Book Learnin'

Members of the Texas State Board of Education are pushing a resolution that would warn textbook publishers against downplaying Christianity while glorifying Islam in history books adopted by state schools. According to the resolution's conservative backers, several history books are known to devote more space to discussing Islam than Christianity, to teach about Christian massacres of Muslims during the crusades while ignoring Muslim massacres of Christians, and to devote several chapters to the fact that Mohamed's camera shyness is far sexier than Jesus' downright slutty need to pose for every Renaissance painter who ever lived.

Critics say that these board members are placing politics above education. Also, that the textbooks they cite as offensively pro-Islam aren't even used in Texas classrooms. But proponents have responded by claiming "Middle-Easterners" are buying into textbook publishing companies in order to push their terrorist agenda. As evidence, they refuse to provide any evidence.

This is pretty much par for the course when it comes to the Texas school board. These are the same people who tried to insert creationist textbooks into the state's biology classrooms, and several board members are the types of people who wear lots of denim dresses decorated with wooden buttons they bought at an arts and crafts show in a church parking lot.

I'm a little bored by this news, to tell you the truth. Not so much because it's more of the same, but because I'm fairly certain that the entire Texas State Board of Education is composed of characters played via split-screen technology by a very much alive Andy Kaufman.