Pretty & I send BENRY to a Catholic school, but it's for reasons other than the supposed leftie indoctrination the public schools offer. In fact, as a product of the very school district in which we currently reside, I'm convinced that my boys would do wonderfully in this system and will eventually attend high school where I did. (As long as the district stops herding kids into Special Ed programs to secure additional funding, but that's a subject for another post.)
I find it interesting that the primary segments of productive society in which one finds bona fide moonbats are Education and Law (and in a particular personal instance, Educational Law). I honestly don't know why it is, but it is very rare that I run across a Production Manager, a Sales Rep, a dock worker or heaven forbid a small business owner who has adopted the strident "corporate imperialist Bushitler Haliburton Rove cabal" mindset. They could, of course, keep their beliefs to themselves, but I visit hundreds of people a year on sales calls and have yet to hear Air America on a single radio.
But I digress. What motivated me to post today was learning that my 7th grade Social Studies teacher, Roger Cuthbertson, was recently arrested while protesting at a fundraiser featuring Dick Cheney. The event was held at a lakeside estate - the protesters were on a pontoon in the bay, shouting anti-Cheney slogans. Mr. Cuthbertson then boarded a smaller boat with his hippie friend and (according to the Star-Tribune):
"...tried to paddle the raft to shore so they could speak with Cheney. A sheriff's boat intercepted the men, but not before Cuthbertson jumped into the bay and tried to swim toward the reception."
Hilarious. Sneak a peek at this photo of Mr. Cuthbertson (he's the bearded guy in the blue jacket), cropped from another Strib article about a weekly peacenik party held outside a prominent local defense contractor. I remember him as a disheveled, long-haired dude who wore plaid shirts and his Levi's well below his hips long before "jailing" was in. In his class, I recall listening to Garrison Keilor, performing a mock trial and watching him furiously scrawl a detailed chalkboard sketch of how the atomic bomb worked. Nothing unreasonable.Who knows? He may have thrown hysterical tantrums about Pershing missiles in Europe and "Evil Empire" speeches... I just don't remember them. But if he did, his rhetoric certainly didn't affect me as he'd hope it would.
My point (if I have one): Schools should certainly do their best to evenly portray all sides of any issue, but maybe we should all lighten up a bit. Kids will eventually find their own ways in the world, regardless the crap any strangers try to fill their heads with.
