Wow. Fred Dooley is totally inside the heads of Racine Unified, the JT (and now apparently me too!). The Real Debate Wisconsin blogger has the district reviewing policies after he posted an anonymous (and unsubstantiated) complaint from a Unified parent upset about Barack Obama being included in a school text book.
The JT continues to follow on this story, reporting today the district will review how it selects textbooks and how it handles complaints about textbooks.
The JT story also notes that the district has yet to receive a complaint about the book. So let's review ...
1. Fred Dooley writes a post from an anonymous parent upset about excerpts from Barack Obama's autobiography in a middle school text book. He calls it "indoctrination."
2. The story spreads around to other blogs and media.
3. The JT reports Dooley's story claiming a parent complained about the book without talking to the parent (or even confirming they exist).
4. Unified will now review its textbook policies and how it handles the complaints.
5. The JT reports this review, while still noting no parent has complained to the district about the book.
6. Fred Dooley laughs and laughs and laughs.
Gee Dustin, people who never did anything to anyone except put a McCain/Palin sign in their yards are now getting a crash course in vandalism (Obama/Biden signs have been hit too). How many creative ways would a mom who reported Obama's textbook debut be retaliated against? Remember that when the graffiti gets sprayed all over her house the Racine Politburo will send inspectors to collect their City fee as well. Look at the smug condescension you used to pick on Fred in this article. The woman who reported this would be thrilled if this was all that happened to her family.
ReplyDeleteI like Fred, the BTR show downtown Racine did it's share but wait I Colt will be doing a BTR show to start soon Colt's Racine
ReplyDeleteFrom why the Mayor needs to be recalled to why RCEDC should be on the same train out as the Mayor.
. . . and it's too bad we can't comment on the article below this one about Doyle's fears of a three billion dollar shortfall. I remember Doyle's campaign, claiming that he balanced the budget, then (I think it was) two weeks (certainly less than one month) after the election The State was what, fifty some billion short?
ReplyDeleteColt -
ReplyDeleteYou are a joke - plain and simple.
8:28 then start being entertained and join the 200+ who downloaded the Downtown Racine Podcast my guess is that in two weeks Colt's Racine will far surpass that number.
ReplyDeleteColt's Racine is come to tell of what lurks under Racine's soul
So the point of this Racine Blog post is...?
ReplyDeleteFirst Anonymous -
ReplyDeleteI really have no smug condescension for Fred! He's done a great job with the text book story and deserves credit for spreading it around the country. I really mean it: The power of Dooley.
I'm more concerned with the JT running the story without verification (ie. finding a parent who's upset about this book).
Not everyone is upset about a text book attempting to engage middle school students in contemporary issues by including excerpts of a leading politician's biography. We just happen to be in the hyper-sensitive final three weeks of presidential campaign. Come Nov. 5, the excerpt is irrelevant.
You can bet that Fred RDW would be the first to complain if they'd included a Bush speech in that textbook.
ReplyDeleteYou could bet, but you'd lose.
Or you could visit RDW and read such witty logic from Fred, such as the way he called the inclusion of this speech "a big sloppy kiss" for Democrats. And not just Fred is a laff-a-minute! He's got regular commenters like Mickey/Gus who, in this context, compared the situation to reading Mein Kampf.
FoxNews.com quotes the anonymous mom directly, and the publisher explains that that "Obama's passage appeared in its national edition of the 2008 textbook, but that the decision to include his writings occurred in 2005, before the Illinois politician decided to run for president. The more recent editions bearing 2009 copyrights of these books, published in 2008, do not include the selection. Once it was known that he was running for president, the selections were removed."
ReplyDeleteLots of sound and fury, all emanating from the usual village teapot.
That's very kind Dustin, thank you.
ReplyDeleteNow Mark that wasn't very nice at all...
ReplyDeleteI've never said a cross word about what you do. In fact I very much like what you do.
Foust on the other hand is a lost cause.
