Christian Hillbillies Are Incredibly (and Proudly) Stupid

Christian protesters shout down Muslim kids singing National Anthem at Texas rally: ‘Islam is a lie!’

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Angry conservative protesters disrupted the Texas Muslim Capitol Day celebration in Austin on Thursday, repeatedly shouting “No Sharia” and screaming “Go home.”
The celebration was organized by the Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and according to their website, the event was “an opportunity for community members to learn about the democratic political process and how to be an advocate for important issues.” The group largely consisted of Muslim students and children, along with faith leaders.
The event was protested by a group calling itself the Patriot Defense Foundation Inc., who claimed that CAIR sought to create a climate in which it would be able to “take over” America, destroying it for “Americans [who] believe in the Constitution and what this country was founded on.”
Only about 20 protesters affiliated with the group showed up to the protest — some of them carrying signs declaring “Radical Islam Is The New Nazi” and imploring the students to “Go Home & Take Obama With You.”
Another sign read: “I serve a risen savior, Jesus Christ. Muhammad is dead.”
Though small, the group made its presence known, according to local reporters on the scene.
Early in the celebration, a woman grabbed the microphone away from a Muslim speaker and shouted, “I proclaim the name of the Lord Jesus Christ over the capitol of Texas. I stand against Islam and the false prophet.”
Video of the protest shows the same woman screaming, “A prayer to a false god,” as the celebrants later prayed. The protesters then recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Local reporters said protesters shouted “Islam is a lie!” at Muslim children when they were singing the National Anthem. One protester reportedly shouted: “There’s no ‘twilight’ in Sharia!”
Protesters also shouted other pro-Christian statements peppered with cries that “Muhammad is dead” throughout the event.
Before the rally, state Representative Molly White (R-Belton) left a message on her Facebook page indicating that she would not be able to attend the celebration, but that she did “leave an Israeli flag on the reception desk in my office with instructions to staff to ask representatives from the Muslim community to renounce Islamic terrorist groups and publicly announce allegiance to America and our laws.”
“We will see how long they stay in my office,” she added.
Watch video below:

With reporting by Eric W. Dolan

Dear God, Thy're Not Just Stupid, They Want Everyone to Be Idiots Just Like Them

Wednesday, Mar 13, 2013 12:34 PM EST

11 heinous lies conservatives are teaching America’s schoolchildren

The right has a new plan to capture the country's youth vote: Take over public school curriculums

Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet

If recent elections have taught us anything, it’s that young Americans have taken a decided turn to the left. Young voters delivered Obama the election: the under-44 set voted Obama and the over-45 set broke for Romney. The youngest voters, age 18-29, gave Obama a whopping 60 percent of their vote.

Now Republicans have a plan to try to recapture the youngest voters out there: Take over the curriculum in public schools, replace education with a bunch of conservative propaganda, and reap the benefits of having a new generation that can’t tell reality from right-wing fantasy.
How well this plan will work is debatable, but in the meantime, these shenanigans present the very real possibility that public school students will graduate without a proper education. To make it worse, many of these attempts to rewrite school curriculum are happening in Texas, which can set the textbook standards for the entire country by simply wielding its power as one of the biggest school textbook markets there is. With that in mind, here’s a list of 11 lies your kid may be in danger of learning in school.
Lie No. 1: Racism has barely been an issue in U.S. history and slavery wasn’t that big a deal.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute reviewed the new social studies standards laid down by the right-wing-dominated Texas State School Board and found them to be a deplorable example of conservative wishful thinking replacing fact. At the top of list? Downplaying the role that slavery had in starting the Civil War, and instead focusing on “sectionalism” and “states’ rights,” even though the sectionalism and states’ rights arguments directly stemmed from Southern states wanting to keep slavery. There’s also a chance your kid might be misled to think post-Civil War racism was no big deal, as the standards excise any mention of the KKK, the phrase “Jim Crow” or the Black Codes. Mention is made of the Southern Democratic opposition to civil rights, but mysteriously, the mass defection of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party to punish the rest of the Democrats for supporting civil rights goes unmentioned.

