Yeah, you read that right. EX Republican Senator from Wyoming Alan Simpson stood up at a school board meeting and slammed Global Warming denialists. Ok, slam might be a little to much, but he sure shut em down.
Senator Simpson lives in the small town, which happens to be the eastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park, of Cody Wyoming.
As conservative Tea baggers around the country get active in what I refer to as modern book burning, a group showed up at a local school board meeting to try to get the school board to not just deny science, but to deny history. They challenged a group of teachers, administrators and parents that made a selection of books to be used in the high school.
According to the Casper Star Tribune here were some of their complaints.
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Aligned to the controversial Common Core State Standards, the readings cover a variety of subjects including global warming, evolution and race. Material for high school students also focuses on British, American and contemporary literature.
Many opponents of the readings, such as trustee William Struemke, are active in the local Tea Party.
Struemke said the materials presented "a very liberal, very slanted view of the world." He complained that stories within the texts are disproportionately about minority groups and that he would like to see more "white leaders" included.
"I've never liked excluding greats just to have a certain race or sex in a book," he said.
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After some teachers and parents spoke out in support of the materials, trustee Scott Weber responded by criticizing the fact that the readings promote the idea that global warming is real -- a fact most scientists agree upon.
"I do not think our students should be reading about 'junk science' created by a failed politician," he wrote.
"As a board member, I will NOT authorize any of the $300,000 allocated for this purchase to include supplemental booklets about 'global whining' ... Our Wyoming schools are largely funded by coal, oil, natural gas, mining, ranching, etc. This junk science is against community and state standards," he concluded.
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“We’re not in a multicultural environment here. This town is what, according to a poll 95 to 98 percent white.”
Of course Mr. Weber wasn't just promoting the stupefying of the community's children about science, he had to agree with Mr. Stuemke about that huge problem of the color of the history books.
“We’re not in a multicultural environment here. This town is what, according to a poll 95 to 98 percent white.”
Well, he's right about Wyoming getting a lot of funding from the fossil fuel industry, but Cody isn't exactly the heart of the oil/gas/coal strippers. In fact, Cody gets a couple of million people a year from all over the U.S. and world coming through on their way to Yellowstone. It's not as backward as the Tea baggers might hope.
So Senator Simpson steps up to the mic and in a separate interview says:
“Unless you show the warts, you can’t prove how you got here,”
"If anyone believes that there isn't climate change and global warming, they’re wrong. I think it’s critically important that nobody leaves this school district thinking global warming isn't real."
“There is climate change. It is real. Even my pal Jim Inhofe the Senator has said that. I don’t know what the hell it’s all about, but I know that man is part of it. Not all of it, but part of it. And anybody who sends somebody out of this school system and says global climate change is a hoax is goofy.”
As I said, Cody isn't your typical Wyoming town. Hundreds showed up to the school board meeting, not to support the Tea baggers, but to support the group that had made the selection of texts. And some of the students weren't so happy with the Tea baggers trying to rewrite history also.
Mariah Stephens, a junior who is graduating early from Cody High School and has her eyes on several prestigious colleges and universities, has a hard time understanding the reasoning of those criticizing the reading materials.
She thinks the conservative faction has lost its grip on reality and has hijacked the school board.
"Because these total Tea Party activists are older and mostly white, they don’t quite understand what is going on in the world," she said, later clarifying that she was specifically regarding their understanding of applying to college, getting jobs and technology.
Sometimes we like to hold Sen Simpson up as the symbolic ogre of the conservatives. But a few years ago, he teamed up will ex Sen Bill Bradley to try and do something for campaign finance reform. We may seldom agree with Sen Simpson, but he's a rare conservative who isn't simply in the back pocket of one of the GOP's Oligarchs, and once in awhile, he actually gets one right.