Last year I blogged about Muslims in Baltimore County, Maryland, demanding that Muslim holidays be added to the government school calendar.
Last week, school board members refused the request. From the article:
Baltimore County public school officials have said that adding Muslim holidays to the school calendars is unlawful and “irresponsible,” marking another setback in attempts across the region to add the holidays…School officials, however, stood firm by a state law that disallows public schools from endorsing any religion, saying the school calendar can include scheduled closures only for holidays that cause low attendance rates countywide.
…
The anti-discrimination committee has pushed its request for the past several years, calling it an issue of equality because schools recognize Jewish and Christian holidays.
So it isn’t a matter of discriminating against Muslims. If followers of Allah become a large enough majority that schools are half-empty during Muslim holidays, the state may choose to close schools. Is it all about…economics?
Being the very opinionated person I am, my view (that the religion of Islam is incompatible with the West) is on the record . What’s yours?
Related posts:
Need a break from the political back and forth? Click over to this site…
…but only if you’re a hardcore Harry Potter fan.
(I know what you’re thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter!)
Update (4/30): Want to learn how to unlock Harry Potter, understand what J.K. Rowling is trying to accomplish, and figure out what must happen in Deathly Hallows? Follow the link.
Monday, April 30: Homosexuals, Hate, and the Gospel
By the way, there is no epidemic or rash of “hate” crimes being committed against homosexuals or sexually confused people or blacks (by whites). However, there is an epidemic that deserves more attention, as noted by an e-mailer:
“The single biggest reason that hate-crime legislation leaves me cold? I live just outside Philadelphia, Pa. So far, there’ve been 137 murders, a 20% increase so far over last year’s total of 406. The vast majority have been black on black, mostly male on male. Who hates whom?”
And let’s not forget hispanic-on-black “hate” out in CA.
Producer-Hate
Earlier this month, a producer at a cable news network sent me an innocuous “Aren’t you going to comment on Don Imus?†e-mail, which I’d intended to ignore. Later that day, I got an e-mail from someone from a Yahoo! account with the same name. It was in CAPS, including the subject line.
He called me an a**hole and a self-hater because I criticized Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, for promising to repeal a 1913 law that prohibits out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if the marriage would be illegal in their home state, so that homosexuals could “marry” in his state. Then-governor Mitt Romney refused to repeal the law because he knew it was practically the only thing preventing Massachusetts from becoming the “Las Vegas for same-sex marriage.â€
I e-mailed the dude at his work (twice) and Yahoo! accounts, trying to figure out what was going on. I received no reply from either account.
Filed under: Cultural Decline, Faith, Lunacy
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I never thought I’d see the day when newspapers would be agonizing over whether to allow readers to comment on stories. An excerpt:
Faced with declining circulation, many U.S. newspapers are trying to engage readers by allowing them to respond to news stories online. But the anonymity of the Internet lets readers post obscenities and racist hate speech that would never be allowed in the printed paper.
First, how does allowing comments on stories posted online help with print circulation? With a few exceptions, newspaper web sites allow free access to all stories (though they may require free registration). I don’t see the connection. Regarding online ad revenue, I don’t think allowing comments on stories necessarily increases online newspaper readership. Some of the highest trafficked bloggers I know don’t allow comments. It’s the perceived value of the information, in my opinion, not what readers have to say about it, that brings the eyes.
Second, I’m not too quick to trust a leftist journalist’s judgment about what is or isn’t “racist hate speech.” Sometimes, telling the truth about a person or situation is construed as hateful. Expressing an opinion that may offend liberal sensibilities or challenge his worldview might be called racist.
Third, while I get a kick out of reading feedback on some stories, I don’t think newspapers should waste time worrying about whether to allow it. Like this guy:
I’m pleased to announce the kickoff of the “Super Tuesday of Equality” campaign.
Ward Connerly, Chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, is the man behind the anti-race preferences in government momentum. Campaigns kicked off this week in Colorado, Missouri, and Arizona.
The campaigns are a push to place initiatives on the November 4, 2008, ballot against skin color preferences. Connerly and company have already encouraged three states to pay more than lip service to equality and ban government-mandated race and sex preferences in government hiring and admissions.
