Someone In Katy ISD Has a Wicked Sense of Humor

Yesterday I wrote about a pdf file that was taken down from Fort Bend ISD’s website as it described how parents who wanted to opt IN to having their children watch Barack Obama’s Tuesday address on education could sign a parent permission form to submit to their children’s campus administration. This was an obvious ploy to suppress any participation in this singular event that directly involves America’s schoolchildren with the President of the United States, and the district administration rightly reversed itself on this hardline stance.

Then it came to my attention today that Katy ISD had a similar problem from the other side of the political spectrum.

And it struck my funny bone.

You see, here in Texas there are some blue areas, some purple ones, some pink ones, some red ones, and some deep red redneck ones. As it turns out, the area encompassed by the district boundaries of Katy ISD is deep redneck red.

I should know this. I went block walking 3 years ago for Shane Sklar, a Democrat who was challenging Dr. Ron “Doctor No” Paul for his seat in Texas CD-14. But in that area, block walking takes on new meaning in that walking from one persuadable address to another is not feasible – you drive from one such residence to another.

So it struck me as comedic when I read this story in FortBendNow, about how Katy ISD had to retract some words on its district notice regarding how parents can opt out of having their children view the Obama education address to schoolchildren on Tuesday.

From FortBendNow:

“The final sentence of the lengthy four-paragraph statement said, ‘Allowing parents to opt their children out of listening to our president or any other elected official will be honored as we honor requests of those who desire to opt out of saluting our nation’s flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.’”

Is that not just so precious?

Parents have the right to opt their children out of viewing an address by the President of the United States just as they have the right to opt their children out of saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oooh, that must have rubbed a lot of those parents the wrong way. These are the variety of people, mind you, who elevate the volume of their voices to Max when they come upon the phrase “Under God” when they recite the P of A.

But you have to love the person who wrote that last sentence. What an incredibly correct statement. These people who want to opt their children out of hearing the address are perfectly willing to degrade the office of the president to such an extent as to teach their children to ignore what the leader of the free world has to say about their education.

These people, in short, are not patriots in any sense of the word. But insinuating that they are not causes them to complain to the extent that Katy went ahead and retracted that remark.

And that tells me that this opting comparison must really stick in their craw.

As it should.

Dismiss the politics, that’s OK. But dismissing the man or the office he holds to the extent of ignoring what he has to say is not in our American tradition.