What Was That Song? Oh, Right: “Hollywood Isn’t America”
7 03 2008If anyone was wondering, the new kiss-off “sorry, no consolation prize for you,” song on American Idol is called “Hollywood isn’t America,” and it would seem Sean Hannity agrees.
If anyone was wondering about the relevancy of that information, I would like to:
1) ask that they wait for all to be revealed in the blinding light of my brilliance, and
2) inform you all that this is not, in fact, JJ, but her “Favorite Daughter,” which seems to be the name by which I am best known, despite the fact that I, personally, never refer to myself as such.
JJ is presently “on assignment,” as the reporters say, and by “on assignment,” I mean “running errands in the car while listening to The Sean Hannity Show.”
I keep telling her not to do this, it can only end in tragedy. Sean Hannity is probably one of the leading causes of road rage in this country, at least for anyone who has a functional frontal lobe.
(Note: I have no problem with conservatives per se, I have a problem with illogic!)
Anyway, my mom JJ was listening to the show just now, and apparently a thirteen-year-old boy called in. Presumably after beginning with the creepy and obligatory greeting of, “Hi, Sean, you’re a great American,” he informed Hannity that he’d just received an email that said homeschooling was now illegal in the state of California.
I like to imagine the sound of this call: how tearily the boy must have whispered, “Help, Sean. Help.”
Also, I really hope this kid isn’t homeschooled, because he’s doing a fabulous job of displaying his lack of critical thinking skills. That’s just the publicity we all need, Sean Hannity and “I read it in a chain email, it must be true!” kid.
Please, don’t help us.
Anyway, Hannity then proceeds to rant about how this was yet another move by commie-pinko-sex-ed-teaching-movie-making-Scientology-believing California to stamp out Jesus or something.
I wasn’t there, but I can infer.
Anyway, Hannity continues to rant about California outlawing homeschooling for about the next half hour, despite the fact that California has not outlawed homeschooling.
Nice verification of sources, Sean. I’m not sure which is stupider, “I read it on the internet, therefore it must be true,” or “A random thirteen-year-old I’ve never talked to in my life read it on the internet, therefore it must be true.”
Probably the latter.
But it gets worse - I’ve just been informed that NPR has announced that there was a ruling about the legality of homeschooling in California, and they will be covering it as it develops. NPR for Godssakes.
Anyway, this has been fun, we should all do it again sometime. I’m sure JJ will be back within the next hour or two to explain it much more eloquently.
The top of my head was blowing off!!
He actually came back after the break, and said uncredentialed parents would be thrown in jail, for trying to protect their children from “cucumber condom demonstrations” and “Heather Has Two Mommies” — and he used the 166,000 hsers in CA figure straight from Unruh at that tabloid piece of trash World Net Daily.
Advocates seriously interested in protecting home education freedoms ought to be a LOT more worried about what this will do to the public opinion of homeschooling as child abuse, than they are about some dependency hearing trying desperately to save a child or two any way they can. . .
OH! Here comes the NPR story, it’s 5:50 pm here.
Unbelievable. Guess who the main NPR interview was with? The head of the CA teacher union, the CTA. Lloyd Wheeler (Porter?) I think it was.
“Teachers are held to standards. Homeschools are not. Make up your mind.”
The whole thing was as if it were about academic standards, not saving kids from systematic abuse over decades in their own homes, by their own parents.
And the official news reporting number was further inflated from the 166,000 in CA to “the “1.1 million homeschoolers nationwide” who might all be in legal jeopardy if this ruling is upheld. I feel like suing World Net Daily for damages.
What idiots. That’s all I can say. Bear in mind, my prediction will come true. I have a comment on one of my posts that hit the nail squarely on the head:
In all of the hysteria, no one seems to be asking the CA homeschoolers what they think. HSAofCA seems concerned, but definitely not panic-stricken.
As for listening to Sean Hannity, I confess that I do, too. Keep your friends close… But he is an absolute moron. The worst part of his show is that he’s got pretty good call screeners who only let the world’s dumbest liberals through. I can excuse dumb conservatives, as it’s congenital with them. A dumb liberal is just sad.
ROFL!
