E Wayne Ross – Page 118 – Critical Theories in Education

Two from the “We’re doing this for your security” file

1. The United States Justice Department is asking Internet companies to keep records on the Web-surfing activities of their customers to aid law enforcement, and may propose legislation to force them to do so.

2. A North Carolina senator has introduced legislation to require fingerprinting and criminal-background checks for all students enrolling at the state’s 16 public universities, beginning in the fall of 2007. Prospective students could be charged for the background checks, which, under the legislation, would be conducted by the state’s Bureau of Investigation or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

NPR: Baseball teams woo Christian fans to games

So when do I get my “Flying Spaghetti Monster Night”?

National Public Radio: Baseball Teams Woo Christian Fans to Games

Faith Night has long been a popular promotion for minor league baseball parks — particularly in the South. Looking to capitalize on local church-going fans, more than 40 teams in minor league baseball and football have added Christian rock concerts and bobble-head dolls of biblical characters to their game-time entertainment.

The formula has worked well in Nashville, where the concept first started, and it’s now being called up to the majors.

Rev. Ryan Bennett is director of Faith Night for the Nashville Sounds, a Triple-A baseball team. On Faith Nights, he also offers sermons outside of the team’s Greer Stadium. One recent sermon featured a parable drawn from former Red Sox infielder Bill Buckner’s infamous error, when a ground ball rolled between his legs just as the long-suffering Sox were on the verge of winning the 1986 World Series.

“I think we have all been there,” Bennett tells his flock. “I think we have all been at a time in our life, at some time or another, where we felt alone. Well, hear the good news. Jesus promised that when you feel alone, you’re actually not, because ‘my promise to you is that I will always be with you.'”

But Faith Night fans aren’t just in it for the baseball allegories. These events feature special performances by Christian rock groups. There are also raffles for bobble-head dolls in the image of Moses and Jonah. Later this season, there will be a stadium-wide Bible giveaway. And the events often include a team player, in full uniform, offering testimonials about their faith.

And of course, there’s the game.

A Big Draw for Fans

Since the Nashville Sounds started up five years ago, their program Faith Night games have been among the top-10 most-attended each season. Organizers say it’s because of people like Methodist pastor Jacob Armstrong, whose church group on one night was 80-plus strong, taking up most of the section behind home plate.

“In some ways, it’s icing on the cake, because the majority of the night is spent at the baseball game,” Armstrong says. “I know several families [who] have invited friends, and it’s a non-threatening way to come to a church group. And then maybe they will come to church again.”

This summer, at least two Major League Baseball teams are working on adding a Christian Faith Night to their rosters. But will a Bible Belt, minor league promotion work at big-league prices? Baseball fan Jack Crawford of Talahoma, Tenn., says it will be a tough sell.

“It’s a bigger deal to go to a major league game and see the stars,” Crawford says. “While some people may think that a faith-based night would be very nice in some circumstances, others may not. And they feel like other people’s faith may be shoved down their throat.”

That’s exactly what Faith Night founders are trying to avoid.

‘Beer Today, God Tomorrow’

“As much as I think it would be great for the kingdom-building aspects of what we do and the ministry side, you are not going to see a preacher down on home plate with a Bible, preaching to the crowd,” says Brent High.

High is the CEO of Third Coast Sports, which contracts with more than 40 other minor league teams on similar promotions. He says it’s not just baseball clubs; two NFL football teams and another three NBA basketball clubs have contacted him about holding Faith Night programs.

“I just don’t anticipate it offending a non-Christian fan at any point,” he says of the Faith Night promotions. “It hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t see us adding anything that would do that. Because ultimately, as soon as we do that, the teams lose interest.”

That’s why Faith Night performances are scheduled before or after the official game, held off to the side or on stadium concourses. Bible giveaways are handled through a redeemable coupon system at the gate. And if you don’t want a Moses bobble-head doll, just say no. Nashville Sounds General Manager Glen Yaeger says it’s a balancing act.

“We do ‘Thirsty Thursday’ on Thursday nights. Its beer today, God tomorrow,” Yaeger says. “It’s managing the expectations of your fan base.”

