet a conviction (though that may be his defense). The fate of those men is not in my hands.

I'm pleased that I don't know of any big cases coming up here in Houston at this time. I'm glad I dodged the Clara Harris (4 miles away) and Andrea Yates (7 miles away) cases. I got picked last time for a capital murder case and caused a mistrial -- how could I know during voir dire that on the first day I would look out, see one of my former students in the midst of the victim's family, and realize that she was the victim's little sister? The fact that I had held her in my arms outside my classroom a few days after the murder while she wept her way through an explanation of why she wasn't ready for my test made me incapable of presuming innocence.

So here's looking to Tuesday. I hope I get excused.

Posted by: Greg at 05:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 440 words, total size 3 kb.

Liberal outrage as Bush encourages white churches to politic like black churches!

It is no secret that religious conservatives are a core constituency of the Bush campaign, and of the GOP as a whole. So it should be no surprise that the Bush campaign is seeking to activate conservative Christian voters. These efforts have produced much heavy breathing among liberals, who find the notion of white churches doing for Republicans what black churches traditionally do for Democrats to be both illegal and immoral.

The Bush campaign has been encouraging religious supporters to campaign within their congregations. A checklist has been sent to members of churches identified as Republican friendly, asking them to send copies of church directories and urging them to ask their pastors to hold a "Citizenship Sunday", complete with a voter registration drive and a reminder of the duty of Christians to vote. These supporters, who are usually individual parishioners rather than church staff members, are also encouraged to recruit volunteers, speak to church organizations, and distribute issue guides.

In other words, what is being sought is individual participation, not church endorsements. Such things have been customary in the black community for generations. And the Bush appeal falls far short of the pulpit endorsements that we have seen black pastors make over the years, anointing the Democrat candidate with the mantle of "God's candidate" and (here in Texas where we have early voting) loading up charter buses to take folks to the polling station immediately after the sermon.

Perhaps most amusing is this paragraph:

"I think it is sinful of them to encourage pastors and churches to engage in partisan political activity and run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status," said Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer of America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush.

Sinful? Really? Well who are you to attempt to impose your morality on anyone. And since when is political action by individuals, even religious individuals, grounds for punishment by the government. Almost every request is for the individuals to act, not the churches. Those things that a church might do are expressly permitted under the law, or have been in the past when black churches did them. Why are you afraid of white Christian participation?

Posted by: Greg at 02:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 386 words, total size 3 kb.

Eliminate the border with Mexico?

Better idea -- let's just invade and push the US border south to Guatemala. Half of Mexico is already here anyway.

The new Mexican official in charge of border affairs wants to eliminate the border between the US and Mexico. Arturo Gonzalez Cruz has as an immediate goal making border crossing easier for purposes of trade and immigration, but has said the eventual goal is to eliminate it.

From an American perspective, this is a bad idea. We have too many illegal aliens in this country already. These folks have too great an influence on our government as it is, aided and abetted by the Mexican government. What we need to do is make it harder to cross, even at the risk of decreasing trade.

Either that, or rev up the tanks and forcibly annex Mexico down to the Guatemalan border.

Posted by: Greg at 01:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 151 words, total size 1 kb.

A Heresy Trial for Kerry?

In a that is as bold as it is stunning, a canon lawyer from Los Angeles has filed a complaint with the ecclesiastical court of the Archdiocese of Boston accusing Senator John Kerry with heresy. The filing, which could result in the excommunication of Kerry from the Catholic Church, has been undertaken by Marc Balestrieri, an official with the ecclesiastical court of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and member of the conservative Catholic organization "DeFide". A copy of the filing is on the organization's website, as is a link enabling the public to add their names to the complaint.

In the complaint, Kerry is accused of publicly adhering to the "Right to Murder heresy" for his pro-abortion speeches and votes during his Senate career. By doing so, Kerry is alleged to have placed himself outside the Catholic Church and to have done harm to it by representing his position as authentically and acceptably Catholic. According to Balestrieri, his action comes because of the failure of bishops to act on the matter of pro-abortion Catholic politicians in the 31 years since Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court.

Canon law experts cited in the article note that the Archdiocese of Boston may choose to take no action. In that event, Balestrieri has the option of appealing to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Posted by: Greg at 01:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.