Californians passed Proposition 209 by 54 percent in 1996, and the state of Washington passed I-200 with 58.3 percent of the vote in 1998. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which appeared on the November 7, 2006, ballot as Proposal 2 after facing challenges by several groups, passed with 58 percent of the vote. (Also see An Affirmative Action Lesson for Mary Sue Coleman)
Michigan voters have spoken, but groups continue to challenge the will of the people and fight for skin color preferences for a certain race.
The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie.
So begins a straight-forward commentary “The Big White Lie,†by a novelist named Andrew Klavan. A conservative born in New York and currently living in California, Klavan discusses truth, the idea of calling a thing by its name, and liberalism’s aversion to it.
Over the years, truth telling has become something “polite†people don’t do in public. By way of example, Klavan begins:
The thing I like best about being a conservative is that I don’t have to lie. I don’t have to pretend that men and women are the same. I don’t have to declare that failed or oppressive cultures are as good as mine. I don’t have to say that everyone’s special or that the rich cause poverty or that all religions are a path to God. I don’t have to claim that a bad writer like Alice Walker is a good one or that a good writer like Toni Morrison is a great one. I don’t have to pretend that Islam means peace.
First, I’m glad Klavan recognized Toni Morrison as a superior writer to Alice “The Color Purple†Walker. I’ve always thought so, though Walker is probably more well known. As the author of one of my favorite books of all time, Song of Solomon, Morrison studied, understands, and appreciates the works of good writers, regardless of race. Her style has been compared to William Faulkner’s, one of America’s great southern writers.
With a decreasing emphasis on studying the Western canon, too many people have lost the ability to understand what is good and what is crap. With politically correct pabulum flowing through the streets like raw sewage, we’re knee-deep in crap, and people from the highest office to the lowest rung are afraid to call it crap.
But I digress. As Klavan acknowledges, it is politically incorrect to tell the truth. To call abortion murder is to be an extremist who wants to send women back to the Victorian era. Personal responsibility, accountability, and a desire to speak out for and protect the unborn limit a woman’s “rights,” I guess. For anyone to say that out-of-control black crime and illegitimacy rates are destroying the black community and that the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of those committing the crimes and having babies by different men is to be self-hating if you’re black and a racist if you’re white.
In 1996, registered nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer told the House Subcommittee on the Constitution about a partial birth abortion she’d witnessed.
A woman was six months pregnant with a baby diagnosed with Down Syndrome. She chose death for the child. Shafer testified that she saw the baby’s beating heart on the ultrasound monitor. The so-called doctor pulled the baby into the birth canal with forceps, partially delivering his body while leaving the head inside.
“The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall …The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby was completely limp. I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched the doctor do these things.”
Continue reading “Supreme Court Says No to ‘Intact’ Infanticide.”
Previous post: Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Partial Birth Abortion
Through the years, I’ve accumulated over 500 books (not counting Bibles), presently squeezed onto two five-shelf bookcases, one three-shelf bookcase, four small tables, and a desk.
A few of my favorites:
- Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
- Harry Potter series (Books 1-6), by J.K. Rowling
- The Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor
- Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, by Charles Murray
- The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, by Francis S. Collins
- A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature, by Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt
- The Renegade Writer: The Totally Unconventional Guide to Freelance Writing Success, by Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell
How many books do you own?
Some schools are taking pre-emptive action against Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations and private citizen lawsuits by removing blatantly illegal, racially exclusive language from scholarships and replacing it with the new descriptor, “urban.”
Urban, of course, is code for “black.” Northeastern University has opened its Ujima Scholars program to all students, but with a catch. The program will target students from an “urban background.” (Source)
Questions like, “If Northeastern is already predominately a White university, why should the Ujima programs be used for White students?” uttered by Lula Petty-Edwards, director of the school’s African American Institute, are totally irrelevant to the illegality of racially exclusive scholarships.
Northeastern, a private research university, receives federal (taxpayer-funded) grants. That brings it within the purview of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (”No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”) In that regard, the school also may want to remove racially exclusive language from other scholarships and fellowships.
