April 2, 2005 by s.z.

Odd, Morally Suspect Agape Press brings us this important story: NC Mom Finds Popular Teacher's Methods Odd, Morally Suspect A Christian family in Thomasville, North Carolina, is distraught over a public school teacher's reported use of sexually suggestive yoga poses and alleged promotion of cross-dressing and homosexuality in the classroom. Thomasville resident Debbie Moon says back in January she became concerned about the conduct of one of her daughter's teachers at East Davidson High School. Moon believes history teacher Dan Orr violated her daughter's constitutional rights by asking her, along with her classmates, to join him in chanting Hindu and Buddhist mantras. Per the Thomasville Times, this is what Debbie said back in January: Ben Lee Road resident Debbie Moon said her 15-year-old daughter Kristen, a ninth-grader at EDHS, has been improperly taught by the school’s World History teacher, Daniel Orr. In a recent letter to the editor, Moon said Orr recently pushed three desks together, got on his stomach, held his arms out, and began to chant for several minutes while teaching a segment on Hinduism and Buddhism. “As a Christian parent, I am sick of his actions,” Moon wrote in her letter. “Our children are not allowed to pray openly in the public school, but he, as a staff member, can teach chanting? Is that not praying in another culture?” Moon said she felt her daughter’s rights as an American citizen were violated. “Their young minds are still very impressionable,” she wrote. “I do not appreciate this teacher teaching and chanting in my child’s classroom.” How DARE this teacher violate Kristen's right as an American not to have to hear any chanting?  After all, the minds of 15-year-olds are very impressionable, and if you teach them about other cultures and religions, they might learn stuff.  Sure, learning about other religions is part of the state curriculum, which says that 9th grade World History is supposed to include "an understanding of the various world religions," and at the end of the course, students are expected to be able to compare "the major Eastern and Western beliefs and practices, including — but not limited to — Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Shintoism."  But hearing that apparently that didn't satisfy Debbie, who is still complaining about this teacher.  Here's more of the Agape Press article: And Moon contends the teacher's behavior is not only unprofessional at times, but also immoral and inappropriate for a high school classroom. "When he lay down on the desk that day," she says, "he handed out a handout that told the students if they got into that position, it would enhance the function of their sexual organs." And, as we all know, it's immoral to have functioning sexual organs.  And if yoga helps the body (and its sexual organs) to work better and be healthier then obviously it's "morally suspect."  But there's more! Also, according to the concerned parent, Orr frequently teaches class in bizarre costumes or unconventional attire, including pantyhose, satin shorts, tights, and wigs. Um, I'm guessing that Mr. Orr may dress up like historical figures for some of the lessons: and since some historical figures wore morally suspect attire, such as wigs, tights, and satin shorts, I think it's clear that this guy is advocating perversion.  (Since there's nothing else in the article that relates to Debbie's claim that the teacher promotes "cross-dressing and homosexuality in the classroom," my guess is that this is it.) Debbie claims that the family is now being persecuted for complaining about the teacher: "Our house has been vandalized on four separate occasions," the Thomasville resident says. "We have numerous people driving by, doing things that we have not reported. We have had to put security cameras around the entire perimeter of our house. Each week it's something." Okay, it's wrong that people are vandalizing Debbie's house (if indeed this has occurred), but I don't see how people "driving by" can really be considered harassment. But despite these issues, she says she has been denied both a parent-teacher conference and a meeting with the school board to discuss the matter. Well, per the local paper, she did get to talk to the district superintendent, the district public relations director, and the school principal.  But the principal didn't sound like she was too impressed with Debbie's complaints. Smith would not reveal anything about her personal conversation with Debbie Moon regarding the situation, however. “Some of the things are not quite right, as far as what you’ve been told, but I’m just not going to get into it,” Smith said. “Mr. Orr has taught for 18 years, and has a wonderful record. Students have begged to get into his class. World History is really his strong point, and he also teaches it at the honors level. “His record is absolutely impeccable, and this is the first time in my six years as principal here that I have had a problem involving him.”  After the paper did the article about the Moons' compaints about Orr, it received a dozen or so letters (and some phone calls) from former students and their parents,all praising the teacher and his methods, offbeat though they might be.  And some of those letter-writers were even Christians! To summarize: one wingnut made some really stupid complaints about the teaching methods of one of the HS history teachers in their small town.  However, everybody else seemed to agree that the teacher is really good at his job, and is doing nothing inappropriate.  Plus, there are no indications that 15-year-old Kristin is being forced to stay in the class against her will (there are four other World History teachers at East Davidson High, and so presumably she could switch to another class if she wanted).  Doesn't seem like a big of a deal, does it? So, you might wonder why Agape Press felt this incident warranted their attention.  The answer is simple: it's another example of how Christians are being persecuted in this country by being forced to hear about other religions.  Expect this incident to appear in the sequel to David Limbaugh's Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity.  4:45:15 AM

