Bonjour, Y'all!

Well, now, this is the day we find out if Texas is turning into France - arrogant without a lot of muscle to back it up, going our own way because, doggonit, we know we're in the right, and not giving a flip about what anybody else thinks.

Not that we didn't have these characteristics before.  What's new is that our influence is probably going to start going downhill, starting with the Texas influence on the nation's school textbooks.

We vote today on whitewashing, quite literally, Texas and U.S. History.  We're also voting on how much to indoctrinate our children in American Exceptionalism, which usually translates that everyone has to follow the major rules of decency, except for Americans.

California, that other hugely populous state, is considering blocking the revisions altogether, though it may not be necessary.  They won't be buying any new textbooks until 2013.  Who knows, we may have a whole different board or system by then.

So this is where we need to start.  We've had elections for some of the board members, now we need to "pack" the rest of the board with, you know, people who aren't so much into starting out with the answers to stuff into childrens' heads.

Our biggest mistake over the last few decades is the growth of the notion that schools must be run like businesses.  The product is "educated employees", which has translated to "cogs in the machine", not trained to question, in fact trained not to question.  It's translated to ridiculous "zero tolerance" rules that teach fear and that you're not safe unless you fit into this little pigeonhole, conveniently locker-sized.  Our universities are changing from places of inquiry to research mills for industry, and very high-priced vocational schools.

There's training, which is critical, and there is education, which is even more critical:  you get context, history, depth, and exposure to more than what you've seen before when you get an education.  With training, you're taught only what you need to know - actually what someone else has determined that you need to know.

What I see of today's students is a decided lack of willingness to find out, but a tremendous effort to believe - in something, anything, and as long as they're never, ever exposed to things outside their beliefs, that's fine.  But that kind of world can only be found in gated communities and desert compounds.  "Security" consists of staying there, forever.  Or changing the world to suit their needs, to everyone else's detriment.

There was a quote that I thought was inspiring for a number of years:  "Most people adapt themselves to the world around them. Occasionally, one person will adapt the world to suit himself.  All progress depends on that one man."

I don't buy that anymore, as I see the Regressive Movement trying to take the country back to a past that didn't really exist.  The world may need shaping, the world definitely needs leaders, but it doesn't need to be leading the way while blindfolded.

And the Texas Board of Education will vote today on just how tight that blindfold it wants to place on our children.