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Lie No. 2: Joe McCarthy was right.
The red-baiting of the mid-20th century has gone down in history, correctly, as a witch hunt that stemmed from irrational paranoia that gripped the U.S. after WWII. But now, according to the Thomas B. Fordham report, your kid might learn that the red baiters had a point: “It is disingenuously suggested that the House Un-American Activities Committee—and, by extension, McCarthyism—have been vindicated by the Venona decrypts of Soviet espionage activities (which had, in reality, no link to McCarthy’s targets).” Critical lessons about being skeptical of those who attack fellow Americans while wrapping themselves in the flag will be lost for students whose textbooks adhere to these standards.
Lie No. 3: Climate change is a massive hoax scientists have perpetuated on the public.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been hard at work pushing for laws requiring that climate change denialism be taught in schools as a legitimate scientific theory. Unfortunately, as Neela Banerjee of the L.A. Times reports, they’ve already had some serious success: “Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change.” Other states are taking the “teach the controversy” strategy that helped get creationism into biology classrooms, asking teachers to treat climate change like it’s a matter of political debate instead of a scientifically established fact.
The reality is that climate change is a fact that has overwhelming scientific consensus. In 2004, Science reviewed the 928 relevant studies on climate change published between 1993 and 2003 and found that exactly zero of them denied that climate change was a reality, and most found it had man-made causes. To claim that climate change is a “controversy” requires one to believe that there’s a massive conspiracy involving nearly all the scientists in the world. So, your kids are not only not learning the realities of climate change, they are also learning, if indirectly, to give credence to conspiracy theory paranoia.
Lie No. 4: The Bible is a history textbook and a scientific document.
Texas passed a law in 2007 pushing schools to teach the Bible as history and literature in schools. Since that was already being done in most schools, the law was clearly just a backdoor way to sneak religious instruction into schools, and a report by the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) demonstrates that many of them have taken full advantage. One district treats the Bible stories like history by “listing biblical events side by side with historical developments from around the globe.” Many other schools are teaching that the Bible “proves” that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. The Earth is actually over 4 billion years old.
Lie No. 5: Black people are the descendants of Ham and therefore cursed by God.
Among the courses justified by the 2007 Bible law, TFN found two school districts teaching that the various races are descended from the sons of Noah. All the Bible really says about the sons of Noah is that Ham was cursed by his father so that his descendants would be slaves, but American slave owners used this passage to claim that Africans must be the descendants of Ham and therefore their slave-owning was OK by God. Make no mistake. The only reason this legend has persisted and is popping up in 21st-century classrooms is that conservative Christians are still trying to justify the enslavement of African Americans over a century ago.
Lie No. 6: Evolution is a massive hoax scientists have perpetuated on the public.
Creationists have an endless store of creative ways to get around the Constitution and the courts when it comes to replacing legitimate biology education with fundamentalist Christian dogma. Various states have employed an extensive school voucher system that has allowed creationist dogma to flourish. College-age activist Zack Kopplin has been chronicling the problem, and has found various schools nationwide using taxpayer dollars to teach that evolution is a “mistaken belief” and that the Bible “refutes the man-made idea of evolution.” Why do these school administrators believe that scientists are hoaxing the public by making up evolution? Kopplin found a Louisiana school principal who claimed it’s because scientists are “sinful men” seeking to justify their own immorality, and another Florida school teaching that evolutionary theory is “the way of the heathen.”
Lie No. 7: Sex is awful and filthy, and you should save it for someone you love.
While things are improving, even in notoriously fact-phobic states like Mississippi and Texas, “abstinence-only” education continues to persist in school districts across the nation. TFN found that nearly three-quarters of Texas high schools are still teaching abstinence-only, which is based on the fundamental and easily disproved lie that premarital sex is inherently dangerous to a person’s mental and physical health. On top of this, TFN found that many schools are still passing on inaccurate information on condoms and STI transmission, usually exaggerating the dangers in a futile bid to keep kids from having sex. Unfortunately, even Texas school districts that use curriculum that educates correctly on contraception use are still trying to spin abstinence-until-marriage as a desirable option for all students, even though premarital sex is near-universal in the real world.  Abstinence-only may be discredited with the voters, but sadly it’s still very normal in Texas, other red states, and even across the nation.
Lie No. 8: Dragons actually once existed. 
As much as “Game of Thrones” fans might wish otherwise, dragons are not real and have never existed. But as reported by Mother Jones, Louisiana’s notorious voucher school system has let some crazy nonsense fly in the classroom, including the claim that dragons used to roam the planet. A book being used in Louisiana classrooms titled ”Life Science” and published by Bob Jones University Press claims that “scientists” found “dinosaur skulls” that the book suggests are actually dragons. “The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke,” the book claims.
Lie No. 9: Gay people do not actually exist.
After being beat back by gay rights and sexual health advocates, Republicans in the Tennessee Legislature are once again trying to bring back the “don’t say gay bill.” The law would ban a teacher from admitting the existence of homosexuality to students prior to the 8th grade, even if the students ask them about it. Instead, the bill would require turning a student who confesses to being gay over to his parents, with the legislators clearly hoping that punishment will somehow make the kid not-gay. The entire bill rests on and promotes the premise that homosexuality isn’t a real sexual orientation, but just the result of mental illness or confusion, and if it’s enforced, that message will come across to the students.
Lie No. 10: Hippies were dirty, immoral Satan-worshippers.
In the 1960s, it was common for conservatives to try to discredit the left by stoking paranoia about hippie culture and denouncing the supposed evils of rock ‘n’ roll. Forty years have passed, but in Louisiana, some school administrators are apparently still afraid that possessing a Beatles record means a young person is on the verge of quitting bathing and taking up a lifestyle of taking LSD and worshiping Satan at psychedelic orgies.
A history textbook snagged from a Louisiana school funded by the voucher program tells students: “Many young people turned to drugs and immoral lifestyles and these youths became known as hippies. They went without bathing, wore dirty, ragged, unconventional clothing, and deliberately broke all codes of politeness or manners. Rock music played an important part in the hippie movement and had great influence over the hippies. Many of the rock musicians they followed belonged to Eastern religious cults or practiced Satan worship.” It’s unclear if the book also teaches that if you play a Queen record backward, you can hear Satan telling you to smoke pot, but that kind of critical information could also be conveyed during the teacher’s lectures on the subject.
Lie No. 11: Ayn Rand’s books have literary value.
Idaho state Sen. John Goedde, chairman of the state’s Senate Education Committee, has introduced a bill that would require students not only to read Rand’s ponderous novel “Atlas Shrugged,” but also to pass a test on it in order to graduate. Goedde claims to mostly not be serious about this bill, but instead is using it as a childish attempt to piss off the liberals, but it’s still the sort of item parents need to watch out for.
After all, Texas textbook standards require that an obsession with the gold standard be taught as a legitimate economic theory instead of the mad ravings of cranks that it is. We live in an era where no amount of right-wing lunacy is considered too much to be pushed on innocent children like it’s fact. Anyone who doubts that should just remember one word: dragons.

Amanda Marcotte is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and journalist. She's published two books and blogs regularly at Pandagon, RH Reality Check and Slate's Double X.

Nat Geo Reality Show Stars Live Snake, Dead Preacher

Reality show snake-handling preacher dies -- of snakebite

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

updated 12:15 PM EST, Mon February 17, 2014

'Serpent handler' killed by snakebite

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Star of "Snake Salvation" has died of venomous snakebite
• Pentecostal Pastor Jamie Coots believes that God protects against venomous snakebites
• Coots refused treatment for the bite, authorities said

(CNN) -- A Kentucky pastor who starred in a reality show about snake-handling in church has died -- of a snakebite.

Jamie Coots died Saturday evening after refusing to be treated, Middleborough police said.

On "Snake Salvation," the ardent Pentecostal believer said that he believed that a passage in the Bible suggests poisonous snakebites will not harm believers as long as they are anointed by God. The practice is illegal in most states, but still goes on, primarily in the rural South.

Coots was a third-generation "serpent handler" and aspired to one day pass the practice and his church, Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name, on to his adult son, Little Cody.

Watch this pastor handle deadly snakes

Pastor dances with venomous snakes

The National Geographic show featured Coots and cast handling all kinds of poisonous snakes -- copperheads, rattlers, cottonmouths. The channel's website shows a picture of Coots, goateed, wearing a fedora. "Even after losing half of his finger to a snake bite and seeing others die from bites during services," Coots "still believes he must take up serpents and follow the Holiness faith," the website says.

