TC sent me a clipping this morning of the 11 Jan 2006 LA Times story by Henry Weinstein, headlined, "1st Suit in State to Attack 'Intelligent Design' Filed."
Evidently, a public school in Lebec, California ("that's Hicksville out in the valley near Fresno," according to TC) has started up a course to teach Intelligent Design as a philosophy course, in order to get around the legal barriers (and howls of laughter from anyone with 1/10 of a brain) of trying to teach it as science.
Kudos to the parents of Lebec for taking the school board right to court.
And now, let us aid in this good fight by bringing the snark. From the article:
At a special meeting of the El Tejon Unified School District on Jan. 1, at which the board approved the new course, "Philosophy of Design," school Supt. John W. Wight said that he had consulted the school district's attorneys and that they "had told him that as long as the course was called 'philosophy,' " it could pass legal muster, according to the lawsuit. . . .So, Supt. Wight thinks it's all good, but is afraid to say so to the press, and is afraid to let anyone else talk about the matter at all. Sounds like he's got a pretty strong case, no? Get a clue, Mr. Wight. You're all wong.. . . A woman who identified herself as a secretary at the school district said Tuesday that Wight was out of town and unavailable for comment and that no one else was authorized to comment on the suit.
Also from the article:
The course, which began Jan. 3 and is scheduled to run for one month, is being taught by Sharon Lemburg, a special education teacher with a bachelor of arts in physical education and social science, according to the lawsuit.The geeks among us will say, sheesh, another way that gym teachers will screw you up for life.
The article provides some background on the theory of ID:
Advocates of the theory generally do not identify who they think the designer was. Judge Jones, an appointee of President Bush, said the extensive testimony in the Pennsylvania case made it clear that "no serious alternative to God as the designer has been proposed" by members of the intelligent design movement.Hey, wait a minute. Has the judge not heard of the FSM? Or is he dissing the Pastafarians?
Here's a link to the original article. If it doesn't work, just go to the LA Times's home page and search for "Lebec."
3 comments:
I think it was Jack Kerouac who wrote in a book that in a previous book he had referred to a small town as being in the boondocks or podunk or Hicksville or some place like that and he had gotten a lot of mail from people in that small town complaining about him saying that about them. So he stands corrected and he would like to now say that the town is actually 50 miles East of Grass Valley. I guess Lebec in fact is closer to Bakersfield than Fresno, but never mind it's still out there in East Jesus as the saying goes. :-)
The buzzing of bad bees
KK had earlier tried to post a comment saying "Avoid Alliteration Always."
And now I see he wants to play rough . . .
Carefully consider the consequences.
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