Big League Debut

The Major League baseball teams working with Third Coast Sports are taking vastly different approaches.

Derrick Hall, executive vice president for the Arizona Diamondbacks, says his team has “shied away from a Faith Night.”

“That’s not something we think is appropriate for us,” Hall says. “But we absolutely have no problem selling group-discount rates to a [faith-based] group.”

The Diamondbacks have booked just one game with Third Coat this season, which Hall calls nothing more than a group sale opportunity.

Meanwhile, the Atlanta Braves have set up several dates with appearances by Christian pop-groups such as The Afters, and their own pitcher, John Smoltz, as a guest speaker.

Derek Schiller, a senior marketing executive for the Braves, says research shows many of his team’s fans are religious.

“This is just a way to apply ourselves and create an experience that would be good for those types of fans,” Schiller says.

Both teams say they have dabbled in marketing group sales to churches, but nothing as elaborate as the original “Faith Night” model. These summer games are just a test, says Schiller, because in the end, it’s all about the ballgame.

Re: Dude, You Must Renounce the Braves. This is too too much

From: rgibson@pipeline.com
Subject: Dude, You Must Renounce the Braves. This is too too much
Date: June 1, 2006 7:38:39 PM PDT (CA)
To: wayne.ross@mac.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/sports/02faith.html?hp&ex=1149220800&en=a3d44512c857dd8e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

From: wayne.ross@mac.com
Subject: Re: Dude, You Must Renounce the Braves. This is too too much
Date: June 1, 2006 7:43:12 PM PDT (CA)
To: rgibson@pipeline.com

Yeah I read about this on the Braves website the other day.

I look on the bright side, if all those folks are Braves fans and they pray for the Braves to win, it can’t hurt. Lord knows the Braves need some help with their pitching (I hope).

Wayne

From: rgibson@pipeline.com
Subject: Re: Dude, You Must Renounce the Braves. This is too too much
Date: June 1, 2006 8:03:39 PM PDT (CA)
To: wayne.ross@mac.com

Well, that does it.

I cannot stand it anymore, and I am sacrificing my next door neighbors small dog to the Flying Spaghetti Monster in order to place a curse on the Braves. THIS WILL BE MORE POWERFUL THAN THE GOAT CURSE< THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO>>>and the Braves are doomed. AIDS will spread throughout the team, and the entire Atlanta region. Frogs will rain on them all. Ted Turner will marry Elizabeth Taylor who will dump him for Eddie Fisher, who is dead. The first born of all Atlanta pitchers will spontaneously combust. Fungus will infest the Braves lunch table. Locusts and bats will descend on all fans doing the tomahawk chop, which will do them no good in fending off the bloodsuckers, and the rats that eat their eyes.

OR else you can email this slime agent of the Bravos and tell her off. And send me a copy. If you do, I will spare the dog.

beth.marshall@turner.com

best r

From: waross@interchange.ubc.ca
Subject: Faith Nights at Turner Field
Date: June 1, 2006 10:09:44 PM PDT (CA)
To: beth.marshall@turner.com

Dear Ms. Marshall,

As a long time Atlanta Braves fan, I’m writing to express my profound disappointment and extreme displeasure after discovering that the Braves will be sponsoring a series of so-called “Faith Nights” this season (http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20060518&content_id=1459708&vkey=pr_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl).

While I understand the Braves motivation to tap into the Christian entertainment market—a crass money-grab—the nature and scale of the planned events amount to a corporate endorsement Christianity. And perhaps more importantly, the limitation of “Faith Night” activities to Christian music and testimony implies that “faith” is a concept that only applies to Christians!

Will the Braves be holding “Judaism Nights,” “Islam Nights” or for that matter “Flying Spaghetti Monster Nights”? (I might be tempted to attend the latter.)

I certainly understand the long tradition of the baseball clubs providing special ticket prices and other amenities to groups, including church groups, but “Faith Nights” is really beyond the pale.

The Braves hold a special place in my heart, I have been a devoted fan of the club since they were in Milwaukee. I saw my first Major League game in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium (Braves 4, Reds 3—April 12, 1968).

