Monday, December 12, 2005

LIGHT IN DARKNESS

?Light dawns in the darkness for the upright, gracious, merciful, and righteous.?

(Psalm 112:4)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

?No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it."

(Ovid)

?In times like these men should utter nothing for which they would not be willingly responsible through time and in eternity.?

(Abraham Lincoln)

?Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge; as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understanding and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.?

(John Quincy Adams)

GOVERNOR REMAINS SILENT ON
PROBLEM OF PUBLIC INDECENCY
IN AUGUSTA

The controversy over the display of public indecency in Augusta is showing no sign of diminishing. Over the weekend, the state?s two most influential newspapers reported on a letter sent by the Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, Michael S. Heath, to Governor Baldacci asking for his help in remedying the problem. Governor Baldacci, who was on a trade mission to Cuba over the weekend, had no public comment on the matter. A spokeswoman for the Governor said he has no intention of getting involved, because it is a local, and not a state matter.?

A member of the Augusta city council visited the store on Friday to ask the owner to have the women dress a little less indecently. The antics at the store got progressively worse last week, and by Friday, one Augusta area woman described the goings-on as completely obscene.?

There may be a ray of hope in all this, since the papers are reporting that the owner, Felicia Stockford, a former teacher at Cony High in Augusta, is getting tired of complaints from the public.

HOMOSEXUAL PROTESTORS GO BERSERK

Linda Beckman, the senior citizen who faced forty-seven years in prison for handing out gospel tracts at a ?gay pride? street festival, is in the news again. A group of gay rights protestors gathered outside her home in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania while Beckman and others were holding a church service inside. The angry crowd shouted obscenities, and one protestor carried a sign with a vulgar expression, prompting neighbors to complain to the police.

When the police arrived, the crowd refused to disperse, and one protestor allegedly punched a police officer in the stomach. The crowd then became unruly, and eight protestors were arrested. As they were being led away, they shouted that they would be back to ?get the people? in the house.

The scene was reminiscent of the brouhaha outside Tremont Temple in October, when hundreds of people surrounded a church shouting obscenities and threatening the attendees of a ?Love Won Out Conference? sponsored by Focus on the Family.

REPORT BY EDUCATION PANEL
OFFERS RADICAL VISION FOR
MAINE?S FUTURE

How adequate are the public schools of Maine? Not very, according to a recent report issued by a panel appointed by the Maine Department of Education. Sections of the report read like an indictment of Maine life and traditional Maine values. Maine is said to have ?models inherited from the past which will be inadequate for the challenges it faces.? Among the challenges is the need for students to ?compete with their counterparts across the globe for their place in the rapidly evolving global economy.?

The same refrain occurs throughout the report, leading the reader to believe that the main purpose of education is to make students competitive in a global economy. No consideration is given to ethical values, morality, or the meaning and purpose of life. In the view of the authors of the report, man is simply a cog in a highly-efficient money-making machine.

The vision behind the report seems to be that of Angus King, and one of the panel members, Seymour Papert, Professor Emeritus at MIT, who some claim is the first person to suggest using computers in education. One of the proposals offered in the? report is to give each student in grades 5-12 a lap top computer.

Others have pointed out the dangers of this approach. Among them is Charlotte Iserbyt, a resident of Maine who was Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement under President Ronald Reagan.? Iserbyt enjoys a well-deserved reputation for being the most intelligent and the most vocal critic of the educational methods used in the public schools of America.

Iserbyt warns that the educational methods recommended in the recently-issued report result in a passive citizenry free of conscience and completely lacking in the concept of personal responsibility. Iserbyt points out that adopting such methods may result in the elimination of all textbooks, as has already been done in one high school in Arizona.?

Iserbyt quotes one educator as saying:

?We?ve been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the capability to act as if it were ten of the top psychologists working with one student...You?ve seen the tip of the iceberg. Won?t it be wonderful when the child in the smallest country in the most distant area, or in the most confused urban setting can have the equivalent of the finest school in the world on that terminal and no one can get between that child and that curriculum? We have great moments coming in the history of education.?

An interview with Charlotte Iserbyt about the recently-issued report will be featured in an upcoming edition of The RECORD.

A NATIVITY SCENE ON EVERY HOUSE

Here is an item to make the ACLU see red.

In an earlier time, the custom in the city of Naples, Italy was to have a nativity scene on top of each flat-roofed house. The custom was described by a traveler to that city as follows:

?This is the place to mention another remarkable custom of the people of Naples. The crib which one sees in every church at Christmas, especially the adoration of the shepherds, angels, and Wise Men, is more or less perfect, and elaborately and richly done. But there is another nativity scene among the people of Naples which is built on the flat housetops, and is covered with evergreen trees and shrubs. Mary, the baby Jesus, the shepherds, and the Wise Men are all elaborately fitted up, the clothes costing each family a great deal of money.?