'Good Vs. Bad Bloggers' That's the title of a recent column by one Sherrie Gossett, who is a contributing reporter for WorldNetDaily, and an Associate Editor of the "Accuracy in Media" Report.  Per her AIM bio, "Veteran journalists who admire her work have described Sherrie as a "troublemaker" and her reporting as "relentless."  However, I'm betting that veteran journalists who don't admire her work have described Sherrie as "that wingnut from WorldNetDaily and AIM. Anyway, let's hear what Sherrie has to say about good bloggers vs. bad bloggers: The truth is the White House press room "culture" has always had a sprinkling of eccentrics, independents and politically-motivated questioners who write for obscure outlets.  Agreed.  But were any of these kooks found to be plagiarists and liars who were granted nearly daily access to the White House for two years without ever having to undergo the required FBI security screening such access is supposed to entail?  (Sherrie never gets into that, so I'm going to say "no.") After weeks of feverish coverage of the exaggerated "Gannongate scandal," involving a conservative forced out of the White House press corps, industry trade journal Editor & Publisher acted downright teary-eyed with joy over a daily pass granted to a left-wing blogger. With the headline "Landmark Day: First Blogger Gets White House Access," Editor & Publisher reported that "For the first time in memory, and perhaps ever, a 'blogger' will be admitted to a regular White House briefing on Monday." Um, Sherrie, that happened nearly a month ago -- how can AIM monitor the accuracy of the media if they are this far behind the curve? And we'll skip the paragraphs about "first blogger" Garrett Graff, who was finally given a WH day pass after a week of trying (but only after the mainstream media got involved in helping him get access), and who was the subject of a non-critical E&P story about his day at the WH nearly a month ago.  After all, everybody who doesn't rely on AIM for media coverage already knows about it. What a contrast to the savage coverage and harpooning of Gannon. E&P shows it can outdo the worst of the liberal media.  So, thus far it looks like Sherrie's point is that Garrett Graff, who has actual journalistic creds and isn't a known plagiarist and liar, was treated more kindly by E&P than Jeff Gannon was -- and that this disparity reflects the liberal media's dislike of bad bloggers.  (I guess the unstated corollary would be that the conservative media is quite fond of bad bloggers, which is something I think that we already know.)  Anyway, this would seem to be an relatively rational point, except that Sherrie never gets into Gannon's lack of training or experience, and never mentions that Gannon passed off the work of others as his own, and has repeatedly lied about such matters as his background and the circumstances of how he came to work for Talon News.  Plus, Gannon only started blogging a few weeks ago, and as far as I know, E&P hasn't ever claimed that Gannon was a bad blogger.  (I can't recall them commenting on Gannon's claim that Maureen Dowd needed a "bit of the old Jeff Gannon to relieve some of that pent up whatever," which is about the only interesting thing he's said as a blogger.") No, Sherrie's actual point seems to be that the liberal media was nice to Graff because he's liberal, and unfairly targeted Gannon just because he's conservative. And that's not fair, because he's hardly the first male prostitute to serve in the White House press corps -- or something. The truth is the White House press room "culture" has always had a sprinkling of eccentrics, independents and politically-motivated questioners who write for obscure outlets. Um, yeah, we know.  You already said this, Sherrie. The exaggerated attention given to Gannon served nothing but to obscure this fact from a public not familiar with what really goes on there. Johanna Neuman, writing for the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune, was one of the very few to paint this accurate portrait that E&P could have painted from day one of the Gannon frenzy if it had been so inclined. Neuman pointed out the press corps isn't so elite as people think, and that identifying journalists has always been an "inexact science" even before the Gannon affair. "[T]he White House press corps is not the thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite Americans might presume," Neuman wrote, "Along with stars of the country's major media organizations, it has long included eccentrics, fringe players and characters of uncertain lineage." The White House press corps contains eccentrics???   Why is this the first time that I'm hearing about this? To read and hear the sheer bulk of coverage on Gannon and his "softball questions," relation to a "sham" news organization, and lack of journalism training, you would be mightily persuaded to believe this indeed had been a scandal of historic first. Media worked hard to make you believe that.  In fact, revisit CSPAN coverage of the White House press briefings and you will be certain to spy 'real' journalists grinning or chuckling good-naturedly at Gannon's questions or those of other 'citizen journalists' and activists who inhabit the press room. It would appear before this scandal was manufactured, the press room journalists found the presence of the 'oddballs' somewhat entertaining and still do. Hey, I find Pastor Swank quite entertaining, and I often chuckle good-naturedly at his work.  And as far as I know, during his time as a "journalist," Pastor Swank has never been been caught lying or plagiarizing (well, he does copy WH pres releases liberally, but he is scrupulous about crediting his sources).  And I am going to go out on a limb here and say that the Pastor has never put nude photos of himself on the web in order to advertise his services as a prostitute.  