I attended many Braves games while living in Atlanta in the late 1970s-early 1980s—often I was the only person sitting in my row—but I never lost faith in the team.

I now follow the Braves religiously from my home in Vancouver, British Columbia. But, I must say “Faith Night” is an abomination and should be abolished immediately!

I would much prefer the Braves emulate the attitude Mr. Ted Turner has expressed in his assessment that Christianity is a “religion for losers” and that employees who show up for work on Ash Wednesday with smudged foreheads are “Jesus Freaks” (The New York Times, May 28, 2006, p. 11, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/27/opinion/28opquiz.html).

The Braves were losers for a long time and old-time, hardcore Braves fans, like me, already know what it feels like to be part of a “religion for losers,” we made our commitment to the Braves long before all those Division pennants. We don’t need another religion interfering with the one we’ve got.

Yours truly,

E. Wayne Ross, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Curriculum Studies
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
Canada
604-822-2830
wayne.ross@ubc.ca

From: rgibson@pipeline.com
Subject: Re: Faith Nights at Turner Field
Date: June 1, 2006 10:19:20 PM PDT (CA)
To: waross@interchange.ubc.ca

Hey Dude

This is a great classic. Can I put it on the www page?????

Wonderful. Heartfelt. Funny. True. Nailed em (well, maybe that is not a good term). best r

In search of “liberation-oriented” economics: Black labor fights “disorder” of globalization

The Black Commentator: In search of “liberation-oriented” economics: Black labor fights “disorder” of globalization

When African Americans are once again forced to be the primary upholders of worker solidarity and labor principles, when it is African Americans that bear the brunt of corporate de-industrialization, and when Black labor must fight a multi-front war for racial, social, and economic justice, and world peace, then it is logical and righteous that Blacks appropriate these issues as uniquely their own. As always in America, the most despised and pilloried must ultimately lead those whose vision is damaged by relative racial privilege and delusions of Manifest Destiny.…

John Stossel Is A Pathological Liar

John Stossel is the right-wing ABC reporter who is infamous for his bashing of public schools and teachers, while flogging the virtues of the so-called “free market.”

Here’s a piece by David Sirota that is on Huffingtonpost.com:

Webster’s Medical Dictionary defines a “pathological liar” as “an individual who habitually tells lies so exaggerated or bizarre that they are suggestive of mental disorder.” Next to this definition should be this picture – a photo of a self-important, smarmy looking, all-too-coiffed ABC News “reporter” named John Stossel.

You may have noticed that Stossel is out hawking a book called “Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity” purporting to debunk those things. Instead, what we see is that Stossel is spewing them – and using his media platform as a megaphone of dishonesty. Stossel, in many ways, is exactly why I wrote my new book Hostile Takeover – to strip bare the opportunists, shills and half-wits who dominate our political debate and show them for what they really are: pathological liars.
Here’s what I mean. According to the right-wing, Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Stossel appeared on ABC’s “The View” to talk about his book’s assertion that the minimum wage supposedly hurts low-income workers. The host was surprised that someone could make such a ludicrous claim. “Why does raising the minimum wage — this one I don’t get — actually hurt poor people?,” she asked Stossel. “I don’t understand that one at all.”

Stossel replied with a straight face: “The truth is that people on the margins lose jobs when minimum wages go up. We used to have people washing windshields at gas stations. We don’t anymore because of the minimum wage. There’s no opportunity for kids, for entry-level workers.”