On Sunday, National Geographic Channels spokeswoman Stephanie Montgomery sent CNN this statement: "In following Pastor Coots for our series Snake Salvation, we were constantly struck by his devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced.

"Those risks were always worth it to him and his congregants as a means to demonstrate their unwavering faith. We were honored to be allowed such unique access to Pastor Jamie and his congregation during the course of our show, and give context to his method of worship. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time."

In February 2013, Coots was given one year of probation for crossing into Tennessee with venomous snakes. He was previously arrested in 2008 for keeping 74 snakes in his home, according to National Geographic. Tennessee banned snake handling in 1947 after five people were bitten in churches over two years' time, the channel says on the show site.

On one episode, Coots, who collected snakes, is shown trying to wrest a Western diamondback out of its nook under a rock deep in East Texas. He's wearing a cowboy hat and a T-shirt that says "The answer to Y2K - JESUS."

The pastor is helped by his son and a couple of church members.

"He'll give up, just sooner or later," one of the members says. "Just be careful. Ease him out."

The group bags two snakes, which a disappointed Coots says hardly justifies the trip to Texas.

"Catching two snakes the first day, 'course we'd hoped for more," Coots says in the video. "We knew that the next day we was gonna have to try to hunt harder and hope for more snakes."

I agree, the solution is more snakes! Full video available at CNN, click here.

Is There At Least One North Carolina Politician Who's Not an Idiot? Didn't Think So.

No cloaking his intentions: NC politician resigns — in Klingon

David Waddell via Facebook

Indian Trail, N.C., Town Council member David Waddell's resignation note to the mayor.

By Becky Bratu and M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

A town council member in North Carolina told the mayor this week he's resigning — in a letter written in the Klingon language. And next he plans to run for the U.S. Senate, he told NBC News.
David Waddell, who has two years left in his term on the town council in Indian Trail, about 15 miles southeast of Charlotte, resigned Wednesday in a long but otherwise standard English letter to the public. 
Waddell cited long-simmering clashes with the town manager and frustration with what he called cronyism and secrecy. 
But because Mayor Michael Alvarez is "a little bit of a Trekkie, also," Waddell told NBC News, he decided to break the news to him in Klingon — the language of the deadly enemy-turned-ally-turned-enemy race in the "Star Trek" universe of TV series and movies.
"Yes, I did resign, and yes, I did resign in Klingon to the mayor," Waddell said Friday morning. 
"It was part fun," he said, but if you understand the Klingons you know they value integrity, honor and duty above all else, and "that's been a big point of contention between myself and the council."

CBS Photo Archive / CBS via Getty Images

Klingons in an episode of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.'

And yes, the closing "Perhaps today is a good day (to) resign" was meant to signal that while "I'm going away ... I'm not done fighting," he said.
Waddell said he plans to run as a write-in candidate on the religious conservative Constitution Party platform for the seat of Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan this year.
"I'm going to challenge the two-party system and challenge the common way of thinking on a lot of political issues," he promised.
Klingon, of course, is a made-up language, but thanks to the monomania of serious "Star Trek" fans, a full, working language has been created, complete with dictionaries and translations of classics like "Hamlet" and "A Christmas Carol."
If you want to give it a try, you can even search Google in Klingon.
Watch the top videos on NBCNews.com

I Didn't Know Florida Had Any Rules For Its Cops! Hell, Neighborhood Watch Jerks Shoot to Kill!

Florida cop fired after he sexually harassed a rape victim while investigating her assault

Deputy Paul Martin was fired for "horrendous conduct," according to the Pinellas County Sheriff

(Credit: Screenshot via WTSP)

A Florida cop was fired after he sexually harassed and intentionally intimidated a 17-year-old rape victim while investigating the sexual assault case.
Deputy Paul Martin was fired from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office for his “horrendous conduct, totally inappropriate conduct,” according to Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.
But judging from the report on what Martin actually said and did during the investigation, “horrendous” doesn’t nearly cover it.
A few excerpts:

On July 10, 2013 and July 11, 2013, you conducted an investigation regarding the involuntary sexual battery of a 17-year-old girl. You admitted that on July 10, 2013 while conducting the investigation, you made comments to someone in front of the 17-year-old girl about your off-duty lifestyle, including that you go to “strip clubs.” This conversation was overheard by the victim and she described your comments as “awkward.”
[During a later interview with the victim] you made wholly inappropriate comments with sexual overtones to this sexual battery victim. Your sexual comments to the victim were irrelevant to the investigation. You described sexual acts and identified body parts during the interview with this victim using inappropriate words such as “ass, fuck and tits.”
…
During your subject interview, with AI investigators and during the Administrative Review Board, you stated that “you are indifferent to the victim’s feelings.” You also stated that you intentionally attempted to “make the victim feel uncomfortable” in an attempt to ensure she was telling the truth. You also made statements such as “I own you” and “I control your destiny.”

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“Telling a 17-year-old girl who is making a sexual battery complaint that you ‘own her’ and that you ‘control her destiny’ is contrary to all interviewing boundaries and effective police practice and this conduct violates agency policy,” the report continued. “Such conduct is ‘inconsistent with good police practices and human decency.’”
Martin was previously disciplined for physically assaulting his ex-wife, though was apparently allowed to remain with the department following the incident.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

Pretty Bad When the Russians are Laughing Their Ass Off Over Texas' 'Billies

Evolution as the root cause of Holocaust: Texas version

Photo: EPA

When Texas parents sent their kids to iSchool High, charter school in Houston, they were expecting some great college preparation. Instead, their children came home with apparently religiously motivated anti-science books. A publicly funded charter high school in Texas is teaching students with the textbook that implies the Holocaust has roots in the theory of evolution.

According to Salon.com, iSchool High is using a textbook that links Charles Darwin's scientific theory to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler:

[Hitler] has written that the Aryan (German) race would be the leader in all human progress. To accomplish that goal, all “lower races” should either be enslaved or eliminated. Apparently the theory of evolution and its “survival of the fittest” philosophy had taken root in Hitler’s warped mind.

So some worried parents researched ResponsiveEd, the curriculum used at iSchool High. What they discovered was that ResponsiveEd was founded by Donald R. Howard, former owner of ACE (Accelerated Christian Education). ACE is a fundamentalist education group that teaches young-Earth creationism as fact and integrates Bible lessons into every academic subject.

