Oh, god. When this gets out across the country the State of Texas will be a joke. Can you imagine what Letterman and Leno could do with this if they get wind of it? Arrgh. At least I didn't vote for them.
Oh, no. I think that most of the rest of us will treat it with the solemnity and respect it deserves. Just a few more questions...can you tell me the Texas Pledge? Is there a yeh-hah! in there somewhere?...... There is!!... there is a yeh-Hah! isn't there?! Do you guys get a secret handshake? Come on, you can tell me...can't you? Or....can't you? All right, I'll stop. I really don't get it, though.
"Honor the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance, to thee, Texas, one and indivisible." that pledge Deckard (or is it a new one)? we said that in our elementary school everyday (i started in '87) right after the pledge to the American flag and before some other little thing like "America the Beautiful" or "Texas Our Texas." somehow i was able to grow up a well-adjusted, good-natured kid. why the exaggerated/misplaced outrage? somehow i don't think the 5 seconds spent saying it will be that big of an encroachment on "things of substance" the kids could be doing. and i'm sure the legislative docket that day said "balance budget" or "enforce new texas pledge law" and they chose the latter. you could probably be paying some bills right now instead of typing here or doing something to make money instead of typing here and yet you're not, and yet i'm sure it won't really affect whether that gets done or not. you're protest would probably result in more actual school time getting wasted as they explain that you can say it or not, whichever makes you feel comfortable, than the actual pledge. and as long as the pledge doesn't legally bind you to die for the state whensoever it chooses, i don't see the big deal. all the kids will say it, and they'll forget about it 10 seconds later, life will go on. i'm betting it won't and we won't. and finally, what's wrong with a little extra Texas pride. i mean i know no other state is as proud as us already, but hey, no use it letting them catch up.
That's the pledge. I started elementary school in the '50's and graduated from high school at the end of '68 (mid-term). I never said it. Not once. It may have been said at different schools at different times, I have no idea... but there was never a law pertaining to it until now. My comment about Leno and Letterman was made mostly in jest, but I AM outraged that a law was passed telling my kids they had to do it , unless their parents choose to single them out. I don't find that "a little extra Texas pride" is something that has to be force fed to my kids. Believe me, they will grow up with it and they will get it from their parents and from being Texans, not from the Texas Legislature. And, believe it or not, I visit the BBS to relax. It doesn't impinge on anything else of importance in my life. I'm sure you mean well, but I'm tired of the direction this country is going in... telling us more and more often how to live our lives and what to do. It may not seem like much to a lot of people, but one by one these things add up... freedom is much harder to get back than to lose. The Republican Party wraps itself in the flag, but they keep chipping away at our freedoms. I see this as one more bit, however small to some, chipped away.
Oops. Thanks for the correction. btw, being a Navy Seal, and schtupping a young Debra Winger makes him a double stud.
Why was the law enacted at this time? Was there a movement to abolish any pledges all-together and this anticipated that? I entered school in 1961. I remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance. Sometimes it was a meaningful exercise and sometimes I was thinking about kickball at recess. Do totalitarian states say pledges in their elementary schools?
My principle read a qoute from Proverbs (as in The Bible) every morning over the PA... we recited both the TX FLAG pledge and the POA (US FLAG)... and had a moment of silence... That was '77 on up... at a public school near Houston. No one was hurt. And BTW - do you think the "law" on this means all kids will participate? Get real. Half the kids when I was in school wouldn't participate before, so why would they now? It's just a law that it be "led" and "offered" everyday. Kinda like lunch at school. It's a law that all kids get a chance to eat. Not all do. (of course some school food -yech - can ya' blame 'em?) OFFICIALLY DERAILED... Kerry, schmerry.
Is there any provision for parents to give their children permission not to recite the silly thing? Recently, under their selective use of the idea of freedom, the TX Repubs gave parents the right not to immunize their children from diseases. Of course this increases the chances of other people's kids getting diseases and drives up health care costs. My school nurse wife is starting to see the fruits of this brilliant move to please homeschoolers or the kooky Tex Plegers or whoever the crazies are who support this. Next it will be the right to run around with active tuberculosis, but that is ok as long as you recite the TX Pledge. Maybe the Tex Pledgers believe that recitation of the Pledge, like prayer for some of the more fundamental Christians, will somehow prevent the spread of diseases. If they were'nt so dangerous you could get a good laugh out of the beknighted TX GOP.
For all those against saying the "Texas Pledge" how do you feel about the "U.S. Pledge"? Are y'all upset because they are required to recite the Texas pledge or because they are reciting a pledge to Texas?
Even if they (the "other" kids) are immunized? Or am I missing something here? There is a belief in some circles, not based on much medical evidence at all, that immunizations are/can be bad for kids. Thus the push for the law. I'm also positive that this belief crosses party lines. But you are spot-on concerning the Repubs' "selective use of the idea of freedom". Oh, and I have no prob with the Texas Pledge, but I think that a state-wide law is ridiculous. It should be left up to the school districts; here I was thinking the Repubs were all about "local control of schools" and stuff. Silly me.
We never had to recite the Texas Pledge (didn't even know there was one until now), but in one grade, we had to sing the Marine Corp Hymn before class every day. But I think that was because my teacher's son was in the Marines at the time.
I think the Houston City Council should pass a law requiring HISD students to recite the Houston pledge every morning. Of course, I make my kids recite the family pledge first thing every morning. It's great for family morale.
