No Place For ‘Jfk’ In Class
Sandpoint video stores probably had a hard time keeping Oliver Stone’s “JFK” on the shelves last month. The Sandpoint High School Cedar Post reported in its final edition that the school district had blocked the showing of the movie in a U.S. history class. So, 60 students opted to view the film outside of class and complete an assignment for extra credit. Seems a parent had objected to the movie’s steady stream of foul language and offered to loan the class his sanitized version. Teacher George Marker objected, explaining that the film’s language is no worse than that heard in school hallways, and told the Cedar Post: “Overlook the language and look at the content.” Now, we’ve reached a bigger problem: Why is a fantasy twisted from Oliver Stone’s demented mind being shown in a history class? Stone, who also directed “Natural Born Killers,” so craftily mixed fact and fiction together that half of America today believes the theory that the CIA killed John F. Kennedy. Stone’s hatchet job on “Tricky Dick” Nixon is even worse. Marker, to his credit, also used films featuring Walter Cronkite and a three-part biography of Lee Harvey Oswald to explain the Kennedy assassination. But from here, it looks as if Bonner County School District administrators made the right call.
Don’t know much about ‘rithmetic either
In the National Review on June 3, “The Week” section points out that high-school seniors in Arkansas were asked: What is 27 percent of 100? The item ends: “In order not to wound the students’ self-esteem, we carefully report the results in language beyond their grasp: 50 percent of them flunked.” And you wonder why half of America believes the CIA killed JFK?
Great gobs of steaming gopher guts!
As a kid growing up on a Sacramento Valley ranch, I experienced gophers, up close and personal. They tore up ditch levees, burrowed dangerous holes in cow pastures and were a total nuisance. Occasionally, while irrigating, I got close enough to one to slice it in half with a shovel. I, of course, didn’t have to contend with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Now, animal-rights activists are frothing about a museum of stuffed gophers depicting life in Torrington, Alberta, population 177 - 31 displays, 54 dead gophers. Some protesters have written obscene letters to the Gopher Hole Museum. The controversy, of course, is good for business. Still, Mayor Harold Ehrman speaks for anyone who ever has dealt with a gopher when he tells PETA activists to “go stuff yourselves.” , DataTimes MEMO: D.F. Oliveria’s “Hot Potatoes” runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can comment on the items by calling (800) 344-6718 or (208) 765-7125.