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In the Other Press...
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To alleviate the problem of articles from other press sources being reposted on this IMC site, this section allows users to link to articles published elsewhere, and to contribute and read comments on those pieces. Have something interesting to post? |
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News: Children & Education : International Relations : Peace |
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Is God Christian ? |
Submitted by: Excerpts compiled by Zippo / 28 Mar 2005
Publisher: Metroland -and- American Federation of Teachers
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Religious conservatives in Texas are pressuring textbook publishers to conform to their agenda—which is changing schoolbooks everywhere.
Publishers compete energetically to win the Texas Board of Education’s adoption sweepstakes. In their strenuous efforts, publishers break bread and cut deals with the most powerful political players—not teachers, not school board officials, not parents or government officials, but rather Texas’ community of religious conservatives, whose support or opposition can make or break a textbook adoption.
Conservative influence does not begin or end with health education. Consider the changes made to these 2002 textbooks adopted by the Texas Board of Education:
Evolution: In Our World Today: People, Places and Issues (Glencoe/McGraw-Hill), a passage noting that “glaciers formed the Great Lakes millions of years ago” was altered to read “in the distant past” after a conservative reviewer attacked the phrase as merely “the opinion of some scientist who support [sic] the theory of evolution.”
Islam: A passage in World Explorer: People, Places and Cultures (Prentice Hall) noting that the Quran teaches “the importance of honesty, honor, giving to others and having love and respect for . . . families” was deleted after a conservative reviewer branded it “more propaganda” for Islam.
Global warming: Prentice Hall dropped an entire section on global warming from World Explorer after a reviewer charged that it would “prepare students to look to the government for solutions to problems.”
http://www.metroland.net/features.html
Thin Gruel
How the Language Police Drain the Life and Content from Our Texts
By Diane Ravitch - Published in American Educator, Summer 2003 issue
Censors on the political right aim to restore an idealized vision of the past, an Arcadia of happy family life, in which the family was intact, comprising a father, a mother, two or more children, and went to church every Sunday. Father was in charge, and Mother took care of the children. Father worked; Mother shopped and prepared the meals. Everyone sat around the dinner table at night. It was a happy, untroubled setting into which social problems seldom intruded. Pressure groups on the right believe that what children read in school should present this vision of the past to children and that showing it might make it so. They believe strongly in the power of the word, and they believe that children will model their behavior on whatever they read. If they read stories about disobedient children, they will be disobedient; if they read stories that conflict with their parents’ religious values, they might abandon their religion. Critics on the right urge that whatever children read should model appropriate moral behavior.
Censors from the political left believe in an idealized vision of the future, a utopia in which egalitarianism prevails in all social relations. In this vision, there is no dominant group, no dominant father, no dominant race, and no dominant gender. In this world, youth is not an advantage, and disability is not a disadvantage. There is no hierarchy of better or worse; all nations and all cultures are of equal accomplishment and value. All individuals and groups share equally in the roles, rewards, and activities of society. In this world to be, everyone has high self-esteem, eats healthy foods, exercises, and enjoys being different. Pressure groups on the left feel as strongly about the power of the word as those on the right. They expect that children will be shaped by what they read and will model their behavior on what they read. They want children to read only descriptions of the world as they think it should be in order to help bring this new world into being.
For censors on both the right and the left, reading is a means of role modeling and behavior modification. Neither wants children and adolescents to encounter books, textbooks, or videos that challenge their vision of what was or what might be, or that depict a reality contrary to that vision.
