FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY
Hello Everybody, it’s me. QUINCY.
Oh boy. If it’s not one school trying to put a fork in a child's psyche, it's another.
Did you know that this week, a bunch of kindergartners were denied their inalienable right to dress up in handmade pilgrim and Native American costumes to celebrate Thanksgiving? Well, even if you didn’t know, the important thing is that the kids were “oblivious, as they should be” to all of the angry parents, according to Superintendant David Cash who deployed the ban. Some of the parents were angry because the kids always get dressed up in “handmade pilgrim and Native American costumes” every year at the site of a decades-old Thanksgiving tradition in front of Condit Elementary School in Claremont, CA.
“After a handful of parents complained that the Native American headdresses and vests were demeaning, cartoonish stereotypes, the Claremont Unified School District eliminated the costumes from this year's festivities, but allowed the turkey feast to go forward.”
What a relief, that the Superintendent decided not to ALSO deprive the town’s precious cargo from eating lots of scrumptious turkey and dressing and pie that kids everywhere always love on this most wonderful of holidays where, for one official day of the year, all snickering is cast aside so that everybody, large and small, gets to feast on as much food as you can possibly stuff down the bumbershoot.
I am so happy Superintendent Cash made this wise decision to at least allow the kids to have their feast because if he didn’t, I would have had to forgo my Thanksgiving plans at 2Truthy’s house to drive down to Southern California to smoke him out:
Anyway, now he’s in a pickle, and he even had to call up the police to tell them he is receiving some nasty e-mails and fears for his safety. Well, let’s hope that next year, Superintendent Cash changes his mind and decides to DO THE RIGHT THING.
I have to go now and prepare for 2Truthy’s medicinal marijuana friends who are coming over today. They are supposed to be bringing “dessert” (code for Marin County’s finest ditch weed). I’ll be seated with the beagle and the cat at the animal’s table (code for the backyard) waiting for delicious scraps. Don’t worry, my plan is to wait until all of the unusually loud laughter over nothing dies down and everybody starts staring at the ceiling to offer my clean up services in the kitchen, where I can begin my handiwork under the radar. (After that, providing there’s any pie left over, I’m going to disguise my voice like John Wayne and make prank phone calls to Superintendent Cash’s house and say “You're a persistent cuss, pilgrim!” hahahaha, too.)
Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!
QUINCY
6 comments:
Hope you and Quincy and all of your Alice B. Toklas friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving. :-)
I'm really hard pressed to come up with a holiday that a school can celebrate without putting anyone's nose out of joint.
Thanks CC, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family. (Slowly emerging...from a Kublai Khan-ish haze...)
You said it.
High time, hehe, for the "PC" Busters to round up these neurotic windbags.
Below is an interesting letter that one person wrote to the L.A. Times writer:
***********************************
"Its always a good thing to think about, critically, how we teach kids, even from very young ages, the message we want them to learn, and the respect for the diversity of the American experiences."
--Jennifer Tilton
Assistant Professor of Race and Ethnic Studies
University of Redlands
Dear Ms. Seema,
The problem here is, we have far too many Ph.D.’s in “fields” such as “race” or “ethnicity” and far too few in English, mathematics, history or chemistry.
To the point, Professor Tilton is off her rocker. No one—NO ONE—has shown any disrespect for anyone in this matter. It’s Thanksgiving. Kids dress up like native Americans and pilgrims. Black hats with buckles. Buckskin and feathers. What the hell is the problem here?
The world is laughing at us.
I spent 23 years teaching overseas. I never once saw anyone in Iran, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Japan or China or any of the dozens of other countries I visited during that time, worry that they might “offend” Americans or American culture if they dressed up like cowboys, or gangsters or misogynist rap artists.
The Professor Tiltons of the world need to grow up. And get a degree in something useful. I doubt that any Chinese or Indians will be granted H1B visa status next year because they hold degrees in “race and ethnic studies.”
Your roving correspondent writes to leave you a note, perhaps in the wrong category, regarding the unfolding events of muslim terrorism in India. I just watched an interview of a fellow named "Jonathan" by Larry King on CNN. Jonathan was an American Jew who was in India to consult with Indian employees of his software company in Vancouver Canada. His explanation of events was telling and, at first glance, almost conciliatory given the fact that he was a Jew and the attacks were so obviously perpetrated by muslim terrorists. Jonathan maintained in the interview that despite the fact that Jews have been persecuted for a thousand years, these attacks are attacks on Western multinational politics and commerce which Jonathan obviously defends more than his own ethnicity or religious affiliation as a Jew. I think this is telling. People like Jonathan, and people like my own Catholic cousins, who feel that, first and foremost, these are attacks on a PROGRESSIVE forward-thinking, one-world TECHNOLOGY instead of on, specifically, Christians and Jews, are dangerously deluding themselves. These people love the technology and the gadgets and the hardware so far as it enables them to wage jihad against infidels. It is not a nihilistic struggle as Jonathan wishes us to believe. It is a religious, ideological war they are waging. Muslims are good. Everyone else is bad. From this, all other conclusions and observations should be derived. These people seek the restoration of the muslim caliphate and the return of Alhambra. From there they march on Paris to avenge their loss to Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. Just thought I'd chime in on this topic. Please feel free to move my comment to a more appropriate location on your blog.
Lou Dobbs said several years ago that he got flak from the State Department (I believe) for saying the U.S. was waging war on radical Muslim fundamentalists. The State Department told him we were waging a war on "terrorists". Dobbs said he thought to himself, how can U.S. troops hope to win a war if we can't even name the people we're fighting against?
All I know is that a friend of ours is really thrilled (heavy sarcasm) that he has been told to be ready to head to Mumbai at any time to train some more replacements for some people who are soon to be losing their jobs on the East Coast.
And lets not forget the friendly ties between India and Israel.
Dear Assistant Professor Jennifer Tilton,
Are you related to Charlene Tilton, who played Miss Lucy Ewing on "Dallas"? (She was nice.)
Anyway, I think the ban on children's Thanksgiving festival costumes should be outlawed.
If everybody thought like you did, Miss Jennifer Tilton, EVERYTHING for the kids would be outlawed, too.
Like Valentine's Day.
What other day of the year do elementary schoolers get to write loves notes (sometimes even with bad words and doodles in them, too) to each other and dress up in red and black, just like a bunch of Red Light District sex workers?
Why not just ban Hannukah, too? After all, the Jews did kill Jesus. I think.
Besides, when was the last time you even went to the Easter Parade?
A long time ago, I bet, since I think those have already been mostly banned, too.
Well, Miss Jennifer Tilton, sorry to have to take you to the Smokehouse, but we have a lot of work to do between now and next Thanksgiving to restore justice for the kids of Claremont and the safety of Superintendent Cash.
QUINCY
Quincy,
OMG, LOLing........
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