Friday, July 10, 2009

SBOE: Perry Picks Another Young Earth Creationist - Gail Lowe

As if on cue, with evangelical nitwit Cynthia Dunbar’s signal that she would be “seriously hesitant” to take an appointment to the most powerful position in Texas education, Chairman of the state’s school board, Rick Perry went back to the rightwing Republican playbook and drew out #57: when your first worst choice fails to go along, go to your second worst choice.

Go with the other young Earth creationist. The one who cites a nonexistent scientific principle: “the theory of graduated accumulated geologic columns.”

Go with Lowe.

Go with another person who has not spent one minute in front of a classroom in Texas feeding knowledge to eager young minds.

Go with another person who puts her own personal beliefs on the table as something that should be taught as truths in the classrooms of Texas’ public school districts.

Go with Lowe.

But mainly, go with Gail Lowe because she is not up for re-election next year. She beat off a Democratic challenger and a Libertarian challenger in 2008 with a 64% vote. A vote record that is not likely to change anytime soon. District 14 is up in the northeast corner of Texas, the area that forms the southern tip of the so-called “redneck crescent” on this now famous New York Times demographic map of the 2008 general election.

Now Gail Lowe faces the same challenge that Cynthia Dunbar does, especially if she maintains her anti-American viewpoints: confirmation in 2011 should she be re-appointed after the term of her appointment ends in February of that year.

But in going with Lowe, at least Perry won’t have to undergo the embarrassment of having his appointed chairman get turned out of office in 2010, because the last time I looked there were long lines forming on both the left and the right. Long lines of people who want to send Cynthia Dunbar back to home schooling her children in Richmond.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I suspect that you may hear from the right wing religious contingent (RWRC) about how opposing this woman is the same as oppressing the poor oppressed RWRC. They will probably go on about how their beliefs deserve to be aired, too, in a classroom so that children can choose.

What the RWRC will most assuredly ignore is that there is a difference between a belief based on faith and a belief based on demonstrated facts. The former is on a foundation of sand while the latter is on a much more secure foundation. It is the latter that is taught in science classes. The former has no more place there than exorcism does in a pharmacology class.

Instead of playing the victim card, the RWRC needs to get to work and show that reality supports their position, and if they can't, they need to change.

"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)