Last year it hit headlines because one of its high school science books taught that the Loch Ness Monster was real, and that this was evidence against evolution. After Howard left ACE in the 1990s, he founded Eagle Project charter schools, which became Responsive Education Solutions, or ResponsiveEd, in 2007.

Howard told the Wall Street Journal in 1998: “Take the Ten Commandments ­– you can rework those as a success principle by rewording them. We will call it truth, we will call it principles, we will call it values. We will not call it religion.”

ResponsiveEd is the latest in a long line of concerns raised over the religious affiliations of charter schools. In 2010, more than 20 percent of Texas charter schools reportedly had a religious affiliation. And ResponsiveEd aims to expand further, adding that it has 60 schools in Texas, with plans to open another 20 by 2014. It also has facilities in Arkansas, and intends to open in Indiana.

Charter schools receive public funding but operate privately. While promoting creationist science is deemed unconstitutional in public schools, charter schools enjoy greater freedom to challenge mainstream science in the classroom.

Some charter schools has their curriculum based on Accelerated Christian Education’s Paradigm Accelerated Curriculum (PAC). It was designed by former ACE vice president Ronald E. Johnson. While ACE is an “individualized, accelerated” curriculum based on the “five laws of learning,” PAC is an “accelerated individualized” curriculum based on the “six principles of learning.” Like ACE and ResponsiveEd, it questions the theory of evolution and presents the “catastrophist theory” of Noah’s Ark as a credible rival explanation. Positing that the earth is only 6,000 years old (because the oldest living things on earth are less than 5,000 years old), this pseudoscientific theory is easily disproved-- by 4000 BC, human cultures were flourishing throughout the world, agriculture and animal domestication were thousands of years old and the biblical city of Jericho had been inhabited for more than 5,000 years already.

Like ResponsiveEd, PAC teaches that the theory of evolution influenced Hitler to create the Third Reich. It also relies on the traditional creationist argument of “gaps” in the fossil record:

Evolutionists insist that their theory must be right and that missing fossil evidence is merely the result of a flawed fossil record; the catastrophists insist that evolutionists have not exercised the scientific method of discovery and therefore have little real scientific evidence to prove their theory.

The PAC materials in general try to undermine the authority of science by all means.

ResponsiveEd’s teaching on evolution promises that students will, among other things:

· Explain the difference between microevolution and macroevolution.

· Describe the theories concerning the origins of life.

· Discuss theories of human development.

· Express opinions regarding evolutionary theory in general and human evolution in particular.

· Describe controversies regarding evolution.

This resembles John Hudson Tiner’s “When Science Fails,” an Accelerated Christian Education literature book that uses various examples to undermine science and cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

By questioning the science, the evolution challengers in Texas are following a strategy increasingly deployed by others around the country.

If textbooks do not present alternative viewpoints or explain what they describe as “the controversy,” they say students will be deprived of a core concept of education — learning how to make up their own minds.

However, ACE’s educational techniques have faced much criticism. Harry Brighouse, professor of philosophy and affiliate professor of educational policy studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison, described ACE’s social studies as “a kind of Christian version of the Stalinist approach to history but without the intellectual subtlety.”

The harshest criticism came from a 1987 article in the Phi Delta Kappan that stated:

If parents want their children to obtain a very limited and sometimes inaccurate view of the world – one that ignores thinking above the level of rote recall – then the ACE materials do the job very well. The world of the ACE materials is quite a different one from that of scholarship and critical thinking.

Critics claim there are dangers in allowing pseudoscience and fundamentalist fallacies to be taught in American schools. Scientifically disprovable theories already bear fruits: nearly half of Americans surveyed by Gallup last year said they believe 'God' created modern human beings sometime in the past 10,000 years.

Meanwhile, US Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a medical doctor and member of the House Science Committee, calls evolution a "lie from the pit of hell" and believes the earth is only 9,000 years old.

For citizens in Texas, however, the concern remains that public funds are being allocated to schools that teach religiously motivated lessons.

Texas will soon be able to select biology textbooks for use by high school students over the next decade, but the panel responsible for reviewing submissions from publishers has stirred controversy because a number of its members do not accept evolution and climate change as scientific truth, NYT reports.

Texas governor Rick Perry boasted that his schools taught both creationism and evolution while the State Board of Education includes members who hold creationist views. Six of them are known to reject evolution.

“Utterly unqualified partisan politicians will look at what utterly unqualified citizens have said about a textbook and decide whether it meets the requirements of a textbook,” NYT cited Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, which monitors the activities of far-right organizations.

Publishers including well-known companies like Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill have already submitted 14 biology textbooks for consideration this year. The state board will vote on a final list of textbooks in November. Even though Texas districts can make their own decisions, many will simply choose books from the state’s approved list, activists fear.

Some Texans worry that ideologically driven review panel members and state school board members are slowly eroding science education in the state, NYT says. Parents are also concerned that their children will not be able to compete for jobs that require scientific backgrounds.

Olga Yazhgunovich
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_10_28/Evolution-as-the-root-cause-of-Holocaust-Texas-version-2144/

North Carolina's "No" to Everything, Especially Brains

After a year hiatus I just had to start posting again. It's not that the South is rising again; it's not. But the South is sinking into bias and prejudice, ignorance and myth.
I think secession would be appropriate.

Only In The South Do Zoos Have Contests to Eat Their Specimens Live

Florida man dies after winning cockroach-eating contest

Courtesy of Katie Resmondo

Edward Archbold and his fiance, Natasha Proffitt

By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

Edward Archbold was, according to those who met him on Friday night, the life of the party – a bit of a showoff who was up for anything, even a giant cockroach-eating contest.
He won. And then, tragically, he died.
Now police from Deerfield Beach, Fla., about 40 miles north of Miami, are investigating the death of the 32-year-old, who on Facebook went by Edward William Barry.
According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, Archbold, of West Palm Beach, and several other contestants signed up to eat a variety of insects at Ben Siegel Reptiles in Deerfield Beach. After eating dozens of giant cockroaches, Archbold was declared the winner of an ivory-ball python. (The prizes, Archbold indicated on his Facebook page that night, were less significant than the glory. His plan was to give the python to a friend.)

