It's a slow news week so far.
The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary asked Science Fiction fans about their vocabulary, and the results were overwhelming.
Via Elayne's guest blogger, Pixar shorts.
WARNING: POLITICAL GARBAGE AHEAD!!!
From the files of the Associated Press:
The Massachusetts teacher of the year refused to attend an event in Washington honoring the nation's top educators because U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union a "terrorist organization."
Jeffrey R. Ryan, a history teacher at Reading Memorial High School who lost a friend in the Sept. 11 attacks, said he could not accept Paige's apology for his Feb 23 comments about the 2.7-million-member National Education Association.
Paige said the remark was a "bad joke." But Ryan said: "Nazi death camps aren't funny. Lynching people isn't funny. Famine isn't funny, and terrorism isn't funny. I just couldn't show up and shake that man's hand after he made those remarks."
This is Ryan's letter to Rod Paige's office after Paige decided to call every teacher in the country a terrorist (you see, the union IS the teachers, so Paige, and anyone who agrees with him, thinks that every single teacher who belongs to the union is a terrorist):
Dear Ms. Jacobs,
I wanted to thank you for your gracious invitation to the conference of Teachers of the Year that is scheduled for next week. I was hoping to attend, but I am sorry that, considering Secretary Paige's recent remarks about the NEA and the teaching profession, I no longer feel that his invitation is sincere; neither do I feel that he will be providing a healthy and constructive environment in which to enhance the education of our young people. I am sure that you, Ms. Jacobs, are a sincere and well-intentioned individual, and I am sorry to send these words through you to the Secretary. I do believe, however, that the Bush Administration is hostile to public education and that the No Child Left Behind Act is a disingenuous, cynical plan by which to attack the poor and the non-white. Again, my comments are in no way meant to be uncivil to you. I do not see, however, how I can justify leaving my own students in order to attend a meeting with a gentleman who seems to harbor nothing but ill will and contempt for us all.
Thank you for the invitation, and please accept my good wishes for a peaceful, fulfilling springtime.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey R. Ryan, Ph.D.,
Massachusetts Teacher of the Year 2003
