Speak Out A 02/09/02

That evil Praxis

GEORGE BUSH has his evil axis: Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Thanks to the Southeast Missourian, we are now more aware that there is also an evil Praxis: a teacher test.

A well-cut outfit

HIS DISCLAIMERS aside, David Limbaugh is a Christian theocrat in conservative clothing.

Embarrassing honor

I CANNOT believe Gov. Bob Holden honored a group that makes its money with sex and drug messages. I also doubt very much if Holden allows his 11-year-old son to listen to this trash. Shame on him. Another embarrassment to Missouri.

What's the difference?

WHAT IS the difference between what Enron executives have done and George Bush investing a little money in the Texas Rangers, convincing the taxpayers to pay for a new stadium and selling his part the team to make a $12 million profit?

Good riddance

THREE CHEERS for the closing of Central High School's cavernous gymnasium. After this year it will no longer be used for inter-scholastic high school basketball contests. Frankly, the building was a colossal architectural failure. I hope the new one will be constructed in such a way as to provide and foster a feeling of fan closeness to the contest, be more of an incentive to encouraging student and fan participation and help create the long-missing atmosphere conducive to the winning spirit that characterized the glory days of the contests held in gyms where the Central Tigers played in days long gone by.

Violent words

THE FEB. 11 issue of Newsweek offers the thesis that the Quran is, because of the nature of its sometimes violent wording, more likely to lead people to commit violent acts than the also sometimes violent wording of the Old Testament of the Bible. This view is based on an assertion that the contentious parts of the Quran are believed to be the direct words of Allah, while the aggressive parts of the Old Testament were filtered through the prophets and not generally considered the direct word of God.

Dump them all

IN AN edubabbling exercise, a professional development director of education in Kansas City criticized a Southeast Missourian editorial on Missouri's student testing program. Tortured attempts to draw distinctions between the terms "testing" and "assessment" quickly degenerated into a jeremiad of educational jargon. That the author, Kathy Jensen, was trying to justify the test and methods of preparing for it is not surprising. She is a professor of education at an institution from which the rationale for such wretched endeavors emanate. The tests should be jettisoned, along with Jensen specifically and colleges of education generally.