“I can excuse dumb conservatives, as it’s congenital with them. A dumb liberal is just sad.”
But then you have to deal with the reality of a William F. Buckley, so maybe it’s more about the religious blinders than the conservative politics?
Speaking of NPR, evoutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is being interviewed right now by Terry Gross on NPR, about The God Delusion, which I am reading late at night these days. He sounds SO sane and thoughtful, not wild-eyed at all. . .
UPDATE - it’s a repeat from last spring apparently, so you can hear it at the link now.
I don’t think Hannity’s screeners are really that good. Smart liberals are working when Hannity is accepting calls.
I met him years ago when he was just a douchebag, and not a nationally syndicated doucebag.
Daryl, we’ve been getting forwarded posts galore from CA homeschool legal discussion. I wouldn’t ordinarily post or forward them on without permission but Nance got one from “Debbie Schwarzer, HSC Legal Team Co-chair” that starts out reassuring concerned parents that the law in CA hasn’t actually changed and that no one is going to jail (not even the chronically abusive, it seems, much less conscientious hsers.)
She then urges everyone both in CA and “globally” to “calm down” and not be signing petitions, throwing their weight around and hyping this online or in the news, calling politicians or marching on the Capitol, etc.
UPDATE - found a link to this whole letter.
Creepy that “credentialed” teachers should see a family of systematically abused children as just a boon to their own power. Credentials like that have no “cred” at all imo.
National Public Radio
All Things Considered, March 7, 2008 · Parents who home-school their children need a teaching credential, according to a recent appellate court ruling in California. What does the ruling mean for those who home-school more than 1 million American children?
The HSLDA’s petition — contrary to the “calm down” advice from CA — starts with this line about parents having to be “certified teachers” too. I don’t remember that from the ruling at all.
Here’s HSLDA’s thing — https://www2.hslda.org/Registrations/DepublishingCaliforniaCourtDecision/
NAnce
I have a degree in education, and I can assure you that after working in the Louisiana public school system I was definitely certifiable. (I guess that would make me eligible to homeschool?)
http://docsdomain.net/blog/?p=664#comment-4842
Visit Doc’s blog to read her prediction about the CA mess and my unbelievably cogent follow-up prediction!
Nance
I’m with LOTP — being certifiable and Institutional School DO go together.
OMG. I know it’s wrong, but I’m glad there’s someone else out there who listens to Sean Hannity while chewing through their wrists. Wow, I hate being defended by someone like him. And I agree, HSLDA is making hay on the ignorant masses while the panic is forming in spitty flecks around their mouths.
Hi Lydia, nice to meet you, thanks for leaving your mark.
If you’re in Virginia, you are in the belly of the (HSLDA) beast sort of, no?
JJ
Talk Radio has been a big part of Favorite Daughter’s unschooling! How would I have taught her about religion, politics and the culture wars any better, than driving around in this traffic-crazed and endlessly torn-up-for-construction state capital, commenting on the commentary every day together?
Comment I left at Doc’s the other day, and stand by –
“What I find most damaging to home education and how we’ll be treated by the public now, is this whole self-absorbed focus on the nuances of homeschool paperwork and what about MY rights — rather than directing our citizen and parental concern where it belongs, on the horrific real abuse these poor children suffered despite all efforts to help them over 20 years, by “public” employees including lawyers and judges, using all sorts of legal arguments and procedures and frames and devices.
I think we are in trouble now, that this has hurt us. But not because of the appellate ruling — because of our own shallowness, Chicken Littleness, hyper-organized religious paranoia, generalized lack of critical thinking skills and/or the willingness to use them, not to mention [lack of] education policy sophistication. . .”
to which should be added:
“Make room for the possibility that the sheeple had some shrewd and self-righteous shepherds applying the rod and staff to various known pressure points, to elicit exactly the reaction they got. . .”
LA Times - no ban on homeschooling, says CA state schools chief Jack O’Connell.
This seems to be a link to his full statement although there’s no “original” link back to a government or news site, here or elsewhere that I’ve found so far:
So can all the new HSLDA or NHELD members get their $100 back?
Nance
No - it’s already been claimed irrevocably for either God or Karl Rove.