Temecula, California, is not MAGA country. It's wine country, sort of rural but not very, and is generally moderately Republican. Donald Trump won 53% of the vote in 2020.
And yet, Temecula is currently ground zero for a furious backlash against a fifth-grade history textbook because it includes optional supplementary material that mentions gay activist Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978. This has prompted spittle-flecked fury among ultra-conservative school board members against both the textbook and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is forcing them to use it:
They painted Newsom — who plans to send textbooks that reference Milk to Temecula students in defiance of the board — as a “tyrant” who “forces his rule” upon a district he knows nothing about. They called lessons about LGBTQ+ history “pornographic” and “obscene.”
....Conservative school board President Joseph Komrosky, who called Milk a “pedophile” and has been publicly feuding with Newsom over the issue, asked sheriff deputies on Tuesday to remove a teacher from the meeting after she called conservative board member Danny Gonzalez a “homophobe.”
Without evidence, Gonzalez said that proposed instruction would promote pedophilia and said he opposed teaching about the gay liberation movement that began in the 1960s because it’s “not appropriate to discuss sexuality.”
As I mentioned the other day, this is what happens when conservatives take control of school boards. It's always the extremist crackpots who end up in charge, pushing insane conspiracy theories about "obscene" content and "pedophiles" being foisted on our children.
In reality, this is just some optional material about gay rights, something that none of the initial reviewers even bothered mentioning, let alone objected to. As for the kids themselves, I doubt they're fazed by this stuff even slightly. They probably know all about it already.
Who, really, thinks about being on a school board, except someone bugged by something the school is doing? And Conservatives get bugged by everything.
Why not call them "snowflajes" & say that they're easily triggered, since they like to refer to others that way?
Real on the web home based work to make more than 14k USD. Last month I made 15,500 from this home job. Very simple and easy to do and procuring from this are just awesome. For more detail visit the given interface.. http://incomebyus.blogspot.com/
They probably don't know all about it already. Why would they? It happened a million years before they were born. We know about it because we've been around a long time and we read about politics and current events. How does that in any way apply to kids in some rural area almost 500 miles from San Francisco?
Not Harvey Milk specifically, but that Gay people exist
Alot of places have stuff named after him now. It's weird.
Like, Portland renamed the street in the no-longer gay district of town Harvey Milk. I hung out on Stark St, but all the places I went are gone now. And the places it was known for.
Obviously, kids don't need to know anything about something that happened in the past that's more than 500 miles from their home, so California can also stop teaching about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln too.
Whoever Harvey Milk is, I don't think he had the same impact on our country as George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.
Wait a minute... if you don't know who Harvey Milk is, then how can you make that assertion?
Dunning Kruger.
I hear a lot of that from people who never learned about { black history / women's history / African history / Asian history etc etc etc } in K12 school. They didn't learn about it back in the day, so how can it be important?
The idea of what people now need to know, and the fact that various histories have been buried or denigrated, but that doesn't make them any less valid, somehow never occurs to them.
Not to mention the disturbing fact that history changes with new discoveries, new awarenesses, archaeology, and the like. One would think -- and would definitely LIKE to think -- that what's "history" is fixed. But, as has been observed, it's "told by the victors" and those folks don't necessarily remain on top for all time.
"Not to mention the disturbing fact that history changes with new discoveries, new awarenesses, archaeology, and the like. "
Not to mention there is always new materiel. My high school social studies classes completely skipped the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and 9/11. Important historical events! Why were they left out of the curriculum? Lefty school board? No. They simply hadn't happened yet. When I was in high school, those events were still in the future.
Kind of reminds me of my father in law, who used to get mildly irritated whenever they named a street after Martin Luther King or some other minority figure. I would always point out he wan't bothered by all the streets named after obscure white men he had never heard of.
Or, you know, all of the streets, schools, etc. named after literal traitors to the United States of America.
Do you live in a southern state? If not, why do you care?
You really blew it here. You should have pretended to know who Harvey Milk was instead of looking like a dumbass. Fake it till you make it!*
* Option 2 is to refrain from posting, do a bit of Googling, and realizing you were about to make a stupid point. Either will work.
I'll make a note
There has been an explosion in LGBTQIA+ picture books lately. I had one about Harvey Milk in the elementary school library.