He had also entered a superworm-eating contest earlier in the night.But after winning, Archbold felt sick and started vomiting. He then collapsed in the store and was later pronounced dead. The medical examiner’s office is conducting tests to determine a cause of death, according to the sheriff’s office statement.

On Facebook, Ben Siegel Reptiles wrote that staff met Archbold the night of the Midnight Madness sale: “We all liked him right away. All of us here at Ben Siegel Reptiles are sad that we will not get to know Eddie better, for in the short time we knew him, he was very well liked by all.”
In the comments beneath the statement, the reptile store wrote that the prize “now belongs to his estate.”
In another Facebook comment, an attorney claiming to represent Ben Siegel Reptiles wrote that contest participants had signed waivers accepting their participation in this “unique and unorthodox contest.”
“The consumption of insects is widely accepted throughout the world, and the insects presented as part of the contest were taken from an inventory of insects that are safely and domestically raised in a controlled environment as food for reptiles,” wrote attorney Luke Lirot.
No other contestants felt sick, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said.
And Archbold seemed to be doing all right earlier in the night, according to his own account on Facebook. He took photos of the superworms and wrote: " Also side note im NOW in a super worm eating comp now.......what ever the hell a super worm is?"
Eating the bugs yielded valuable rewards, according to the store's Facebook page: “Eat the most bugs in 4 minutes, win the ball morph. That’s it. Oh yeah, any vomiting is an automatic DQ,” the advertisement stated. “Eat the most crickets, win a male lesser. Eat the most superworms, win a female orange belly. Eat the most discoid roaches, win a female graphite sired ivory!”
Michael Adams, a professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, told The Associated Press that he has never heard of someone dying after eating roaches.
"Unless the roaches were contaminated with some bacteria or other pathogens, I don't think that cockroaches would be unsafe to eat," Adams said. "Some people do have allergies to roaches but there are no toxins in roaches or related insects."
Meanwhile, Archbold's friends took to his Facebook page to remember him. Wrote one: "This goes out to one of the most funnest, craziest, and most energetic person I have ever met!!! I will never ever forget u Eddie... I don't think anyone could!!" 
Updates and comments can be found here.

How do People This Stupid Get Elected? Oh That's Right, He's From Georgia.

Video shows 'scientist' in Congress saying evolution is from 'pit of Hell'

The Bridge Project provided this excerpt from remarks by Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., at the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman's Banquet on Sept. 27 in Hartwell, Ga. The video was extracted from this full version, starting at about the 35-minute mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU4B86AL5Go

By Alan Boyle  Follow @b0yle

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun's view that the theories of evolution and the big bang are "lies straight from the pit of Hell" is getting more exposure than he might have expected, thanks to a video that was made at a church-sponsored banquet in Georgia and distributed by a progressive political watchdog group.
The Georgia Republican is already well-known as an outspoken conservative Christian, due in part to his unsuccessful campaign to have 2010 declared "the Year of the Bible." But the latest comments have taken on an extra dab of controversy because Broun, a medical doctor, calls himself a scientist in the video and chairs the House Science Committee's panel on investigations and oversight.
The video clip, distributed by the Bridge Project, was taken from a longer version recorded on Sept. 27 during the 2012 Sportsman's Banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Ga. Here's a transcript of the Bridge Project's snippet:

"God's word is true. I've come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it's lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I've found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don't believe that the earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says.

"And what I've come to learn is that it's the manufacturer's handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I'll continue to do that."

Broun's comments were greeted with applause, and they probably reflect how a lot of his constituents feel about the same issues. He's assured of re-election in any case, due to the fact that he has no Democratic Party challenger in next month's election. But how will Broun's latest pronouncements play out on a national stage? Will they have any effect on the presidential campaign? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Update for 11:35 p.m. ET Oct. 6: The Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald said Meredith Griffanti, a spokeswoman for Broun, referred to the video in this brief, emailed statement: "Dr. Broun was speaking off the record to a large church group about his personal beliefs regarding religious issues."

Why Would You Think We're Laughing AT You?

 Mitch Albom: This honey child is a real boo boo

She wears a tiara. She plays with a pig. She wiggles and shakes her hips and makes "come hither" movements. She pulls the fat from her tummy and squeezes it for the camera. She refers to herself in the third person. She squeals, she brags. And her mother yells, "shake your butt," and passes gas on camera.
She is 6 years old.
Two million people watch her.
She is an American star.
Welcome to the latest lowering of a bar that was already deep in the mud. "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo," which recently debuted on TLC, is one of the most talked about TV phenomenons in a while, and the general disgust over its content makes "Jersey Shore" look like "Masterpiece Theatre."
That's because in "Jersey Shore," the main characters were at least over 18 and presumably responsible for their idiotic behavior.
"Honey Boo Boo" is different. The title refers to the nickname of 6-year-old Alana Thompson, the youngest in a self-proclaimed "redneck" family in tiny McIntyre, Ga. (population 700). Honey Boo Boo is a pageant participant. This explains why her mother buys her two-piece cowgirl outfits, pays for strutting and dance lessons and encourages her child to say things like, "A dollah makes me hollah ... Honey Boo Boo Child!"
Honestly, you watch this, and your mouth can't help but fall open.

All for the pageantry

But nothing should surprise us about a family who watches a pig defecate on the kitchen table and jokes about their mother wanting to eat the pig. How could something like that not be on TV?
Nor is there any point in growing furious over a 6-year-old being exploited this way. It's hardly new. Alana was previously on a popular TLC program called "Toddlers & Tiaras," all about childhood beauty pageants. She wasn't the prettiest. She wasn't the most talented.
She was merely the most outrageous.
And that got her what other pageant families are privately lusting after: exposure.
Her own show.
So now America can watch Honey Boo Boo chase her pig, say, "I rocked my Daisy Duke," and wear so much makeup she looks like a mannequin. They can watch her mother burp on camera or her pregnant teenage sister get an ultrasound.
They can see an interview on CNN in which her mother admits to spending $15,000 so far on pageants, but putting nothing toward higher education. Here is a direct quote:
"We haven't, like, saved, like, you know, any, like, college fund from her, like, winnings or anything like that."
What a shame. Harvard was so close.

