I view the Texas School Board textbook fiasco, occurring as it does on the Tea Party-supported election of Rand Paul, as the throwing down of the gauntlet in the class- and ideological war between freethinkers and progressives on one side and fundamentalist, dominionist, theocratic right wingnuts on the other. Now that our school textbooks are going to reflect a far right America, it is the duty of all reasonable people to arm teachers and children with the truth.

The truth about Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties, Cesar Chavez, &c. &c. &c. I was relieved to read in the paper today that individual teachers are not required to stick to the texts, but I wonder how many of them will exercise freedom of speech, since we already know that many of our kind have been fired from educational institutions, and at such low pay can we really expect them to spend time explaining why their lectures contradict the texts?

I am troubled. Rand Paul would have us return to the pre-integration era since he supports a lunch counter's "freedom" to refuse to serve. This position, of course, is 19th century thinking. What he really means is, he'd like us to respect the Old Testamentary sanctioning of slavery. (Economic slavery has been maintained, at least with reference to the last unemployment statistics I found. Perhaps the Rand Pauls of this world would argue, "You see, as long as they were indentured, they had three meals a day and were not out killing people in dope deals gone sour.") All of these geeks would have us return to some bygone age more to their liking -- and less to justice and good common sense.