[NYT] Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge

Conduct is behavior of right or wrong. Morality is in hand with conduct...

 

I don't hold firm on specifics. If you only talk about love, sharing, respect, honor, as it is defined. It's only a good thing, and I can't help but view that as a success as a Christian....

 

Rox you can teach all those things and religion or christ doesn't have to come into it at all. In fact I would hazard to say that you're right! We should be teaching love, sharing, respect and honor. Those should be a given. Non religious people, believe it or not, believe in those precepts also.

 

Teaching love, sharing, respect and honor without mentioning Jesus; isn't that what Hippies did???

 

As a teacher in public schools we talk about all of those things, and don't bring Christianity or any other religion into it at all.

 

Hey! Are you callin' my momma a hippie?!?!?

 

are you a teacher??? i didn't know that!!! what do you teach? what grade?

 

I teach 3rd grade. I used to do other jobs as well, but since moving to California and dealing with teaching credentialling classes I've had to slow down. Teaching here has required a lot of weekly hours for me, but hopefully I will go back to working more than one job again soon.

I love teaching. It's a job where instead of interacting with office mates, IT guys, customers etc. I interact all day with third graders. Plus the school has a 100% impoverished population, and I don't know if that is why, or if it is a cultural thing(98% hispanic, mostly Mexican-American children) but they are so much more appreciative of their teachers than I was when I was in elementary. I didn't hate my teachers, and some of them I loved, but school was still school. These children really behave like it is an honor and priviledge for them to attend school.

 

A "homosexuality detection expert" at the similarly conservative Family Research Council told the NY Times that words like "tolerance" and "diversity" are part of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual community."

http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_ar...d=1&cname=Media


That may be the most disgusting think I've ever read... are there really people out there that are this myopic and hateful that they can actually give the term tolerance a negative meaning?

 

I just want to know what a "homosexuality detection expert" is?

 

That's awesome!!! I mentor a 4th grader at an elementary school nearby through a church program called Kids Hope. I'm there every Wednseday morning to meet with him for an hour, and I always leave wishing I could stay longer. I think I might like to teach one day, as well.

Sounds like you're right where you should be! Blessings!

 

Franchise,

That sounds like such an excellent teaching environment. I taught middle school special ed kids with behavior disorders in Baltimore for about five years. It was a totally different student attitude. Now I develop reading curricula and materials for a school reform foundation that focuses on schools just like yours.

 

It is a person with a highly developed gaydar.

 

Good!... Talk more about it. As I said much earlier: "We just need more of Jesus Christs' teachings in public schools and it would be a good thing!..."

Notice I said his "teachings"...His teachings can be taken in a context away from a religious or biblical reference. I don't care. I win as a Christian, because Jesus Christ's teachings are reflected in a delivered message by definition of these teaching aspects. As a teacher you cannot denegrate nor propagate religion, so it is inconsequential whether your personal beliefs have merit...

Therefore, I am quite glad to hear about themes of tolerance from spongebob. It is a theme of Jesus Christ's teachings, and the more of this the better!

 

I just went to lunch with my pastor and the youth pastor from my church. The youth pastor is one of my closest friends in the world. I mentioned this story about SpongeBob and neither of them had heard about it. They were laughing about it and then all of a sudden a lightbulb went off in the head of my friend. He said he was teaching a class on youth culture and media influences on youth to parents last Sunday and after he finished one of the mothers came up with a very concerned look. She asked if it was OK for her 6 year old to watch SpongeBob. He was so taken by surprise...he was like, "look, i'm not going to presume what you find offensive...or what's right for your kids to watch...but i love spongebob...and my close friend and his 4 year old watch it all the time, and that kid is just as likely to quote a Bible verse as he is to quote spongebob, so you should be fine!" He was like..."THAT'S why she asked about SpongeBob!!"

Pretty funny.

 

Twilight Zone Alert......

I went out to lunch with a very conservative friend of mine today. We started lightly discussing politics, Bush's speech tonight, etc. when I said to him "I have a really tough political question to ask you". He said "go ahead".

I looked him square in the eye and asked "Is Spongebob really gay???"

He rubbed his eyes and replied "Dude, you have your fringe elements, and we have ours".

 

If I were conservative, here would be my laundry list of things/people to target that they seem to ingnore at the moment:

Country Music - drinkin', fightin', cheatin'
Wrestling - Scantily-clad women, violence
Catholic Priests - You rarely hear a Christian organization decry the church's history of pedophilia
Corporate Crooks - Greedy, vain, money-grubbers

Those are just a few that seem like they are ripe for the picking by conservatives but seem never to be touched. The irony is that they are MUCH easier and realistic targets than puppets and cartoon characters anyway.

 

Country Music: Heyyyyy, now.
Wrestling: Needs to definitely get toned down. I haven't watched since the 80's.
Catholic Priests: The entire Catholic Church needs a major revamping. But most Churches are a very good institution in any community.
Corporate Crooks: C'mon, now. Does anyone like these guys?!?

I have no problem going after three of the four. What conservative doesn't?