Bible classes for Georgia schools?By The Associated Press, 01/18/06
Georgia public school students would be allowed to study the Bible under a plan proposed by Democrats in the state Senate Wednesday. The bill authorizes the state school board to approve an optional course that would teach about the Bible’s influence on literature, art, culture and politics.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Tim Golden of Valdosta, chairman of the Senate’s Democratic caucus. Golden said it would allow for “nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study” of the Bible and would require it “be taught in an objective and nondevotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students.” Sen. Doug Stoner of Smyrna, a co-sponsor of the plan, said the Bible was a major influence on works from Shakespeare’s plays to the Reverend Martin Luther King.
Civil liberties activists say there are ways to teach the Bible in public school without violating the Constitution, but that such a class would create potential problems. Maggie Garrett, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union’s chapter in Georgia, said even if the curriculum is carefully worded, a teacher could use the class as an opportunity to preach religious faith.
Georgia always seems to find new ways of embarrassing itself in front of the nation. Just when Dover, Pennsylvania had finally stolen the spotlight from Cobb County (which had previously disgraced itself in the 90s by passing an anti-gay referendum), the State Democrats decided that it's time to start teaching the Bible in public schools.
I wonder if I can get them to let me teach a non-sectarian, non-religious academic class in Zen Buddhism in the Georgia public schools? After all, Buddhist thought is a major influence on literature from Hesse to Thoreau to Kerouac, and many films from "Kundun," to "I Heart Huckabees" to the Matrix trilogy have incorporated Buddhist ideas. Think that will fly in Cobb County?
Meanwhile, we have Ralph Reed still running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. Ralph, the former head of the Christian Coalition, may have just suffered through the roughest week of his political career when his longtime associate and friend, Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to bribing public officials, yet inexplicably keeps of campaigning.
On Sunday's "Meet the Press," U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, a fellow Republican, accused Reed and Abramoff of "bilking their Indian clients for millions of dollars." On Monday, campaign finance reports showed Reed had been out-raised over the past six months by state Sen. Casey Cagle, his virtually unknown Republican rival in the race. At a North Georgia forum on Tuesday, Ralph denied to a restive audience that he was a possible target of the continuing Abramoff probe — and then declared himself "a happy warrior."
Over several years, Ralph worked with Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, on a series of anti-gambling campaigns across the South, conducted at the behest of casino-owning Indian tribes out to thwart any competition. Abramoff and Scanlon cheated several tribes of tens of millions of dollars, and have struck plea deals with federal investigators, confessing to attempts to bribe members of Congress.
Ralph, a longtime opponent of gambling, says he didn't know the true source of more than $5 million, although e-mail conversations between Reed and Abramoff cast doubt on that contention. In Alabama, Ralph helped Abramoff arrange money from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians to be funneled through two organizations before arriving at his firm.
If you think there's no connection with sleaze in any of this, then consider the following: when my box of checks got stolen out of my mailbox, the first place the thief went to cash the checks was the Silver Star Hotel and Casino, a 24-hour gambling establishment on the Choctaw Indian reservation in Philadelphia, Mississippi. There, the thief found someone to check my account balance and to cash a $750 check. This casino is run by the same group that hired Abramoff to hire Ralph to campaign against an Alabama lottery.
I wonder if my stolen money was used to pay the lobbying bills.
2 comments:
I'd forgotten about your check theft.
6 degrees.
I finally got around to responding to your post here on my blog...
Thanks for the interesting comments on your blog, Mumon.
But meanwhile, on the political front, I had forgotten to mention the following in this post:
Trent Lott, Bounding Back From the Storms
By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post
Trent Lott is back!
Not that he ever left, but speculation was abounding that Lott, 64, would be history after this year, and checkered history at that. It went beyond speculation, the Mississippi Republican said yesterday. He and his wife, Tricia, decided five years ago that 2006 would be it for him, that he would not run for reelection.
But then came Katrina, "a disastrous event of biblical proportions," which demolished his waterfront home in Pascagoula. It got Lott thinking, praying, reassessing. And then, the day after Christmas, concluding "that I still have a zest for the job here in Washington."
"Who knows what the future will hold?" Lott asked.
It is a throwaway line from the lips of most pols, but one that packs special resonance from Lott. To wit: the weeks following the GOP's 2002 takeover of the Senate, which would have restored Lott to the position of majority leader. But then came the firestorm over Lott's remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party in which he seemed to endorse the former segregationist's 1948 presidential campaign.
The subsequent flap forced Lott to resign as majority leader -- a downfall that left him bitter toward many of his GOP Senate colleagues (such as Frist) and White House officials (such as Karl Rove). He settled in, nonetheless, became chairman of the Rules Committee, wrote a book, and left people guessing about his future.
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