Althouse: Rubes.

September 30, 2006

Rubes.

Boobs.

13 comments:

Meade said...: Thank heavens she didn't take them all on a field trip to Paris to view Gustave Courbet's Origin of the World.

Think that school board is beginning to sweat yet?; 9/30/06, 8:59 AM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/30/06, 9:23 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: A co-worker of mine is stacked and gave herself the nickname of Boobs McGee. Based on her picture, Ms. McGee could have the same name.

But I digress from the issue of the article- IMHO yes, the Texans are nuts here. No question.

And George, you bring up a great point- I wonder how Ms. McGee was dressed during the tour or if she was even dressed at all. The NYT does leave out pertinent stuff especially about Texas like when they interviewed Dem activists in Delay's district and tried to pass them off as Independents.; 9/30/06, 10:54 AM
Anonymous said...: It's Texas. What do you expect?; 9/30/06, 11:10 AM
JorgXMcKie said...: Downtownload, it's pretty much like I expect Stalinist bookstores in San Francisco that ban books. Or like I expect hysterical Lefties in Big Blue Cities to argue without facts, form or content, I would suppose.; 9/30/06, 11:16 AM
vbspurs said...: Did you ever see the Punch cartoon about Marcel Duchamp's Nude descending Staircase?

It showed a mother covering her beanie-capped son's eyes as they passed it in the Tate Modern.

Good ole Punch.

Cheers,
Victoria; 9/30/06, 11:43 AM
OhioAnne said...: If the woman was a great teacher and the principal approved the tour, then the principal should have supported the teacher.

If the woman was a poor teacher and the principal already has concerns about her work, the principal should have either checked the tour herself and sent someone she trusted only for the trip or not approved it.

Something *else* is going on and it most likely has more to do with the principal than the teacher.; 9/30/06, 12:30 PM
Palladian said...: Oh my Goddess! There are a few people with extreme, prudish viewpoints in the state of Texas! Let's trash all of "Jesusland" why don't we?! We're so superior and cosmopolitan here in our Powder Blue states, why we make our kids watch hardcore porn on Saturday mornings instead of cartoons!

Hyperbole, it's what's for dinner!

Imagine what would happen if a teacher in a small arts-based primary school in Manhattan made his students learn The Star Spangled Banner. And I mean ALL THE VERSES. It would be Armageddon! Err, no, that's a JESUSLAND WORD. Let's try again... It would be JIHAD! There, better! Has that cosmopolitan multi-cultural flair and expresses solidarity with our Muslim citizens. I wonder if one of those NYC-mandated Koranic schools would like to go on a field trip to the Met to look at the Titians...; 9/30/06, 3:55 PM
J said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 9/30/06, 8:24 PM
J said...: "Total denial. This is newsworthy, it's shameful, and speaks terribly of Frisco. The problem is not that one parent complained, but that the school went along with it. That's the problem. There are dumb hicks everywhere. Usually we don't let them run the show"

The narrative of the article itself argues pretty strongly that there's more to this than a museum visit, though that's an interesting pretext for getting rid of a difficult to fire employee and probably newsworthy in that vein alone.

I love this part:

"Ms. Lawson faulted her for not displaying enough student art and for “wearing flip-flops” to work; Ms. McGee said she was wearing Via Spiga brand sandals"

And the brand of flip flops would matter because... Via Spiga does indeed make shoes that I think most of us would describe as "flip flops"(http://www.viaspiga.com/product_detail.asp?name=Gowan&id=Gowan-1&c=casual, f'rinstance). The fact that you paid 200 bucks for them doesn't alter that reality. I assume they're somewhat cheaper on Canal Street.; 9/30/06, 8:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Petty

Pity

Pretty; 10/1/06, 12:58 AM
OhioAnne said...: Daryl Herbert said...
Something *else* is going on and it most likely has more to do with the principal than the teacher.

Agreed. But I don't fault the NYT for missing it. It can be hard to dig that sort of thing up.

And, in my post, I didn't fault the NYT for missing it either. In fact, I NEVER mentioned the NYT at all.

However, since you brought it - the NYT - up, it is rather interesting that they didn't wonder about the same thing, isn't it? Rather uncurious of them - not a great trait for a newspaper that claims quality work.

It's almost as if, they assumed that bigotry and prejudice on the part the people of Frisco was the only possible explanation.

BTW, having worked with Girl Scouting for nearly 20 years, I am familiar with the type of tours they are talking about. No school/Scout groups would have gone without the thing being checked out for just this type of complaint from a parent. On occasion, I have even required all the parents to sign the permission slip because I have had one parent say "yes" but then have them cave when the other parent complained.

I don't doubt the parent complained, but I still don't understand the principal's response it that were all it was. You don't allow one person to dictate how you run your organization even if you agree with them.; 10/1/06, 6:14 AM
Kev said...: "There is nothing "newsworthy" about this story, but any honest reader can figure out how it ended up in the NYT"

Well, I live in the Dallas area (where we're not all rubes, trust me), and this has been all over the news, talk radio, etc. for the past week. I agree that there must be something else going on here, so I'm reserving final judgement on this until that "something else" comes out. But if it really is the school overreacting to one insane parent, then yes, there's something terribly wrong here.; 10/1/06, 9:39 AM