Supply and demand

The reason we cannot get upset over this obnoxious but still pitiable child who is encouraged by her mother to drink her Go Go Juice -- a combination of Red Bull, Mountain Dew and Lord knows what else -- is that 1) she is just a child and 2) 2 million of us are watching it.
Two million people find this entertainment. Two million! And forget about the train wreck defense. Sorry. People stare at a train wreck and then move on. They don't set up shop to keep looking every week.
This is entertainment for at least 2 million of us. And as long as it is, TLC will keep pumping it out. There is only one way -- there has only ever been one way -- to keep trash off of television.
Show no interest in it.
But good luck doing that in a country infatuated with outlandishness. We are increasingly becoming a nation that revels in saying, "Oh my god, did you see that?" We don't want to think, we want to be amused. We don't want to try, we want to feel superior. We don't want to correct people, we would rather mock them. We don't do, we watch.
This melting of our humanity is witnessed from every cruel YouTube video to the recent death of Tony Scott, whose suicidal leap was filmed by several people, but no one tried to stop him.
Honey Boo Boo isn't the last word in Lowest Common Denominator, only the latest. And when the world grows bored with her (give it five minutes) she and her family will go the way of Octomom and Kate ("Plus Eight") Gosselin, left gasping for their oxygen, public attention, and finding none.
We'll be too busy gaping at someone else.
For (hilarious) comments and more click here.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com

Wow! Do Not Piss Off A Snake Shaker!!! (more snakes, more snakes.)

If God

   Was a Rattlesnake,

Would You Pick it Up?

Lost in the Land of Faith, Hope and Venom

Douglas Cruickshank

 
  "YOU CAN NEVER EXHAUST THE POWER when the Spirit comes down, not even when you take up a snake, not even when you take up a dozen of them. The more faith you expend, the more power is released. It's an inexhaustible, eternally renewable resource. It's the only power some of these people have."
I never quite understood church religion --- what it can mean to people, what it can do for them --- until I took a long drive through the Mississippi Delta a couple years back. The American South is another country. If you think it isn't you either haven't been there or you haven't been away from there. Like other countries, it is delightful in many ways, dreadful in a few well-publicized other ways, and entirely ordinary in still others. Parts of it are shamefully poor --- poorer than any other place in the United States. It's a congenital indigence, passed down from parents to children, down again. And then again. That kind of destitution and powerlessness gets on you, gets in you, and does what it does to people everywhere --- compels them to scour the landscape for hope. The hopeful thing is that sometimes they find it, though occasionally in the oddest of places, people and beasts.
Driving past endless cotton fields and cypress swamps, I must have passed a single room church every mile or two from Vicksburg to Clarksdale. On a Sunday morning there would be dusty, busted up Impalas, Rivieras, Ford pickups, old Dodge flatbeds and Chevy Blazers parked all which ways in front of the shining white buildings. Maybe even a green and yellow John Deere tractor. And if I slowed down and opened the window as I passed, I'd often hear singing, shouted "Amens," or the sole, rhythmic voice of the preacher exhorting the congregation. "The church is the glue," I later jotted on a café napkin, "that adheres people to one another. It's where transcendence is found, and faith turns to hope --- the kind of hope that gets you through the week when there's little else to keep you going." Not a profound insight, but the bittersweetness of the Delta made it seem so.
In 1992, Dennis Covington, a freelance journalist and professor of creative writing, was covering a trial in the northern Alabama town of Scottsboro for the New York Times. In Scottsboro, a place made notorious by the unjust 1931 rape conviction of the nine "Scottsboro Boys," a man named Glendel Buford Summerford stood accused of attempted murder. Summerford was the pastor of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following. In a drunken rage, he'd tried to kill his wife by forcing her to stick her hand into a cage full of snakes. "...after the diamondback rattlesnakes had bit her and she'd stumbled on the way back to the house and fallen to the ground, he unzipped his fly and pissed on her. That's how bad it had got," Covington writes. Darlene Summerford lived and her former husband is now serving 99 years in the state penitentiary.
That's where Glendel Summerford's story ends and Dennis Covington's begins. As he attended the trial, and afterwards, the writer got to know some of the snake handlers, members of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following, and others who would pick up serpents when "the Spirit moved on them," notably Charles and Aline McGlockin. Covington also got in a lot deeper than he could have anticipated. But he got back out and wrote it all down in a spare, moving book called Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia (Penguin, 1996).  It was a finalist for the National Book Award. It should have won.
"The Prosecutor had maintained during the proceedings," he writes, "that the trial was not about snake handling. But in many ways that is all it had been about. Facing fear. Taking risks. Having faith." That's also what Covington's book is about.
The rationale for religious snake handling --- speaking in tongues, handling fire and drinking poison may also occur during a service --- is found in the literal interpretation of a passage from Acts in the Bible's New Testament: "And these signs shall follow them that believe;" the text reads, "In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover!"
After the trial, Covington was invited to a service being given by another congregation of snake handlers on Sand Mountain near a town called Section. His interest, as he tells it, was still largely journalistic. "I was pleased the handlers had felt comfortable enough to include me. It meant the work was going well. The relationship between journalist and subject is often an unspoken conspiracy. The handlers wanted to show me something, and I was ready to be shown....But I had a personal agenda too. I was enjoying the passion and abandon of their worship."
The McGlockins were at the service, and though no snakes were handled---there'd been a mix-up and the serpents were left behind---Aline was moved by the spirit and passionate abandon ensued. She lifted her voice in an eerie chanting that Covington describes over more than two pages, and quite beautifully. "It was the strangest sound I had ever heard. At first it did not seem human....I could not disentangle myself from the sound of her voice, the same syllables repeated with endless variation. At times, it seemed something barbed was being pulled from her throat; at other times, the sound was a clear stream flowing outward into thin air." Almost unconsciously, Covington began to accompany the woman on tambourine and an intimacy transpired which he found unsettling. "Through the tambourine, I was occurring with her in the Spirit, and it was not of my own will."  So much for journalism as it's usually defined. (Or, to use the wry disclaimer that appears in teeny type halfway down the copyright page, "This is a work of nonfiction, but memory is an imperfect guide.")
Covington digs into his own past --- Appalachian ancestors, middle-class Birmingham upbringing, comparatively tame religious experience --- as he wantonly immerses himself in the deep faith of the snake handlers. A few months after the Sand Mountain service, he stands up at a West Virginia gathering and testifies that the Holy Ghost brought him there and is guiding his journalistic mission. "This thing is real!" he exclaims to one of the parishioners after dancing and singing to a "wacko, amphetamine dirge." Clearly, Salvation on Sand Mountain is subjective, literary journalism if it's journalism at all (I say it's the best kind). But Covington is an earnest fellow --- one can't help wondering what Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe might have done with this material --- a gifted writer, and downright courageous in exposing his self-doubt and spiritual fragility. The book is near perfect as a piece of writing. If it falls down anywhere, it's in Covington's hesitancy to call snake handling what it is: nutty behavior by superstitious hill folk. But then of course there wouldn't be a story. Most of those who practice it seem to be good souls (the McGlockins come off as authentically sweet and true). They're serious about it as an avenue to transcendence. But only a God with a particularly perverse sense of humor, or a deity dreamed up by Mark Twain, would have his charges demonstrate their faith in such suicidal fashion.
Plenty of the faithful get bitten. Most everyone involved has a relative who's died of snakebite. And at least seventy-one people, Covington reports, have been killed over the years during religious services where venomous snakes were handled. Nonetheless, he goes all the way after getting some "solid advice" from Charles McGlockin: "You might be anointed when you take up a serpent," he cautions Covington, "but if there's a witchcraft spirit in the church, it could zap your anointing and you'd be left cold turkey with a serpent in your hand and the spirit of God gone off of you. That's when you'll get bit....Always be careful who you take a rattlesnake from." Right.
Not long after that warning, Covington's moment came. "I'd always been drawn to danger," he explains. "Alcohol. Psychedelics. War....I wouldn't lose my mind. That's what I thought, anyway." During a service he feels himself pulled up to the front where the snakes are. Where the Spirit is moving. A man named Carl offers him a big rattler. "Acrid smelling," the writer remembers it, "carnal, alive. And the look in Carl's eyes seemed to change as he approached. He was embarrassed. The snake was all he had, his eyes seemed to say. But as low as it was, as repulsive, if I took it, I'd be possessing the sacred."
It would be cheating the prospective reader and Covington to further quote the passage because his fine, forceful evocation of those next moments damn near succeeds in making sense of it all.  Snake handling is a peculiar route to spiritual release, but the result --- surrender of will, "the power in the act of disappearing," loss of self, a brief immersion in paradise --- is much the same as that reported by religious practitioners from any number of the world's denominations, sometimes employing equally strange methods.
Covington stayed in the fold awhile longer and then his relationships with the handlers took an unpleasant, if predictable, course, causing him to turn away from them and back to his own life. "I refuse to be a witness to suicide," he says, finally coming to his senses. "I have two daughters to raise and a vocation in the world."
Salvation on Sand Mountain is a short book on a long subject---the nature of God, faith and fear. And the hunger for hope and power among those who have little access to either. It's also a good yarn from a thoughtful man. Go ahead and pick it up.