Every generation is exposed to a group of B level historical figures: people who personify ideas, movements, trends, etc., even if their individual activities are more modest. Previous generations had Annie Oakley, Ethan Allen, etc. Today Harvey Milk is one.
If 53% of their votes went to trump, I don't call them moderate. He isn't the least bit moderate, never has been, & yet they heard his vicious lies & absurd promises & voted for him.
And now we've got another rep reportedly bring in the Central Park Five - fully exonerated years ago, but who knows if they will be in danger because trump has repeatedly lied about them & gained supporters who don't believe that the confession of another man, as well as his DNA as evidence, supported exoneration?
if anyone ever supported that miserable man, I can't respect them.
That doesn't Trump was their ideal candidate. There were only two options.
Most Trump voters consider the "vicious lies & absurd promises" to be features, not bugs.
And the other option was Joe Biden.
Voting for Trump over Biden makes you a piece of shit, full stop.
Thanks for your opinion.
Kevin still has Republican friends, ones that he doesn't want to think of as horrible people even though racism, fascism, etc. aren't automatic dealbreakers for them in the voting booth, so Kevin tends to label anybody Republican-but-not-openly-in-favor-of-committing-crimes as "moderate."
Is racism the worst possible sin to liberals? Would you rather vote for someone that shares all your political ideals but is a little racist, or someone you don't think is racist at all but you disagree with on many political points?
Can't speak for "liberals" but being a racist is indeed a deal breaker for me even for dog catcher, much less President. No need to rank things as "worst" but there are some lines that can't be crossed and still get my vote regardless of your positions and that is definitely one of.them.
What are the substantive political points in question here?
You're presenting this as some sort of isolating abstraction, where "racism" is defined but other things are not.
Atticus likes some rhetorical dishonesties more than others. This 'isolating abstraction' as you put it, the reifying away of concrete facts and actions is one of them.
Differing politics is expected and doesn't necessarily make anyone a bad person.
Being a racist does make you a shitty human being and even if we agreed on everything politically, most decent human beings would rather have to work with the non racist but with different politics one.
Are you fucking kidding me? No, I won't vote for people who are a "little racist" but then we're not describing Trump, who dined with Nick Fuentes. Trump is a full-blown racist. If you vote for a full-blown racist you are by definition a horrible piece of shit. Hope that clears it up for you.
Got it. In my opinion, almost everyone is a little racist. It's not black and white, its a scale. There's a difference between wearing a sombrero on Cinco de Mayo (which I don't think is racist at all, but some crazy lefties apparently do) and someone who burns crosses in front of black people's house.
And you don't think Biden has ever said or done anything a little racist? I recall him saying something about not being able to go into a 7-Eleven. So I guess you can vote for someone that is a "little racist". (Assuming you voted for Biden.)
Dude, you regularly come in here and excuse the deaths of women and LGBT+.
Like, it's not who you voted for we're judging you about.
You have a very pinched, simpleminded view of humans.
I guess Kevin's point is that Temecula isn't West Virginia, which is, um, some kind of point, I suppose.
Yeah, well, he's wrong. I never went an errand without nearly being driven off the road by some MAGA festooned giant truck in the area of Temecula .
The vineyards are a fairly recent addition.
You know whose kids know all about "teh gays" (but almost certainly nothing about civil rights history)?
The kids of exactly those school board members who can't shut the @#$% up about it and all their lurid fantasies! (at least those who actually have kids... seems more of these obsessives don't even have kids lately)
"this is what happens when conservatives take control of school boards"
Correction: This is what happens when words lose any meaning as anything other than as an expression of what Ron DeSantis referred to as "virtue signaling." Don't get me wrong; Mini D is the king of virtue signaling. But he's right that virtue signaling is disqualifying for anyone seeking a position of leadership.
Here's a solution. Define the word "conservative." I remember hearing somewhere that Abraham Lincoln was asked to do just that and came up with an extemporaneous answer that was something like the following: A conservative is a person that is open minded and skeptical, but more skeptical than open minded.
That works for me. For one thing, it would say that there are three SCOTUS conservatives, with the other six being merely ignorant. Also, it would say that there are conservatives in the Republican Party, except they haven't got a chance of winning a primary.
Bottom line: using "conservative" as a pejorative sends a message. The message is, "We are the Good People tribe, and they are the Bad People tribe." Is that not what everyone is angry about because that's what the bad guys are doing?
People should simply stop using the word "conservative", because it is used to mean too many things.
