What offends you?

 

Is it people of color? The mention of slavery in our history? Trans-gender kids in our bathrooms? Obesity? The fact that maybe the Alamo wasn’t the glorious martyrdom we’ve always assumed? How about CRT, though if it offends you, you must be able to give a cogent definition. How about sex, straight, gay, or kinky? How about basic health education for our teens?

You know what offends me? Stupidity.

Taking offense is a purely subjective thing. There’s no standard measurement, nothing you can measure against. And yet school boards are rushing to remove books from libraries and classrooms if someone finds them offensive. And any parent can claim offense and trigger pulling a book for review. Two cases in the DFW Metroplex illustrate the idiocy of what’s going on. In the Keller ISD, the Bible was among the books pulled for review. I realize if you’re not a Christian, you may find the Bible offensive. So don’t read it. But don’t stop every schoolkid in the district from reading it. Or The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Or a list of fifty other books. It’s been said so often, I hate to repeat it, but books stretch children’s minds, introduce them to new thoughts, prepare them for the world. If we curtail their reading, we’ll have a generation too uneducated to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.

But locally, there’s an even sadder story—or at least started out to be. In Southlake, there’s a middle school named for George Dawson. Grandson of a slave, Dawson taught himself to read at the age of ninety-eight and wrote a book about his life when he was 103. The angry rumor went around the internet today that his book had been pulled from the shelves of the very school named for him, because, you know, we don’t want to talk about slavery. It might make some uncomfortable.

The truth apparently is that it was not pulled, and the lesson is that we liberals or progressives or whatever you want to call us are as capable of taking a good story and making it better as the Republicans who we accuse of disinformation. I repeated this story before I checked and subsequently learned a lesson. Hope you will too.

There were other stories of note today, and I had some random thoughts on them. President Biden announced a huge forgiveness program for student debt. Naturally, it’s controversial—if the man sneezes, it’s controversial. Most people are enthusiastic about the economic opportunities this will bring to some financially stressed families, who will then spend money and put it back into circulation in our economy. Conservatives, of course, denounce it. In our local newspaper, the Fort Worth Star Telegram which swings far right, a columnist called it bad economics, and another denounced it as devouring the poor—I don’t understand the latter. But so far, Biden’s economic moves have worked to benefit the country, and we are in much better shape than we were. Look for instance, at the Inflation Recovery Act with its cap on prescriptions costs for Medicare recipients. I have confidence the loan forgiveness program is not raising my taxes or yours.

But what gets me is the attitude of, “I paid my debt. Why shouldn’t they?” Due to corrupt loan practices, some student borrowers pay until they are in their sixties without measurably reducing the principle. There are a lot of horror stories out there, and I for one am glad to see people getting relief. Really? Just because you suffered, you want someone else to? I figure if I can make the next person’s path easier, good for me. That would make me happy.

Minority leader Mitch McConnell seems to be softening—is it age, or is he anticipating leaving the Senate? First, he admits Republicans won’t likely take the Senate because they have fielded weak candidates. He must mean Herschl Walker, Dr. Oz, and a few others. Now he has acknowledged that voter fraud is not a significant problem. He cites Kentucky, where there have been negligible numbers of cases. There goes The Big Lie, along with the frantic claims made by governors Abbott, DeSantis, and their ilk. A year ago, McConnell was among the loudest of Republicans charging voter fraud. I'm not sure what changed his mind, but I welcome it.

Finally, Greg Abbott’s abortion law goes into effect tomorrow. I think we should always call it Abbott’s Law, to remind folks who’s behind it. As of tomorrow, abortion is illegal from the moment of conception on, which strikes me as silly. Even physicians can’t pinpoint the moment and certainly most women can’t. I am left with the picture in my mind of Greg Abbott in his wheelchair lurking outside bedroom doors like a voyeur. Incidentally when I mentioned in a post recently that Abbott collected a huge settlement after his injury and then made sure no one else in Texas could get a similar generous settlement, one of his followers accused me of disrespect for the disabled. I wanted to yell, “Hey, I can’t walk without a walker! I have all kinds of respect for the disabled. But not for Greg Abbott.”

It’s an interesting world we live in, but I insist that the good people, those who will do to ride the river with, far outnumber the Abbotts and DeSantises. We just have to take power back.