But does he get to ask the President of the United States questions in press conferences?  Nooo!  But the point is, if he had been been regularly admitted to the White House as the correspondent for "The Conservative Voice" (which seems to be a much more credible news source than GOPUSA, actually ), the fact that I chuckled at his antics would not signify anything about the seriousness of the matter.  Because it wouldn't be about how eccentric the Pastor was, or about how entertaining I found him, it would be about how the White House apparently bent the rules for TWO YEARS for somebody whose questions and ideology they approved of, as part of their ongoing efforts to control and package the news -- and this time were caught using a slimy character to advance their goals (I mean, if the Pastor was really another Gannon, which I firmly believe that he isn't). It's clear that a blogger may be as prone to asking "unprofessional" journalism questions such as softball questions, or "preachy" questions, and FishbowlDC isn't exactly an accredited news organization or lacking in political slant. It does sometimes engage in what it calls "Real Reporting," as when it interviewed Jeff Gannon. The difference in coverage of Graff and Gannon, though, has been like night and day. The reason: one is liberal, the other conservative. Yeah, the liberals just like Graff because he's liberal, and they hate Gannon because he's conservative.  That's all there is to this.  Case closed. Oh, except that the mean liberals also unfairly pried into Gannon's private life by looking at the ads Gannon placed on the web. Ari Fleischer, Bush's former press secretary, told E&P that Guckert's ties to several sex Web sites and allegations that he worked as a male prostitute should not necessarily keep him or any other reporter out of the White House. Fleischer said. "The last thing our nation needs is for anyone in the White House to concern themselves with the private lives of reporters," he said. "What right does the White House have to decide who gets to be a reporter based on private lives?" What right does the FBI have to deny security clearances based on factors such as criminal acts, failure to pay taxes and other lawful debts, susceptibility to blackmail, and a pattern of dishonesty?  Hey, let's ask Ari - maybe he'll know this one! E&P has pushed the idea that Gannon's sex life matters because it allegedly encompassed illegal behavior. Well, sorry to spoil the pompous party and pop the gigantic hot air balloon, but let's have a list of all the reporters who have ever done illegal drugs. Ever smoked a joint? Ever done a line of coke? It can be hard to remember, but that's illegal conduct, too. Let's have a list of all the reporters who are still doing lines of coke while being given daily access to the White House.  That would be a great story, Sherrie - even the liberals would enjoy it.  Why don't you work on that one for a while? And that's the end of Sherrie's column.  So, I guess her point really was that E&P was nicer to Garrett Graff than it was to Jeff Gannon because Graff is a good (i.e., liberal) blogger while Jeff Gannon is a bad (i.e., conservative) blogger. Oh, and that the WH press corps has always contained some eccentrics.  So, not all that useful of a piece, despite coming from AIM, the organization which claims to "sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage." Therefore, let's turn to the world's foremost expert on blogging, Hugh Hewitt, and see if he can provide futher enlightment on how to tell the good bloggers from the bad bloggers. Here's the last part of an interview he gave to Focus on the Family's Citizen Link: Here's my last question. The most successful blogs are right-of-center ideologically. So is talk radio. Why is it that the left can't dominate the new media like they dominate big media? Well, I have to point out that they do have some very successful blogs on the left, although they are not persuasive. They attract fervency and they're very sticky — people stay there for a long time. But they're very circular and very immune to right thinking and reason. In other words, some liberal blogs have lots of readers -- way more readers that Mr. Hewitt's blog does, for example -- and people spend a lot of time reading these blogs, and really seem to like them.  But they aren't "persuasive," in that they aren't conservative (which is what being "immune to right thinking and reason" seems to mean). The reason that center-right blogs have been so successful is that they have been quite generous in their attribution of credit to others and their willingness to send people to other places. They are not greedy for praise or elevation; they're interested in the cause. And the cause is so much more noble on the center-right side — freedom, dignity, natural law, human rights — that I think the power of the argument is just overwhelming public opinion in a way it has never been allowed to do in the modern era, when media became so center-left. Yes, conservative blogs are more successful than liberal blogs because conservativism is just better than liberalism.  Also, they are more successful because conservatives are more likely to stick to the day's "talking points" (whether said points come from the WH, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or Hugh himself), while liberals, what with their big egos and their rampant selfishness, tend to write whatever the hell they want.  And that's why Glenn Reynolds is a way better blogger, than say, Billmon: because providing a bunch of links and saying "heh" and "indeed" is much more persuave than actually writing stuff. So it's as simple as: On the right, people are for something. On the left, people are against something? Many. Yep. Absolutely true. There you have it: good bloggers are conservative, while bad bloggers are liberal.  Therefore, despite what the liberal media may claim, Jeff Gannon is a really good blogger.  Oh, and a great journalist too. 1:37:55 AM