By the end of the 1980s, every publisher had complied with the demands of the critics, both from left and right. Publishers had established bias guidelines with which they could impose self-censorship and head off the outside censors, as well as satisfy state adoption reviews. Achieving demographic balance and excluding sensitive topics had become more important to their success than teaching children to read or to appreciate good literature. Stories written before 1970 had to be carefully screened for compliance with the bias guidelines; those written after 1970 were unlikely to be in compliance unless written for a textbook publisher. So long as books and stories continue to be strained through a sieve of political correctness, fashioned by partisans of both left and right, all that is left for students to read will be thin gruel.
http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/summer2003/thingruel.html |
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News: Peace |
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UMKC Theatre performance explicity portrays war |
Submitted by: Theo Austin / 27 Mar 2005
Publisher: UMKC
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UMKC produces play about the aftermath of Desert Storm |
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Army Cancels Special Ops Bible Project, Seeks to Create Loophole to Evade FOIA Request |
Submitted by: Steve Peacock / 22 Mar 2005
Publisher: Steve Peacock (IMC-Binghamton, N.Y.)
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Rather than publicly disclose details about its planned production of 10,000 modified Bibles, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command has withdrawn a purchase order that it placed with the International Bible Society (IBS) to carry out the project.
The Army's abrupt cancellation of its planned contract with IBS is a blatant attempt to circumvent the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Its cancellation of the order for enhanced Bibles couldn’t be more suspect: the agency withdrew the order after receiving my request for related photos and documents I had submitted under the FOIA.
What a coincidence, eh? |
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find out what it's really like to be a Wal*mart employee |
Submitted by: tk / 12 Feb 2005
Publisher: aflcio
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I started working at Sam's Club about two years ago as a cashier. I believed that this new job with such a big company was going to give me security. After 30 days, I had my first evaluation and got a 10-cent raise. I was promised that I would get another evaluation and raise "soon." That 10 cents was all I ever got. In addition, I did not qualify for the company health insurance. So my two children and I relied on Medicaid for health coverage. |
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News: Media |
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THE WEB: PUSH TO TAX ONLINE SALES |
Submitted by: UPI / 03 Feb 2005
Publisher: UPI
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A story about taxing online purchases. |
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Deficits, the Dollar, and IEDs |
Submitted by: Yoshie Furuhashi / 30 Jan 2005
Publisher: Critical Montages
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Bill Gates, the world's richest man, is now betting against the dollar. "I'm short the dollar," says Gates. "The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down." The US power elite will demand that the US working class consume less to haul the multinational ruling class out of the abyss of the US current-account deficit. Can American workers fight back? |
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News: Democracy : Elections & Legislation |
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anti inaugural demonstrations |
Submitted by: tk / 28 Jan 2005
Publisher: UK Indymedia
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lots of links and pictures |
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News: Children & Education : Civil & Human Rights : Environment : Food |
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Syngenta Claims Multi-Genome Monopoly |
Submitted by: HT / 22 Jan 2005
Publisher: ETC Group
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Syngenta’s 323-page application, WO03000904A2/3 claims monopoly control of DNA that
regulates flowering development, flower formation, whole plant architecture and flower timing
in rice – in up to 115 countries. But the claims are not limited to vital rice gene sequences.
According to a study prepared by Dr. Paul Oldham at Lancaster University (UK), the scope of
this massive patent application is virtually limitless – extending to flowering plants in general,
including those not yet classified by taxonomists. Syngenta’s claims extend to key gene
sequences of 23 major food crops annexed to the FAO Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for
Food and Agriculture. “If all its claims are approved,” says Silvia Ribeiro in ETC’s Mexico
office, “FAO’s seed treaty will be virtually useless.” Dr. Oldham’s analysis is available on the
Internet: http://www.cesagen.lancs.ac.uk/docs/genomics-final.doc
Researchers are just weeks away from completing a polished sequence of the rice genome. This
DNA blueprint of the crop that feeds half the world’s people is also the basis for identifying
similar genetic traits in other flowering plants. “Effectively,” says Kathy Jo Wetter, “the
completed rice map provides a template for most of the world’s major food crops. Syngenta is
arguing that since it can identify certain gene sequences in rice, it can monopolize the same
sequences when they turn up in other species.”
2 page pdf -
http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/NRSyngentaCOM.pdf |
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