Mind you, Stossel is making this claim at the very same time President Bush is claiming we need a guest worker program because there are actually too many entry-level, low-wage jobs that aren’t being filled. But beyond that, the actual data exposes Stossel’s pathological lying. As I note in my new book’s section on this very lie about minimum wages supposedly hurting the job market:

“In a comprehensive 2004 study, the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute reported that since 1997, states that had boosted their minimum wage above the federal minimum actually created jobs faster than those that did not. In higher minimum wage states, employment grew by 50 percent more than it did in states still at the pathetic federal level. Even in tough economic times, the minimum wage doesn’t hurt jobs: Princeton University economist David Card found that even the minimum wage increases during the 1990-91 recession ‘were not associated with any measurable employment losses.’ As Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) once noted, “history clearly demonstrates that raising the minimum wage has no adverse impact on jobs.”…In Oregon, for instance, the state raised its minimum wage in 1998, and the average earnings of newly-employed welfare recipients climbed by 9 percent, while the percentage of welfare recipients who found a job actually rose.”! ;

Stossel’s latest pathological lie followed one from a few weeks ago when he used ABC’s Good Morning America to claim that it is a “myth” that “women earn less” than men for “doing the same work.” Yet, as Media Matters noted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) 2004 wage data shows definitively that women earned on average 80.4 percent of men’s weekly median earnings in virtually every occupation listed regardless of job title. Again, Stossel used ABC’s airwaves to peddle a pathological lie.

This all may seem surprising. After all, how could one of the major networks employ a person with such disdain for the truth and then call him a “journalist?” It’s a good question – but Stossel has made a nice career behaving this way. For instance, Stossel has tried to deny the scientific consensus surrounding global warming, despite 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003 all concluding that global warming is real, and human-caused.

It was Stossel who penned a column during the Hurricane Katrina energy crisis entitled “In Praise of Price Gouging.” Instead of being a “consumer watchdog” as he is regularly billed, Stossel was using his platform to publicize all sorts of reasons why we were supposed to believe that oil companies’ use of a natural disaster to profiteer was somehow patriotic and heroic.

Similarly, as I note in my book, Stossel has self-righteously used the airwaves to rail against people who file lawsuits. “We all have pain and suffering in our lives,” Stossel has said. “And if each time we hang onto it until we get some kind of compensation, society can’t work.” Yet, it was Stossel who filed a high-profile case himself in which he sued a wrestler for $200,000 for slapping him during an interview. “I asked for as much as I could get,” Stossel told newspapers, apparently too downright stupid to see just how much of a hypocrite he was showing himself to be.

For his patholgical lying, Stossel is now regularly honored by fringe-right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation – you remember, the group repeatedly nailed (here and here) for publicly trumpeting deliberately inaccurate data as fact. And yet, despite these accolades from hyper-partisan lie machines, Stossel retains the veneer of journalistic credibility/objectivity thanks to ABC’s continued willingness to let him pollute the airwaves with his “myths, lies and downright stupidity” – without giving so much as a smidgeon of airtime to experts who would actually challenge this pathological liar with the facts.

Because of his unfettered access to the airwaves and the refusal of his media sponsors to actually question his factually inaccurate assertions, Stossel’s book has risen up the bestseller list, with consumers led to believe it is a beacon of truth-telling that will show us the world as it actually is. The right-wing apparatus that fetes Stossel is undoubtedly promoting his book as a supposedly virtuous, sincere look at the facts, thus fueling even more sales, furthering other media buzz about him and furthering Stossel’s reach. Meanwhile, Stossel’s campaign to turn his pathological lies into assumed fact goes on, increasingly debasing our political debate, intensifying the disconnect of the media discourse from actual facts. It is a sick cycle, indeed – and it highlights why American politics seems more and more divorced from reality: because the media debate that frames American politics presents pathological liars like Stossel as credible voices.

Stossel urges us on the cover of his book to “get out the shovel” – he’s right, you’ll need one to dig out from the steaming piles of dishonest B.S. this ABC News “reporter” is leaving in his wake.

Rouge Forum Update (May 30, 2006)

The Rouge Forum www page is updated but overdosed, closed for the remainder of the month because more than 25,000 people visited it, and that is well over the limit Earthlink offers us…..a good problem to have.

So, in the interim, we call attention to the Rouge Forum posters now for sale, below our cost, on ebay. Here is one link to a classic poster and we offer an original article by Mike Davis, “Vigilante Man” especially relevant for those addressing the immigration question in classrooms.

To report on our Rouge Forum Survey:

1. Most people asked for a redesign of the web page—we’re working on that and when school lets out we will complete the update.