Virtue signalling used to just be called having manners. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking how you really feel about someone and stuffing it deep into your mental closet and outwardly showing that person respect and human decency. In fact, that's pretty much how humanity gets along without killing each other.
Like +50!
+50 more from me.
I agree. My argument is that a blog post is not deep inside a mental closet. It is outwardly showing.
Frankly, I prefer the engineering definition of "conservative." Design so that even though every component is made by the low bidder and they probably lied about their quality, the finished work is still functional, reliable, and safe.
And I deplore the Deplorables who have seized this most useful word for their own aggrandizement and turned it into "A crazy and credulous person, motivated solely by hate, fear, and jealousy."
That's an interesting quote. I've never heard it. When did Lincoln write or say it?
As to conservative being a pejorative, that's the fault of conservatives. A definition of "conservative" that's rooted in anything other than a description of what the people who call themselves conservatives do is just onanism.
Conservatism is what the conservatives do. It'll stop being a slur when they stop acting like monsters.
"When did Lincoln write or say it?"
I don't remember where I heard it but I found it here with a Google search: https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/honoring-lincoln
The exact quote is "Is it not the adherence to the old and the tried, against the new and the untried?" Finding it there confirms my assumption that the knowledge test can be passed with flying colors and the road test can still be failed miserably.
"Conservatism is what the conservatives do."
Is medicine what Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil do? Is Christianity "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or is it the Spanish Inquisition? Is science "examine the evidence before drawing a conclusion," or is it "I'm a tenured Harvard science professor, meaning that people either agree with me or they are wrong?" Do capitalists love competition or do they kill it before it grows?
Answer: You are virtuous if you are a tiny bit openminded and very skeptical, a tiny bit skeptical and very openminded, or anywhere in between. Evidence and logic do not need a large opening, but they do need an opening.
Conversely, if someone disagrees with you, and you are not the least bit openminded, then you are not virtuous, and you're giving a bad name to whatever you happened to be calling yourself, including if you happen to be calling yourself a progressive.
You must not get out here much, Kevin, because Temecula is most definitely MAGA country. I live just a few freeway exits north. This is the land of huge pickups flying Trump flags & blue stripe flags & sporting bumper stickers that say F--k Joe Biden or celebrate gun ownership right next to ones attesting to the owners' Christianity.
The fact that some of them make or sell wine doesn't change who they are.
The wine is a fairly new addition, too. Every time I've driven there in the last two decades I've been nearly run off the road by some giant truck with conservative stickers.
My friends who lived in the town next door had their car repeatedly vandalized over their Obama stickers,
It's not the sleepy retirement area my grandpa bought into anymore.
Temecula? There must be a limerick there somewhere...
There was an old dope of Temecula
who was found lying dead perpendicular
he was dead
so they said
of dry heaves and toast
and nothing I thought in particular
👍
Winner - best comment of the day. Hands down.
Bing response to "write a limerick about Tamecula":
There once was a town called Temecula, Where the wine flows like water, it’s true-la! The vineyards are grand, And the views are so grand, It’s a place that will always renew-la!
and the win goes to.....cld
😉
😆
This is why we shouldn't have school boards. They were created in a time when public education was a new-fangled thing, like the telegraph.
We don't need them now.
Ugh. This is like when other people say "we don't need the IRS" or the TSA or whatever. Even if the entity that you personally dislike for whatever reason was eliminated tomorrow, whatever functions they are performing would still need to be done by someone else. So if there were no school boards, somebody somewhere else would need to decide what kids are going to learn, where new school buildings need to be built, who will attend those schools, etc. Either it would be the state itself, or the principal of each school, or specialized conventions of "regular people" convened to deal with each issue as it arose, or whatever. And whomever gets the tasks will simply become the new "school board" in all but name. But the tasks still need to be done.
Like the IRS something like that would be staffed by people who know what they're doing even when the people installed to run the place are incompetent. In a governmental bureaucracy conservative ideology is more likely to default to doing nothing than being implemented and it wouldn't provide a grandstand for raving idiots.
"And whomever gets the tasks will simply become the new 'school board' in all but name. But the tasks still need to be done."
Weeeellll, that's true as far as it goes, but I think that the tasks in question need not be performed by entities so liable to capture by yahoos. As a law professor of mine put it (in the midst of ranting about creationists enacting intelligent design curricula): "This sort of nonsense doesn't happen in France. Not because there aren't damn fools in France--there most certainly are--but because the French built a system such that the damn fools aren't put in charge of students."