This book review can also be found here.

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Texas vs. Science & Literature

Texas Producing Ignorant Sumbitches, Think 61 IQ Is About Normal For the State

Tuesday, August 7, 2012 4:58 PM EDT

Steinbeck’s Family: Texas Wrong In Using ‘Of Mice And Men’ To Justify Marvin Wilson’s Execution

By Joseph Orovic

John Steinbeck gave the literary world a lovable simpleton in Lennie Small, the fulcrum of the Nobel Prize winner's classic 1937 novella "Of Mice and Men." Lennie was meant to be an archetype: the lumbering, guileless halfwit whose innocence was matched only by his intense loyalty and unmanageable physical strength.

He is one of Steinbeck's simplest characters, eliciting sympathy as few in the American literary oeuvre ever do. And perhaps it's this empathy that keeps "Of Mice and Men" on the syllabi of so many high school English courses, 75 years after its publication.
Now the character has been brought to the fore again, providing the baseline comparison that sent a mentally retarded convict named Marvin Wilson to his death in Texas Tuesday night. Wilson, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., 14 minutes after his lethal injection began at the state prison in Huntsville, NBC reported. 
Lennie Small was never meant to set the legal definition of "mental retardation," the late novelist's son, Thomas Steinbeck, argues.
A snafu in a previous Supreme Court ruling allowed Wilson to be sent to his death, as his lawyers' petition for a stay of execution was ignored. And the whole ordeal bizarrely hinges upon what Steinbeck argues is a misguided and inaccurate interpretation of a fictional character.
"Prior to reading about Mr. Wilson's case, I had no idea that the great state of Texas would use a fictional character that my father created to make a point about human loyalty and dedication, i.e., Lennie Small from 'Of Mice and Men,' as a benchmark to identify whether defendants with intellectual disability should live or die," Thomas Steinbeck said in a statement.
Wilson's attorneys asked the high court to put a stay of execution until Texas' controversial means of testing mental disabilities is properly challenged.
Wilson was convicted in 1992 of murdering a police drug informant. During his stint in prison, he was subjected to a battery of tests to determine the borders of his mental limitations, including a 2004 report by Donald Trahan, a neuropsychologist from the Center for Behavioral Studies in Texas.
Wilson's IQ of 61 put him far below normal, with the literacy level of a 7-year-old. He could not dress himself properly, match his socks, climb a ladder or mow a lawn.
"It is evident that the deficiencies in general intelligence and adaptive behavior have been present since early childhood and well before the age of 18," Trahan wrote. "My evaluation of Mr. Marvin Lee Wilson reveals that he does meet the criteria for a diagnosis of mild mental retardation."
The test results came two years after the Supreme Court ruled the execution of mentally retarded convicts was a breach of the Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on excessive punishment in Atkins v. Virginia.
"The mentally retarded should be categorically excluded from execution," the court wrote in its decision, due to "their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment and control of their impulses."
The decision did not specify a definition for mental retardation, allowing states to set their own guidelines.
Texas, a state so execution-happy it accounts for one-third of the nation's trips to death row, took a back door to letting the mentally retarded continue to face the death penalty.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals set a threshold that ignores recognized medical testing while daring the Supreme Court to intervene.
It directly rebuked the Atkins decision in a 2004 ruling, decrying the Supreme Court's "categorical rule making such offenders ineligible for the death penalty," going so far as to deny the existence of "a 'mental retardation' bright-line exemption."
Instead, it concocted seven criteria called "Briseno factors," which were based upon the character Lennie Small.
"Most Texas citizens would agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt from execution," the decision read. "But does a consensus of Texas citizens agree that all persons who might legitimately qualify for assistance under the social services definition of mental retardation be exempt from an otherwise constitutional penalty?"
In short, Texas' criteria allow the mentally retarded to remain on death row if a judge determines the crime was complex enough to require forethought, planning and intricate execution. Wilson met all the criteria. But it's the bit alluding to Lennie Small that upsets the Steinbecks.
"My father was a highly gifted writer who won the Nobel Prize for his ability to create art about the depth of the human experience and condition. His work was certainly not meant to be scientific, and the character of Lennie was never intended to be used to diagnose a medical condition like intellectual disability," Thomas Steinbeck said.
"I find the whole premise to be insulting, outrageous, ridiculous and profoundly tragic. I am certain that if my father, John Steinbeck, were here, he would be deeply angry and ashamed to see his work used in this way."
The same 2004 ruling Texas used against Wilson has been the foundation of at least 10 mental retardation claims being rejected in other death penalty cases. It has been echoed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which claims mental retardation cases are not grounds for staying executions.
Several factors could have changed Wilson's fate. The Supreme Court could have offered a stay of execution, but did not. Texas Gov. Rick Perry also could have intervened, but he vetoed a bill that would have banned the execution of mentally retarded inmates in 2009.
Arguably the strangest part of the ordeal remains Wilson's very real similarities to Lennie Small, particularly in the facts his crime. Like Lennie, Wilson was one half of a duo. It left him susceptible to the direction of his accomplice. The main witness against Wilson was the accomplice's wife, who testified he admitted to the crime.
Steinbeck's own novel eerily describes Wilson's character -- and possibly Texas' obstinacy. A longer bit of dialogue spoken by Crooks, an ancillary character, reads, "He got nothing to tell him what's so an' what ain't so. Maybe if he sees somethin', he don't know whether it's right or not. He can't turn to some other guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can't tell. He got nothing to measure by."