2. Several people asked for more Rouge Forum Institutes, especially Summer Institutes like those in Detroit, Rochester, and Louisville, in the past. Costs and time prohibit a summer institute for 2006, but we are planning two for 2007.

3. One person suggested that we establish what she calls Rouge Forum Salons, monthly reading groups addressing something of interest to students, parents, and school workers—topics either chosen locally, or from suggestions from the steering committees.

4. One person suggested that we connect with the revitalized Students for a Democratic Society, and we’ll be happy to do that if someone out there has a direct connection.

5. One person suggested we convene a leadership meeting in the fall, or later on at AERA, which we plan to do—and will announce that soon.

6. Finally, one colleague suggested that we promote and engage in more and more direct action and civil disobedience, pressing for a summer of anti-war discontent.

If you have comments on these ideas, or suggestions/criticism of your own, we would appreciate hearing from you.

The real reason Rock the Vote is falling apart

This is from the May issue of Rock & Rap Confidential. Feel free to forward or re-post.

PULLING THE LEVER OR PULLING OUR LEG?… Rock the Vote is in shambles. According to a February 7 LA Times article by Charles Duhigg, the organization is $700,000 in debt and has cut its staff from twenty people in 2004 to two today. Rock the Vote hasn’t had a chief operating officer since the last Presidential election.

Duhigg attributes the crisis to overspending in non-election years and to the opportunism of the music industry executives who dominate the group’s board and use Rock the Vote primarily to promote their own artists.

Rock the Vote has a more fundamental problem: It has hitched its star to politicians who are completely hostile to the needs and desires of the American people. For example, check out the political hacks it has chosen to bestow its Rock the Nation Award upon.

There’s Bill Clinton, who presided over the 1996 Democratic Party convention which removed universal health care from the party platform even though more than 70 per cent of Americans are in favor of it.

There’s Hilary B. Rosen, who was head of the RIAA at the time she was honored. Rosen rocked the nation by launching the war against file-sharing. Sharing music on-line is, to say the least, wildly popular.

There’s Hillary Clinton, who, despite the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, has called for sending 80,000 more of our sons and daughters to the slaughter.

In June 2005, the Rock the Nation Award went to John McCain, one month after the Arizona Senator was part of the 100-0 Senate vote to approve Bush’s war funding bill. In his acceptance speech, McCain introduced himself as “Funk Master McCain.” Since then, Funk Master McCain has kept busy campaigning for California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose November ballot initiatives to cripple unions and give himself unsupervised power to gut social programs were soundly defeated by California voters.

In 2004, Rock the Vote, under the leadership of Jehmu Greene (who came to the organization directly from serving as Southern Political Director of the Democratic National Committee), registered 1.4 million voters in an effort to elect John Kerry. On March 2 of this year Kerry was one of 89 Senators who voted to make the Patriot Act permanent, even though more than 250 U.S. cities have passed resolutions calling for it to be abolished.

One of Rock the Vote’s few high points came in the early 1990s when the organization aired over 175 public service announcements in which artists gave their frank views on democracy. Our favorite was Ice-T’s. “I’m as anti ‘the system’ as you could possibly be,” he said. “We’ve got two options–the vote or hostile takeover. I’m down with either one.”

In other words, voter registration as a tactic can be useful when it’s part of an effort to transform the system. When voter registration is used as a strategy, what you get is Rock the Vote. It won’t be missed.

www.rockrap.com

“ABU GHRAIB – COMING TO A SCHOOL HOUSE NEAR YOU”: NYS Ed. Dept. Seeks Approval for Schools to Electric Shock Disabled Students”

The Special Education Muckraker:

“ABU GHRAIB – COMING TO A SCHOOL HOUSE NEAR YOU”
NYS Ed. Dept. Seeks Approval for Schools to Electric Shock Disabled Students”