So, yeah, school boardery needs to happen. But maybe the people on the boards shouldn't be selected via the mechanism of low-information low-turnout small elections, because that tends to let impassioned weirdos with nothing better to do have responsibilities of the sort a saner society would reserve for others.
Your point about "low information, low turnout elections" is spot on!
Some years back, New Mexico enacted an elections consolidation law, which established that all elections would take place every year on that Tuesday in November date. As a result, the various school board elections, which used to be in March, are now on the November odd-year ballot, along with City Council, Mayor, Soil & Water Conservancy District (yeah, NOBODY ever knew there were elections for THAT!), and other, often obscure, races.
Turnout, at least, is a lot better for votes on school boards. And the League of Women Voters has been providing support for candidate forums, which always play to packed rooms. Progress!
Having seen what can happen in charter school administration, school boards are likely better than nothing.
The thing is, you only hear about this stuff because school boards are elected and their meetings are public.
I don't think we should have charter schools, either. Or private prisons.
There are things civil society just needs to do for itself.
As for the kids themselves, I doubt they're fazed by this stuff even slightly. They probably know all about it already.
Which is precisely why the Bible-banging wingnuts are frothing and foaming.
They've lost and they know it. They're trying to hold back the tide by Biblical commandment.
Meanwhile, in DeathSantis land, the Board of Education just approved a new Black history curriculum, for which the middle-school standards that would require instruction to include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” So vocational education was provided free of charge by their slave owners? How nice.
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida-board-of-education-approves-black-history-curriculum-that-says-slaves-benefitted-from-slavery-34665856
And in the land were Dorothy and Toto left for Oz, the Kansas Superintendent of Schools thinks its OK to teach about the Tulsa Massacre as long as they they teach that the massacre wasn't due to the color of their skin.
https://baptistnews.com/article/oklahoma-superintendent-of-schools-says-tulsa-race-massacre-wasnt-due-to-color-of-anyones-skin/
Local school boards made sense when the frontier was a thing and places like Temecula were but stops on the Butterfield stage line. Not any more.
They really should learn about the twinkie defense. It's the whole justification for right wing politics!
Good point! And maybe throw in "affluenza", too.
Teach the history of Harvey Milk. Teach that he had a relationship with a 16-year-old. Teach that Milk was a Goldwater Republican at that time.
Yes, we should teach that, and we should also teach that in his era (60's and 70's) polite society was more willing to turn a blind eye towards adults getting with minors. The writer J D Salinger liked girls who were, in his words, "on the edge of the bloom" (read: 12-14 years old). We know this because Salinger acknowledged it, repeatedly, to many different people. Other examples are easy to find.
This is one of the ways society has changed for the better. A totally appropriate topic for a history class, though 5th grade might be early for this particular topic.
I have never liked Salinger, nor his "Catcher in the Rye". Now I have even more reasons.
Well, "For Esme with Love and Squalor" is a truly amazing short story.
"She wrote him letters on perfumed stationery from a gushing paradise of triple exclamation points and inaccurate observations."
His stories are fairly dated now, but gawd that boy could write.
I put him in the same category as Roman Polanski: brilliant monster.
Conservatives have been trying to equate homosexuality with pedophilia for a long time. For the most part, it didn't work too well until recently. What changed? Fox New + the internet has cultivated a large group of conservatives happy to absorb anything they are fed, and national conservative groups have been created to encourage them to get into local politics.
I was reading another article about Jason Aldean's song "Try That In a Small Town", and I'm struck by the fact that I don't think there has ever been this much violent animosity in this country over nothing but insane propaganda. It's rather frightening.
The "Cons" really are obsessed with "pedophilia", aren't they? Remember, every accusation is a confession when it comes from the magareps.
Why darling, are you thinking of the Southern Baptist Convention?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiyv73crp6AAxWPOUQIHRNVC7sQFnoECBEQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2022%2F05%2F27%2F1101734793%2Fsouthern-baptist-sexual-abuse-list-released&usg=AOvVaw0i7pe3AzXM_YnYD9FR-m0r&opi=89978449
Grumours . . .
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1682118835732709376
And brought to you by the same people,
https://twitter.com/PresidntTicTac/status/1682105943444664321