There was little doubt that Obama would be running for VP in 2008 not long after the 2004 convention and I suspect that it was only late last year or early this year that he and his staff realized that they had set their sights a bit low. Therefore I submit that the implications of inclusion of the Obama section were well understood.
ReplyDeleteI see John Foust is on here tattle-tailing on what Fred is saying on his site. I guess John isn't getting enough attention at Real Debate. I don't know Fred very well but even if he didn't shout about George Bush being in the book he would certainly agree if someone else shouted. I promptly threw the McReynolds sign (that showed up in my yard unannounced) in the trash then went and voted for the guy. See how that works John?
Am I the only one who sees the coincidence in a big movie about the wonderful/tragic story of Ernie Davis, who succeeded against many odds, and a movie about George W. Bush which the trailer says is "based on a true story", both coming out a few weeks before this election? I wish Oliver Stone would do a movie based on my life -maybe he could make me successful, rich, and handsome.
Wow, Fred Dooley is moving up in the world. From posting erotic pictures of male democratic party leaders to national textbook exposes. He should be on Fox news
ReplyDeleteWhat a coward you are anon...
ReplyDeleteNothing erotic about the former head of the Racine Democratic party, perhaps you should talk to him about all the pictures he emailed, those thing come back to bite you.
But then you cowards never cease to make your ridiculous attacks.
Fred, many might consider posting nude pictures of one political enemy to be the cowardly act. If not cowardly, how do you explain your behavior?
ReplyDeleteIs the story that one woman made one anonymous complaint about one passage in one book in one school district to one small blogger and it ended up being on the news without verification?
ReplyDeleteSomewhere in here it said that part of the book was removed after it was known that Obama was running for president. I think that is the real story. How one school book publisher has to cave to even the slightest pressure these days because politics have become so contentious and mean and invaded even the text book industry. Worse, is that a school district that has so many critical issues to deal with now has to take the time to review this instead of spending time on things like school safety or what to do with learning challenged children who are not being assisted at home.
The idea that a bi-racial person from a modest home, who spent time as a child in a foreign country, ended up orphaned and raised by his grandparents only to become one of the best known political figures of the US is pretty much the ideal story of the American dream come true. It should be in school books to inspire kids.
Now it's going to be left out because of one woman's complaint and the blogger who promoted her accusations? That is really bad.
Are we supposed to wait until we have the consent of every parent before a book can be used in public schools? If that were the case no one would have read Catcher in the Rye as well as many other American classics. If that were the case I would guess that there would be very few books in public schools. What are we going to do about school books that teach evolution? That teach about the uglier side of US history like how we treated the Native American population?
People, you should ask yourselves if you really want your schools cleansed of all books that offend anyone. There's a name for that and it's not freedom.
Judy - I hope you took some pictures of at least some of those trophy-sized red herrings you just threw out!
ReplyDeleteI doubt there was a parent. His wife is a teacher.
ReplyDeleteI saw the stories back then about the former democratic party chair. Hey I wouldn't shoot the messenger, what the hey was the idiot thinking putting porno pics on the internet? Especially since the guy was married and the pictures weren't taken for his wife. He deserved to get busted.
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, the guy sent them to a coworker via e-mail. They were never posted on the internet Fred Dooley decided to post the nude male pictures in his website. Is my understaning incorrect?
ReplyDeleteActually the opposite - the photos were never published on Real Debate Wisconsin but the links to the sites where the pictures were WAS posted on Real Deabate Wisconsin. So Dooley was pretty despicable in providing links to information that could already be found on the web.
ReplyDeleteThe point you miss is that Fred Dooley created the website to post the nude male pictures. Then he linked to them from his regular website.
ReplyDeleteThat is news to me but I hope that Fred comments on this!
ReplyDeleteDont post a question on this on realdebate. Fred Dooley immediatelly deletes any reference to his posting pictures of nude men and bans the person asking the question.
ReplyDelete