I think that it should be required to say the Tex Pledge before all sporting events in Texas, too. Let's write the GOP in Austin about this oversight I thought I was the only one who hadn't even heard of the Tex Pledge till recently, when some people I knew were joking about it. It is indeed a sad state of affairs that so many Texans don't even know the Tex Pledge, much less recite it daily.
Buck, it is true that there is some controversy about immunizations. I think it is like the "controversey" about global warming. You strive for 100% immunization. Some slip through. As more and more stop, they will spread infection among those who slipped through and those who voluntarily opted out. Maybe once we have an outbreak of measles or chickenpox in the Texas Legislature they'll revise this. The outbreak could be a while since the Legislature manily comes from the middle class who were immunized as kids in the past.
From what I've seen the bulk of the controversy comes from the rise of two things at the same time and calling that a link. For example, a kid gets a vaccination, not long after, he shows signs of Autism. Therefore, the vaccination is "linked" to the Autism. Of course, I could just as easily say that my grandfather died just hours after eating green beans, so green beans must have caused his death. As far as I know, though, there's been no scientific link established.
If you read my original post about this, I mentioned the 3 things in the letters all parents in AISD (Austin) received from the District's legal counsel and what I thought about it. The "moment of silence" thing I didn't want to get into... the thread has been derailed enough already, although I DID help to clear up which Kerr(e)y we're talking about. I don't like my children being REQUIRED to say the "Texas Pledge". Yes, you can opt out of it.. by sending a letter to the principal, but then your kids are "singled out". The same applies to the other to things in the law. The only problem I have with the U.S. Pledge is the "under God" part. It was added during the Joe McCarthy era in the early '50's. Before that, the country got along fine with the original. What ticks me off is that with all the problems the State of Texas has, THIS is something that's passed and was just not needed. That's my opinion.
why not a Pledge for the county, too? maybe even for the School. or the principal. we already have them in uniforms. let's give them little notepads to report on friends and relatives. It's another meaningless act foisted by those who starch their underwear on those who don't.
Gotta Lotta Stigmata By MAUREEN DOWD ASHINGTON John Kerry is going to announce his candidacy for the presidency next week (who knew?) standing in front of an aircraft carrier. That's a relief. If he had used the usual town square or high school gym backdrop, what would we have thought about his manliness? Dropping his heroic military service into almost every speech has not been enough, nor has mounting his Harley in a bomber jacket whenever a TV camera's near. Three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star in Vietnam should trump one lackadaisical Texas National Guard record, but we live in an age when "reality" is defined by ratings. So the issue is illusion: can Senator Kerry match President Bush's ability to appropriate an aircraft carrier as a political prop? Mr. Kerry, a Boston Democrat, had thought about announcing in front of a warship, wrote The Boston Globe's Glen Johnson, but felt the need for something bigger, to stage a more chesty confrontation with Mr. Bush. Even though his "Mission Accomplished" backdrop turned out to be woefully premature, W.'s "Top Gun" moment is immortalized with an action figure in a flight suit and the leg-hugging harness that made Republican women's hearts go boom-boom. In presidential races, voters look for the fatherly protector. In the 90's, contenders showed softer sides, crying, wearing earth tones, confessing to family therapy. But 9/11 and the wars that followed have made pols reluctant to reveal feminine sides. Howard Dean struts and attacks like a bantam, and wonky Bob Graham paid half a mil to plaster his name on a Nascar truck. Out-he-manning the cowboy-in-chief, Arnold Schwarzenegger strides into the arena in a cloud of cordite, cigar smoke, Hummer fumes and heavier bicep reps. Spike TV, the first men's channel, offers "Baywatch," a Pamela Anderson cartoon called "Stripperella," "The A-Team," "American Gladiators," "Car and Driver" and "Trucks!" Conservatives want to co-opt all this free-floating testosterone and copyright the bravery shown on 9/11. They disparage liberals as people who scorn "traditional" male traits and sanction gay romance. The cover of the American Enterprise Institute's magazine bellows: "Real Men: They're Back." A round-table discussion by conservative women produced the usual slavering over W. in his flight suit and Rummy in his gray suit. "In George W. Bush, people see a contained, channeled virility," said Erica Walter, identified as "an at-home mom and Catholic writer." "They see a man who does what he says, whose every speech and act is not calculated." Yeah. Nothing calculated about a president's delaying the troops from getting home and renting stadium lights so he can play dress up and make a movie-star landing on an aircraft carrier gussied up by his image wizards, at a cost of a mil. Kate O'Beirne of The National Review gushes: "When I heard that he grew up jumping rope with the girls in his neighborhood, I knew everything I needed to know about Bill Clinton. . . . Bill Clinton couldn't credibly wear jogging shorts, and look at George Bush in that flight suit." On the men's round-table, David Gutmann, a professor emeritus of psychology at Northwestern, notes that Mr. Bush "bears important masculine stigmata: he is a Texan, he is not afraid of war, and he sticks to his guns in the face of a worldwide storm of criticism." Stigmata, schtigmata. Shouldn't real men be able to control their puppets? The Bush team could not even get Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraq Governing Council to condemn the U.N. bombing or feign putting an Iraqi face on the occupation. The puppets refused because they didn't want to be seen as puppets. Shouldn't real men be able to admit they made a mistake and need help? Rummy & Co. bullied the U.N. and treated the allies like doormats before the war, thinking they could do everything themselves, thanks to the phony optimistic intelligence fed to them by the puppet Chalabi. No wonder they're meeting with a cold response as they slink back. Shouldn't real men be reducing the number of Middle East terrorists rather than increasing them faster than dragon's teeth? Could the real men please find some real men?
