"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
Fighting for hearts and minds
GOP Debate Audience Boos Contraception. Oh give me a break! Nearly everyone in that audience uses contraception or has a spouse who does, and none of them are planning to give it up. So what are they really booing? They’re booing the other tribe: liberals, Democrats, progressives, those hippies down in Tucson. A rough translation […]
I took a blogging break over the weekend. A friend came to visit and we put him up on the Murphy bed in the home office, limiting our access to the computers. Yeah, I could have done something with the iPad, but who has the patience to peck out an entire blog post with one […]
No, I haven’t turned into a teabagger. This is one of my periodic “bag” posts, a collection of links and short observations that by themselves wouldn’t get a post of their own. ——————– As a motorcycle rider, I’ve always thought there’s something wrong with law enforcement and the courts when it comes to cagers who […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic roundup of news about banned and challenged books. Right on the heels of the racially-motivated confiscation and banning of textbooks in Tucson schools (see my previous posts, here and here) comes SB 1467, a bill before the Arizona state legislature that will require teachers to limit their speech […]
I grew up thinking there were a couple of ground rules to the sport of democracy as it is played in the United States. One is the separation of church and state, the other is the protection of minority rights. If you’re a typical American, you don’t want your government taken over by a religious […]
A friend posted a nasty little joke photo to Facebook. No, not the one on the left, which is just one of many anti-Michelle Obama images I found on the net. His showed Lucy and Ricky facing each other with caption balloons above their heads. Lucy: “The doctor says I can’t have sex for six […]
You Can’t Read That! is a periodic post featuring news about banned and challenged books. My local school district in Tucson, Arizona is at the center of a growing national and international scandal over the racially-motivated confiscation and banning of textbooks, novels, and plays. I wrote about the district’s actions here and here. To reach […]
Two days ago I wrote about the cancellation of Mexican American and Native American Studies classes in Tucson high schools, and the large-scale book banning that followed. Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) officials confiscated books and other materials used in the cancelled classes, boxed them, and shipped them to a storage facility. Local, national, and […]