Talk About Shutting the Barn Door After the Horse Got Out!

I guess teaching contraception just wouldn't make sense to these 'Billies.

Louisiana School Forces Students to Take Pregnancy Tests, Kicks Out Girls Who Refuse Or Test Positive

By Tara Culp- Ressler

One Louisiana school is dealing with the state’s high rates of teen pregnancy by taking an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. No pregnant students are welcome at Delhi Charter School in Delhi, Louisiana — a policy that the institution enforces by requiring students who are “suspected” of being pregnant to submit to a mandatory pregnancy test.

If students test positive for pregnancy, they are no longer allowed to attend classes on the school’s campus and will be forced to either switch to another school or begin a home school program. If a student refuses to take the test, she is “treated as a pregnant student” and also kicked out of Delhi Charter School, according to the student handbook:

If an administrator or teacher suspects a student is pregnant, a parent conference will be held. The school reserves the right to require any female student to take a pregnancy test to confirm whether or not the suspected student is in fact pregnant. The school further reserves the right to refer the suspected student to a physician of its choice. If the test indicates that the student is pregnant, the student will not be permitted to attend classes on the campus of Delhi Charter School.

If a student is determined to be pregnant and wishes to continue to attend Delhi Charter School, the student will be required to pursue a course of home study that will be provided by the school…Any student who is suspected of being pregnant and who refuses to submit to a pregnancy test shall be treated as a pregnant student and will be offered home study opportunities. If home study opportunities are not acceptable, the student will be counseled to seek other educational opportunities.

The American Civil Liberties Union points out that Dehli Charter School’s discriminatory policy for pregnant students is “in blatant violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.” On Monday, the ACLU of Louisiana and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project sent a letter to the school asking it to suspend its policy, on the grounds that New Delhi Charter School’s unfair treatment of its pregnant students violates the following laws:

• Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, for excluding students from educational programs based on sex.
• The Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, for treating female students differently than their male peers, as well as stereotyping “suspected” pregnant studies on the basis of their gender.
• The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that recognizes the right to procreate as well as the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, for targeting students in a way that appears to stigmatize pregnancy.

Aside from its unconstitutional premise, the charter school’s policy toward pregnant students is also furthering a serious education gap between teen mothers and the young women who do not have unplanned pregnancies. Thirty percent of all teen girls who drop out of high school cite pregnancy as the main reason. And a full 70 percent of teenage girls who give birth end up leaving school — although if New Delhi Charter School had its way, that statistic might be closer to 100 percent.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/louisiana-school-forces-students-take-pregnancy-tests-kicks-out-girls-who-refuse-or-test-positive-13. All rights are reserved.

For the full story plus comments click here.

God Damn, Why the Hell Would You Go To That Church?

And I sure hope you never dropped even one penny in their collection plate!

Black couple says racism forced church wedding relocation

Written by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Thursday, 02 August 2012

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi couple says the church where they planned to get married turned them away because they are black. Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson say they had set the date and mailed invitations, but the day before their wedding they say they got bad news from the pastor of predominantly white First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs: Some members of the church complained about the black couple having a wedding there. The Wilsons, who live in nearby Jackson, said they attend the church regularly although they are not members. A FEW CRITICS Pastor Stan Weatherford told WLBT TV he was surprised when a small number of church members opposed holding the wedding at the church. “This had never been done before here, so it was setting a new precedent, and there are those who reacted to that because of that,” said Weatherford. Weatherford performed the July 21 ceremony at another church. “I didn't want to have a controversy within the church, and I didn’t want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te’Andrea. I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day,” said Weatherford. WLBT reported that church officials now say they welcome any race. They plan to hold internal meetings on how to move forward. Church member Casey Kitchens said she and other members of the congregation are outraged by the church’s refusal to marry a black couple, a decision she says most of the congregation knew nothing about. ‘BLAME’ “This is a small, small group of people who made a terrible decision,” Kitchens told The Clarion-Ledger. “I'm just ashamed right now that my church would do that. I can't fathom why. How unfair. How unjust. It's just wrong.” “I blame the First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, I blame those members who knew and call themselves Christians and didn't stand up,” said Charles Wilson. Wilson told the newspaper that he understands Weatherford was caught in a difficult position and he still likes the pastor, but he also thinks the pastor should have stood up to the members who didn't want the couple to marry in the church. Photo: Charles and Te’Andrea Wilson