To sum things up in a nutshell, as part of a NYS govt. move to end out of state placements for exceptionally severely disabled kids, the NYS Education Department is moving to allow the use of all aversives, including electric shock as aversives on disabled kids – in all NYS schools and all publicly-operated or publicly-funded programs; in all state-approved private schools; in all residential schools. Disabled kids subject to family/juvenile court placements will come under this proposal, too. At this time, there is no legal or regulatory authorization for the use of painful aversives in any NYS school, public or private, state-approved or not. The way the proposal is written, it will – literally – allow any little local district to set up its own committee of “experts” – “experts” being completely undefined – and approve the district using any aversive it wants. It will protect districts, schools, programs, IEA’s, from being sued for unconstitutional cruel and inhumane treatment of disabled kids, which appears to be what this proposal is designed to allow. It is simply cruel and inhumane, period. The proposal to allow this abuse is breathtaking in its scope and virtually unlimited in what it will permit.The NYS Ed. Dept. is one of the few state education or state child welfare departments which currently approves (and pays for) sending severely disabled kids to the Judge Rotenberg School (MA), where aversive electric shocks are used on a continuous basis.

Currently, some NYS little local districts, some state-approved private special ed. schools, and IEA’s (BOCES, here) do the following to kids with disabilities:

1. Young kids with autism being strapped into restraining Rifton Chairs for hours on end – daily. To make them stop flapping, stimming and force them to pay attention, I assume. This isn’t just restraint, it’s torture for young children who cannot necessarily communicate what’s being done to them and are powerless to make it be stopped.

2. Young kids, some who have never been evaluated, much less classified as disabled, thrown into time out/isolation rooms – daily – for hours on end, with no free access to toilets or water. One was found unconscious in one a few years ago; it was hypothesized that he had a seizure, but nobody knows because nobody was watching him. Kids being thrown into time out rooms for lengthy periods of time with no access to toilets or water. Some have floor coverings which retain dried feces, urine, saliva and other body fluids (one kid clawed his fingers bloody, trying to get out). I am told that at least some of these floor coverings therefore represent imminent public health dangers involving potential transmission of HIV, hepatitis, TB and other communicable diseases. NYSED’s “guidelines” say that districts and IEA’s have to meet all local safety and health codes, but don’t say how; NYSED does not police this requirement. I know of no district or IEA which has a local health department check to see if time out rooms actually meet public health standards and requirements.

3. No limits on restraints at all. Kids of all ages being beaten up by adults in the course of being physically “restrained.” Currently, NYSED has no guidelines, regulations, at all on restraints and no requirement whatsoever that anyone who uses them have any training whatsoever. The proposal would legitimize use of restraints and require training “as appropriate,” with no definition of “appropriate.” Think – 5 minutes of a training film – or less – for appropriate training. I get contacts re a kid being beaten or hurt while being “restrained” in regular little districts on a regular basis. A teacher in an IEA threw a young developmentally disabled child into a time out room “because he didn’t eat his lunch.” Or so she told the mom, who found out about it by accident from another parent. Needless to say, this child had no Functional Behavior Assessment, no Behavior Improvement Plan and the IEA had never informed the mom that it had time out rooms, much less that it had any policy re their use. And this incident violated the facility’s time out room policy. Teacher not disciplined, of course. (The NYSED proposal would permit the unrestrained use of restraints to “protect” any school property, including one piece of chalk, paper clip or one piece of paper.)

4. Currently, at least one school uses liver powder sprinkled on food as an aversive for disabled children’s “bad” food-related behavior.

5. When an Associated Press reporter did a story showing that the % of districts and IEA’s making “mandatory” corporal punishment reports to NYSED had decreased, while the number of reports of corporal punishment use had increased, NYSED called it a “reporting problem.” The AP story also noted that one IEA teacher put a young child with a disability out in the cold, in winter, without shoes or jacket, as a punishment, and that as a result, she was given a letter telling her not to do it again. No discipline for the teacher. NYSED accepted filed this report; but did nothing about it. A State Senator, who is a retired cop, was quoted as saying that what the teacher did was a crime and she should have been prosecuted (but wasn’t). This is typical. NYSED neither monitors nor actually regulates physical abuse of children in NYS schools, disabled or non-classified. Now, it seeks to protect such abuse by regularizing it via its proposed regulatory scheme.