Since both Funky Dung and Jerry have recently entered the world of parenthood, I thought it fitting that my first guest post for this blog should discuss parenthood – specifically, attitudes toward parenthood in different religious groups.
Profanity is useful. People need those words to express things that cannot otherwise be expressed. There are times when the artful use of non-profanity works better and there are times when you simply must have the quick punch of a “bad” word. And to have profanity, you need to maintain at least a loose taboo on certain words.
But this is ridiculous:
Somehow in the last few years it has become popular to have traditional graduation ceremonies—caps, gowns, Elgar—for increasingly younger students at increasingly inconsequential stages in their education. Apparently this idiotic tendency has also taken up the traditional valedictorian and speech.
Last week, [Wendy] Portillo held a vote in her classroom in which the students “voted out” 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being tested for Asperger’s Disorder, a type of high-functioning autism, said his mother, Melissa Barton.
After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Alex the teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. They said he was “disgusting” and “annoying,” Barton said.
Kids are mean enough to each other without calculated help from their teachers. Ridiculous.
“Many of the children [wept up in a raid earlier this month on the Yearning for Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] have seen little or no television. They have been essentially home-schooled all their lives [and may be ahead of public-school students their ages]. Most were raised on garden-grown vegetables and twice-daily prayers with family. They frolic in long dresses and buttoned-up shirts from another century. They are unfailingly polite….[T]hey have little knowledge of pop culture”
Oh, the humanity! Those poor, deprived children! How ever have they survived? Have they any hope of being normal American citizens?