new

Greg Poole #wingnut #racist mysanantonio.com

The superintendent of a Texas school district has drawn new criticism over suspending a Black student over his locs hairstyle after defending the district in a full-page newspaper ad in the Houston Chronicle. Greg Poole, the top official at Barbers Hill ISD since 2006, says the district's Education Foundation took "the unprecedented step of buying advertising to ensure an unaltered response" after the Houston Chronicle's Editorial Board published an opinion piece on December 21.

The editorial was published a few weeks after Barbers Hill High School student Darryl George was placed in in-school suspension in early December, the same day he completed a 30-day stint at the school district's alternative school. He was initially suspended in September over a dress code violation related to his hair, the same month Texas' CROWN Act went into effect.

According to the Houston Chronicle, George initially was suspended for wearing his hair in dreadlocks pinned up in a barrel roll. The Barbers Hill ISD student handbook says male students are prohibited from having hair below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes," and hair cannot reach "below the top of a T-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows or below the ear lobes when let down."

The full page ad published on Sunday, January 14, rebukes the editorial board's criticism of the dress code and claims that loosening the rules would "have us lose sight of the main goal of educational excellence by pursuing politically oriented 'lesser' goals." He also criticizes the editorial board's position as "consistent with every single media representation of this topic nationwide."

Poole said his four decades as an educational professional "tells me districts relax their dress code expectations because they simply get tired of enforcing it and pursue easier, lesser goals."

"Our military academies at West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs maintain a rigorous expectation of dress. They realize being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity, and being a part of something bigger than yourself," Poole wrote.

Matthew Cserhati #fundie mysanantonio.com

Blanton cannot see the forest because of the trees. Blanton’s religion is materialistic naturalism, stemming from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea that nature is everything that was, is and ever shall be, purposefully excluding God and the divine from the grand picture a priori. How can you be open-minded if you’re willing to consider only one line of explanation? Taken to the logical extreme, skeptics must doubt everything. Thus, truly, like Descartes they know next nothing. But God knows everything.

Creationism is scientific. Atheists acknowledge the fact that why the universe came into existence is a metaphysical question. Thus whether the universe came about either through natural or supernatural means is an open question. Therefore, since the origin of the universe has not been observed by a human eye, it is certainly possible that God created it. And, in such a supernaturally created world, it is possible to pursue origins science. Creationism doesn’t claim to be privy to the supernatural process of divine creation. Rather, creation science studies the handiwork of God’s creative acts. God created, therefore, let us examine the created world.
It is a well-known fact that thousands of so-called living fossils exist all over the world, resisting change over long periods of time. Taxonomists have discovered and studied millions of species, which all cluster into disjunct kinds that are spoken of in Genesis 1:21. Missing links are still missing. The scientific literature is chock-full of examples of genetic structures being “evolutionarily conserved,” an oxymoron if there ever was one. Genome reduction in organisms is so pervasive that researchers Yuri Wolf and Eugene Koonin in 2013 devised the biphasic model of genomic evolution whereby the genomes of organisms undergo initial rapid (miraculous) complexification, followed by gradual genome reduction, which is itself contrary to evolution.

Thus instead of trying to extinguish other opinions and points of view, so-called freethinkers should allow them to flourish.

Chris Mapp #racist mysanantonio.com

SAN ANTONIO — A Republican hopeful for the U.S. Senate who used a racial slur to describe undocumented immigrants has defended the language as “normal” in South Texas.

Chris Mapp, a Port O'Connor businessman, stood by his comments that “wetbacks” should be shot by ranchers and that President Barack Obama is a “socialist son of a bitch” — remarks that have created a national stir among both parties.

“That kind of rhetoric is discouraging from anybody,” U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said during a visit to a San Antonio charter school Friday. “I recognize this is a free country but that's not the sort of way to gain people's confidence that you care about them and you want to represent their concerns in the halls of Congress.”

Mapp, 53, first made the remarks at an editorial board meeting with the Dallas Morning News last week, but told the San Antonio Express-News on Friday that using the derogatory term for Mexican immigrants is as “normal as breathing air in South Texas.”

He said he was discussing immigration policy and that the Dallas editorial board didn't include all of his statements.

“We can't have illegal immigrants, drug cartels, human traffickers or terrorists coming across our border,” he said. “Our borders can either be sealed by choice or force, and so far choice hasn't worked.”

Judge Edith Jones #fundie mysanantonio.com

A broad coalition of groups — including an agency funded by the Mexican government (the Mexican Capital Legal Assistance Program), various civil rights organizations, legal ethics experts, and law professors — filed the complaint against 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edith Jones, who in October relinquished her title as “chief judge” of that court. The New Orleans-based court is one of the most conservative in the country and handles appeals from Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The complaint alleges that at a speech on Feb. 20, 2013, to lawyers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Jones made statements that violated basic rules of judicial ethics, including the fundamental duty of impartiality.

Among her statements:

That certain “racial groups like African Americans and Hispanics are predisposed to crime,” are “'prone' to commit acts of violence,” and get involved in more violent and “heinous” crimes than people of other ethnicities;

That Mexican nationals would prefer to be on death row in the United States rather than serving prison terms in Mexico, and it is an insult for the United States to look to the laws of other countries such as Mexico;

That Defendants' claims of racism, innocence, arbitrariness, and violations of international law and treaties are really nothing more than “red herrings” used by opponents of capital punishment;

That claims of “mental retardation” by capital defendants disgust her, and the fact such persons were convicted of a capital crime is itself sufficient to prove they are not in fact “mentally retarded”; and

That the imposition of a death sentence provides a positive service to capital-case defendants because defendants are likely to make peace with God only in the moment before their imminent execution.

Michael E. Schwab #fundie mysanantonio.com

A speeding pickup rear-ended a woman's sedan on the South Side on Friday morning and sheriff's officials say the driver said it was Jesus' will because the other motorist was not “driving like a Christian.”

The bizarre incident that shut down southbound U.S. 281 above the Medina River happened about 7:25 a.m.

“He just said God said she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road,” said Lt. Kyle Coleman of the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

The driver of the pickup was identified in a Sheriff's Office news release as Michael E. Schwab, 52, of Blooming Grove.

Schwab told first responders at the scene that “the other vehicle was not driving like a Christian and it was Jesus' will for him to punish the car,” according to the release.